-[Leo] Mommy. -[Penny] Hmm?
[Leo] This is gonna take forever!
[Penny] Tonight's the home opener.
Are you excited for the game?
[Leo] What is a "home opener"?
It means the first game at home.
-[Leo] Oh. -So it's Mama's first game…
-[Leo] That makes sense. -Yeah.
[Leo] Everyone gets so confused.
-I have two moms. -[Penny laughing]
[Penny] Aren't you lucky?
Mom's a little bit more famous than Penny, right?
[Penny laughing] Uh, well…
[mumbling to self] Where is it?
There you go. There's your picture. Want to put it on?
-There you go. -[producer] Show me.
[Penny] Very proud of that.
Literally everyone here knows my name.
My mama works here, so they know me.
[crowd cheering]
[announcer] And at guard, six-feet…
[crowd roaring]
[epic music playing]
[Diana] I had worked so hard to become the best player in the world.
-[reporter 1] Diana Taurasi. -[reporter 2] Diana Taurasi.
-[reporter 3] Diana Taurasi -[reporter 4] Wow!
[Diana] There was a lot of things that I had to sacrifice.
And then I've sacrificed even more.
I made such a bad decision
that you're in shock. You don't even know what to think.
You don't even know if it's real.
You don't know what the future looks like.
I had no control.
All those good things go away.
[epic music continues]
Look, I'm not perfect. I've done a lot of dumb shit in my life.
And one thing I do is I always own up to it.
[traditional Russian music playing]
From Russia, with love…
[Diana] I went to Russia, 'cause in Phoenix, we were pretty underpaid.
My first salary as a rookie in the WNBA was at $42,000.
Before tax, of course.
That was the beginning of the Russian boom,
where they were just paying a shitload of money,
and you couldn't say no to it.
Diana maxed out at about 16-18x, not including bonuses,
of her WNBA salary going overseas.
And I remember us having different conversations about it being sort of
financially irresponsible not to take the deal.
The overseas market during this time period--
if you were one of the top dozen players in the WNBA,
there were a couple teams in Russia paying a million dollars a season.
A lot of WNBA players could go make money
and get that lifestyle of a professional athlete
that they were not getting in the US.
[Diana] First team I played for was Dynamo Moscow.
Got to play with Sue. A ton of money.
Well, to be honest…
I hated it. I hated everything about it.
Yeah, it was, um… it was an interesting year.
It was an interesting year, um… [chuckles]
[Diana] They coached different.
Having a Russian coach that didn't speak the language…
His name was Anus, funny enough, and he lived up to it.
[shouting indistinctly]
[Diana] If you could make up the silliest drills in any sport
that made no sense, he was making you do them.
[Sue] So you really have no idea what the fuck's going on.
And so it's just the two of us in the back giggling, doing dumb stuff.
[Diana] There's always this point when you're overseas
where you've just been there for a long time.
The weather is still bad.
It just becomes this long, never-ending winter.
And then you insert Anus,
and it just got that much longer.
Those next two months were the hardest months of my basketball career.
[Diana behind cam] Sue, say hi.
JMac, cheers!
Marina, say hi to everyone back home.
[Lindsay] We didn't have the luxury of choosing something else.
We're taking the best option available.
That was about here family's future.
And she was thinking in those terms
and what it meant to make sacrifices.
[Jessika] My poor sister, because she was having such a hard time adapting,
I'd talk to her about fifteen times a day, every day.
-Love you. -[Jessika] Good morning in the morning,
and throughout the day, we're texting, and good night before bed.
I'd always have her flight on my phone,
making sure her jet got to wherever they were flying.
[Diana] That season ended, and I said, "I will never play here again,
no matter how much they pay me."
What are you gonna buy when you cash that first paycheck?
I really don't live an expensive life, so the money will probably go into savings.
But, you know, I'll get something nice for my parents and the people around me
who've helped me a lot.
But as far as getting stuff for myself, you know,
I'm pretty plain, so nothing big.
After my first year in Russia with Dynamo, I'm on the phone with my agent.
I'm like, "I'm never playing here again."
And then all of a sudden, through a friend of a friend,
they say "Shabtai would like to meet with you."
You always heard about Shabtai.
There was always this mythical unicorn
out there in women's basketball, especially in Europe.
[Diana] Shabtai owns Spartak, which is another team.
He was 5'8", stocky…
with the biggest curly mullet you'd ever see.
It was really curly, so it was always well done.
And he dressed to the T-- Brioni suits.
Always smelled amazing.
You could just tell he had a command of the gym.
Usually, owners don't sit on the bench. He did.
So, let's go meet with him and see what he says.
So, he sends a car over-- beautiful Mercedes with a driver.
And you're just like, "Oh, okay, this is cool!"
