Diana Taurasi Becomes the First WNBA Player to Score 10,000 Points

Diana Taurasi has done something no WNBA player has ever done. The vegan Phoenix Mercury guard became the first player in league history to score 10,000 career points on Thursday, getting there with a three-pointer during a 42-point performance as Phoenix beat the Atlanta Dream 91-71, Sports-Statistics reports.

Taurasi has been the WNBA's all-time leading scorer since June 2017, and the gap is now enormous. The next player on the list has yet to reach 7,500 points, according to Great Vegan Athletes. At 41 she is also one of only two players, alongside Michael Jordan, to score 40 or more points in a game after turning 40.

The numbers on the rest of her career are just as silly: three WNBA titles, five Olympic gold medals and five league scoring titles. Many fans already call her the greatest player the women's game has produced.

Taurasi and her partner switched to a fully plant-based diet in 2015 for health reasons. "You take for granted what you put in your body when you're young. You feel like you can do anything," she has said. "As you get older, you get conscious of what you're eating and how that affects your body." She explained the benefits to Women's Fitness, as quoted by Great Vegan Athletes:

I have been vegan for about three years now and I think it is something I have really benefitted from. Just staying away from foods that cause a lot of inflammation, fats and sugars that everyone knows are obviously a little counterproductive if you eat large amounts of them. So, I have stayed more on a plant-based diet and it has really benefitted me.

For a player still going strong in her 19th WNBA season, that's quite an endorsement.

Taurasi won her fifth Olympic gold in Tokyo, in the same Games where JaVale McGee won gold with the US men. In June vegan center DeAndre Jordan won his first NBA championship with Denver, and last month Lewis Hamilton took a record ninth pole in Hungary.

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