- Parker won the league’s Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player awards in her first full season in the WNBA.
- In 2006, she became the first woman to dunk in an NCAA tournament.
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Candace Parker, a three-time WNBA champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist, announced her retirement after 16 seasons of professional basketball and vowed to own “an NBA and WNBA team” in a lengthy online post. social on Sunday.
“I promised I would never cheat in the game and that I would leave it in a better place than where I came in,” Parker wrote partially as the caption of an adorable photo of herself as a little girl with a basketball on Instagram. Sunday. ‘The competitor in me always wants 1 more, but it’s time. My HEART and my body knew it, but I needed to give my mind time to accept it.’
Parker, 38, played his first 13 seasons in the league with the Los Angeles Sparks, establishing his dominance early on as a No. 1 pick who won the league’s Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player awards in the same season.
She was the first WNBA player to accomplish that feat, averaging 18.5 points, 9.5 rebounds and 3.4 assists while helping the Sparks achieve a 10-win improvement in 2008.
Parker earned his second MVP award in 2013 and won his first title in 2016 with the Sparks. He would go on to win a second title with the Chicago Sky in 2021 and a third with the Las Vegas Aces last season.
Candace Parker retires after 16 seasons in the WNBA. The 38-year-old was selected in 2008.
Parker ranks ninth all-time in points (6,574), seventh in assists (1,634) and third in rebounds (3,467).
Parker won Olympic gold medals with Team USA in Beijing in 2008 and London in 2012.
The power forward has a daughter, Lailaa, with Shelden Williams, whom he divorced in 2016.
She is the only player in league history to have won a championship with three different teams.
“The memories Candace Parker created for a generation of women’s basketball fans will remain ingrained in our collective consciousness forever, but she has given so much more to the game beyond her accolades and statistics,” the Aces said in a statement.
“As a teammate and mentor, mother and wife, player, broadcaster and businesswoman, she has inspired countless young people, both boys and girls, to pursue and achieve their dreams.”
Parker ranks third in WNBA history in rebounds (3,467), fifth in blocks (619), seventh in assists (1,634) and ninth in points (6,574). She was a two-time NCAA champion and two-time Wooden Award winner at Tennessee.
In 2006, Parker became the first woman to dunk in an NCAA Tournament game. She won Olympic gold medals with Team USA in Beijing in 2008 and London in 2012.
Off the court, Parker is married to Russian professional basketball player Anna Petrakova. The couple share a son, Airr, who was born in 2022. In December, Park announced that she and Petrakova were expecting another child. Parker was married to former NBA player Shelden Williams from 2008 to 2016. The former couple share a daughter, Lailaa, who was born in 2009.