We're basically going to the Kremlin.
We're going downtown to Red Square.
And we go to this beautiful office.
We feel like we're in some movie,
and we're either gonna end up kidnapped or on top of the world.
All of a sudden, double doors open. Shfffft.
"Shabtai would like to speak with you."
He had this huge wooden desk.
If you can think of an office of someone who was a hoarder, it was that.
[Sue] His office was essentially a museum,
whether it's, like, artwork or different paintings.
[Diana] Israeli artifacts and Jewish artifacts
and then just weird stuff. You'd go over to a table,
and there's walrus penises everywhere.
He goes, "What do you two think if you come and play for me next year?"
And I was like, "I will never play in Russia again. Thank you, but no."
[Sue] He's telling us about who he is
and the different ways in which he can throw his weight around
and the money he's gonna be able to pay us.
[Diana] He goes, "I will show you a side of Moscow
that you will love and never want to leave."
And I was like, "Oh, that sounds pretty good."
You know, and then we got into numbers.
So, then, he slipped two napkins, and we signed our contracts.
That led my career in a different trajectory in a lot of ways.
[announcer speaking in Russian]
[Diana] And his wife, Anna, who was
the Russian national team point guard for a long time,
she was influential in the way he looked at basketball
and really why he fell in love with basketball.
[Lindsay] Shabtai's mission was
to build this global women's basketball enterprise.
As this collector of beautiful, interesting things,
that's how he saw women's basketball.
He became a collector of stars.
[singing Russian anthem]
[crowd cheering]
Shabtai, he always wants to put on a show.
A show for the people.
[groovy music playing]
Every name was already a star.
[Sue] He was like, "I view you guys as performers."
Like the same way an actor or actress on Broadway.
They have to show up when the lights are on.
[Diana] In 2007, he brought all the stars.
So there was this large collection of just amazing talent.
And that was always his recipe--
"I'll get the best players, and we'll work it out somehow."
[Russian commentator speaking]
[Diana] We ended up winning our first yearly title.
EuroLeague is about how much money can we pay these players to bring them in.
[Diana] If you win EuroLeague, it's $50,000.
If you're league MVP, it's $25,000.
If you win Russian League, it's an extra $100,000.
We were, like, living life.
And in that moment, she was like, "This is what I've been looking for."
[Diana] If you've been to Russia…
If you think we have nice things, their nice things are even nicer.
Shabtai was wanting the best of the best.
Not only did he want the best players, the best coaches,
he wanted you to eat the best food, best hotels, best watches.
He commissioned Louis Vuitton balls. Who does that?
And we're like, "We better fucking win."
[Diana] He had this sense of pride of, "I'm gonna take care of my team."
He saw our value.
That's what made all of us really hold on to Russia in a different way.
[Diana] It just felt like we had the world at our fingertips.
So, all we had to do was go play basketball.
[Diana] After all the success in Russia in 2007,
taking that momentum back to Phoenix
and really finding myself as a player
and finding those winning ways again was really important.
I was, in a lot of ways, the face of the league.
[sportscaster 1] Taurasi for the single-season scoring record! Oh!
[sportscaster 2] Taurasi from NBA lane, and she knocks it down.
[photographer] Yeah, that looks pretty good.
[Diana] I just came into my own
as far as feeling like I was at the top of my game.
For your viewing pleasures!
[Kate] When Diana's at her peak with the Mercury,
this is a Diana that is hitting on all cylinders.
Making shots you just can't believe somebody can make.
[sportscaster] That was a deep three.
[Kate] And she has that Cali swagger.
[sportscaster 1] Oh, Diana Taurasi!
[sportscaster 2] The way she moves on the basketball court
is what separates her from a lot of players.
[sportscaster 3] She has been the star.
[sportscaster 4] That is Diana Taurasi.
In 2007, the Phoenix Mercury is rising to the top of the WNBA.
They were the team.
[sportscaster] For the first time in their history,
the Phoenix Mercury are the champs of the WNBA,
[Diana] We ended up winning a championship in '07.
There's no way we should've won that first one-- we were just kids.
But Diana just makes it work.
She is so good at valuing people
and making them feel a part of something special.
When that happens, it's a magical thing
where it's like you trust each other.
For a long time, I was a big fan of Penny with the Cleveland Rockers.
I just loved how she played.
How fearsome she was.
She had that Aussie-Euro tempo to her game.
And in 2004, Penny and I were both drafted to the Phoenix Mercury.
So, we got to Phoenix the same day.
All I knew was that Diana Taurasi had a great college career.
I had never watched a minute of it. I didn't even know what she looked like.
This just bounding ball of light comes running into the court
and just shocked me.
How can someone have that much energy, you know? [laughing]
"Wowzer"? I think "wowzer" works.
