WNBA history was made on a Tuesday night in Atlanta, as Dream center Tina Charles passed Tina Thompson for second on the all-time WNBA scoring list. Fittingly, she did so in a game against Diana Taurasi — the all-time leading scorer in league history — who she proclaimed was the greatest of all time after the game.
Tina Charles makes WNBA history and calls Diana Taurasi the GOAT
The Atlanta Dream center passed Tina Thompson to become the second-leading scorer in WNBA history — and now only trails Diana Taurasi on the all-time scorers list.
Photo by Matthew Grimes Jr./Getty Images
Noa Dalzell is a senior writer covering the WNBA and all of women’s basketball for Breakaway, SB Nation’s women’s sports vertical, as well as the Celtics for CelticsBlog.
Charles, an eight-time All-Star and one-time MVP, entered Wednesday’s matchup with the Mercury with 7,479 career points, needing 8 points to pass Thompson.
She ultimately got it done with a three-point shot that came in the fourth quarter of the Dream’s 72-63 win over the Mercury, finishing the game with 12 points, 17 rebounds, and 3 assists.
Charles now only trails Taurasi on the all-time scoring list, but that record Taurasi has tallied 10,497 career points, so it would take years for Charles, who’s 35-years-old, to surpass her. It certainly doesn’t help that at 42 years old, Taurasi is still averaging 16.2 points per game and shows few signs of slowing down.
The historic moment was made even more special by the fact that Charles and Taurasi are both University of Connecticut alumni and longtime friends.
“Just to hear my name in the same sentence as Diana is just unimaginable,” Charles said on the broadcast. “What she’s meant to me personally, this league, her impact — she’s definitely the GOAT.”
The win marked three consecutive victories against playoff teams — they’ve now defeated the Storm, Sun, and Mercury since the Olympic break and improved to 10-17 on the year. Atlanta is now just one game behind the Sky for the 8th and final playoff spot, and given the fact that the Sky traded their second-leading scorer, Marina Mabrey, over the break, passing Chicago is certainly within reach.
“We’re just collectively coming together,” Charles said. “Having Rhyne [Howard] and Jordin [Canada] back in the lineup has just been really amazing. You have a future MVP, and you have a point guard that really takes her job seriously of getting us all together, the head of the snake.”
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