Let me hear it. Let me hear it, Penny.
-[Penny] Wowzer. -Let me hear it-- wowzer.
[Diana] At first, we were just friends.
[Penny] We were playing year-round. That was our whole lives--
traveling for basketball.
And so, it was these little snapshots of time where we made connections.
We used to go out as a team a lot and party pretty hard.
-[Diana] All-in, baby! -[team] All-in!
She told me her feelings.
Yeah, I initiated.
[laughing] Yeah.
[Penny] She doesn't let down her guard very often.
And so, when she opened up to me like that and let me in a little bit,
it was, like, a really huge step.
It was obviously a mutual feeling.
[sportscaster 1] Record-setting day from the free throw line for Penny Taylor.
[sportscaster 2] This is Penny Taylor's husband.
To which Diana Taurasi has to question,
"Is he the Eva Longoria of the WNBA?'"
[sportscasters laughing]
[Penny] I had never not been loyal to someone.
It wasn't, like, a great moment for me.
I'm not the type of person who can lie.
I can't fake things.
I had a lot of guilt in hurting someone.
But I did know my own feelings, and I had to follow them.
Diana and I found in each other something that we loved,
and we got married.
Since then, it's just been us.
Looking back, I probably always loved Diana.
And then trying to make that work when she's in Russia and I'm in Turkey.
Diana would jump on a flight, fly to Istanbul…
spend, like, not even 24 hours, and then jump on a flight back.
I couldn't go to Russia, 'cause you had to get a visa to go.
So, really, it was dependent on her.
[announcement] Boarding…
That's such a sacrifice, right?
Like, you get one day off, if that, a week,
and she was doing that every week.
Seeing her do that confirmed that we had strong feelings for each other.
[Diana] One time, we played a Russian league game on Saturday.
The next day, we were leaving to go to Paris.
And Shabtai goes, "What are we gonna do in Paris tomorrow?"
I was like, "I don't know. Probably go shopping."
He comes over, and he hands me €15,000.
And I'm like, "Okay, what do I…" So, you know, put it in my bag.
And after dinner, we'd always go out a little bit.
You know, enjoy the night.
[dance music playing]
So, we're hanging out. It's three in the morning.
"All right, let's get out of here."
I go and look into my bag, and the €15,000 are gone.
We're in the bathroom, we're in the cushions…
We're all over the club trying to look for the money.
It was gone.
So, the next morning, Shabtai comes to the airport as we're leaving.
And I'm like, "Shabs, I lost the money last night."
He goes, "You what?"
I was like, "I lost the money last night."
He gets his suitcase, opens it, another €15,000,
and he says, "Enjoy Paris."
And I'm just like, "Okay!" [laughs] Off to Paris.
[Diana] There was always rumors, and there was always stories.
[Sue] The rumors we heard were more so just like,
"Oh, Shabtai, he's got his hands in a lot of different pots."
He might be affiliated with this person,
or he might be doing that, but, like, we had no idea.
[Diana] We'd always ask the Russian players, "What does Shabs do?"
"Businessman."
I'm like, "Okay, cool. He's a businessman."
[Diana] I don't know if anyone knew where his money came from.
We didn't ask questions. We just went with it.
I would play in Russia for eight months.
Then I would go back to Phoenix in the summer for the WNBA season.
[exciting music playing]
[sportscaster 1] Diana Taurasi time!
[sportscaster 2] Taurasi… that's too easy.
[sportscaster 3] Diana Taurasi's gonna make you pay.
[sportscaster 4] Taurasi to beat the buzzer… yes!
[sportscaster 5] I'd say "unbelievable,'" but it's not. She does it so often.
[sportscaster 6] From half court!
[sportscaster 7] Taurasi, another 30-point game.
[sportscaster 8] Diana Taurasi has taken her game to another level.
[sportscaster 9] She's made more 3-pointers than any player in the league.
[sportscaster 10] Taurasi's the top woman in the league right now.
[sportscaster 11] There's something very special about this young woman.
[sportscaster 12] Taurasi lets it fly and drops it in.
[announcer] She had the all-time WNBA records for total points
and scoring average.
She also became the only player in league history
to score 500 or more points in each of her first six seasons.
WNBA MVP Award to the Phoenix Mercury's Diana Taurasi!
I think that's when I really started having these feelings of,
well, this is confusing to me. I'm the best player in the world,
and I have to go to a communist country to get paid like a capitalist.
[Lindsay] Playing in Europe during the WNBA off-season,
these women were going for seven or eight months,
and they were chasing their value.
[Diana] One time, I came back, and I was like,
"Man, my parents have just gotten older,
and I've missed a big part of it."
We weren't making that much money,
so generational wealth was coming from going to Russia every year.
Now, we have to come back home and get paid nothing?
To play in a harder league in worse conditions?
Against the best competition in the world?
The fucking janitor at the arena made more than me.
It was a hard time. It really was a hard and challenging time.
We were consistently voted the most likely league to go out of business.
[reporter] The WNBA struggling in many ways.
They were losing a lot of money, and the NBA had to supplement their losses.
The NBA invested a ton of money.
Billions of dollars to ensuring that the WNBA would be successful.
But the outlook was very challenging, because the culture at that time
was not in support of women's sports.
The league was constantly in survival mode,
as owners of teams consistently questioned
whether their investment on a day-to-day basis
was worthy of their time and money.
The league couldn't stand on its own financially and culturally.
That trickles down to everything--
economy flights, bus rides, low per-diems. This is not what we think of in America
when we're like, "the professional athlete lifestyle."
And she goes to Russia, and here is this team
that is sparing no expense making sure
that any need that you had was taken care of.
[Orender] In Russia at the time, there was a real rise of the oligarchs.
There was plenty of cash around.
And you know, they could've chosen horses.
But for some reason, there was this fascination with women's basketball,
and players were able to benefit from that.
[Diana] I think that was the era where we were a little bitter of coming back home.
[Sue] Dee is pretty simple.
"I'm gonna play, I'm gonna ball the fuck out,
and I'm gonna get paid a lot of money to do it. And that's that."
And I think that's where she bumped heads with the WNBA.
What was really hard for her was that she wasn't being appreciated financially
for being the best.
[Todd] WNBA, I'm there and I'm rebounding for her.
She has bruises all up and down her leg and all on her arms.
The thing about Diana is because she's such a physical player,
teams just started beating her up.
[sportscaster] Taurasi takes it right in on White,
gets fouled again.
[Todd] It was like watching wrestling, practically, on Diana.
One season, Dee gets paid by our Russian team to not play in the WNBA.
That was them investing in her.
They want to win all the EuroLeague titles possible,
so why risk her getting injured?
[Todd] Every time you play, it's a risk you're gonna get hurt.
So, it frustrates her, and she gives you her opinion.
She probably says some things personal that doesn't make the refs happiest.
Okay, sure, so I can find the bench.
[Todd] I remember one time, they bring a check to her,
'cause she had so many technicals, and they would fine her for everything.
[sportscaster 1] She's fired up. If she gets a technical foul…
[sportscaster 2] She's been ejected with her second technical foul of the game.
The willingness to embody a villainous role…
She just needed to be herself,
even if that meant a kind of swagger that women's basketball hadn't seen.
And that caused friction.
[sportscaster 1] She does not hear. Why even contest?
[sportscaster 2] Diana very demonstrative.
You're making all this money overseas. Why are you doing this?
And she's just like, "I gotta keep the game alive."
She's like, "There's little girls out there,
and I want them to want to be professional basketball players."
It was a sense of, "You're doing this
for the greater good of women's basketball
and the next generation and the next generation,"
which, as women athletes, you're handcuffed to for life.
I think our generation was one of, just do the hard work and go with it.
We didn't complain about everything. [laughs]
Which, I wish I would've complained more.
At that time, they didn't really care what we had to say.
There weren't any outlets where you could voice your opinion
on how to be treated as an athlete, nor did we really know.
There was more of an attitude of, "You're lucky to even have a league."
Get it, get it, get it! All, baby!
[team cheering]
Yeah, I drank a lot that summer. That's what I did--
win championships and partied.
Look, I'm not perfect. I did a lot of dumb shit in my life.
And one thing I do is I always own up to it.
One night in Phoenix, we just finished playing a game,
we go out to dinner and then we go out to a lounge,
having a good time, and it's time to go home.
There's always that moment where you're like,
"Should I get in the car? Should I drive?
Do we get a taxi?" I was a mile away from my house.
I'm like, "Get in the car, we'll go home, it'll be fine."
[whistles] Make a left…
[sirens blaring]
…I get pulled over.
I'm like, "I'm screwed." I knew already.
[police radio squawking]
Getting put in the back of a police car, you're like, "Oh, man,
this is really happening to me right now."
I got the call at 2 a.m. that Diana was walking the line
and had been pulled over. And that was a scary moment.
It was something that was gonna impact basketball.
[cell door slams]
[Diana] I ended up having to spend 24 hours in a cell.
I made such a bad decision.
Now, decisions were taken out of my hands.
And that was the worst feeling.
I was the face of the league
and of the Phoenix Mercury, which I take,
you know, to this day, very seriously. And it was embarrassing.
For me and for my family.
This is the shitty part about life-- you can do all the things right,
it just takes one little shitty decision, and all those good things go away.
[reporter 1] A stellar reputation tarnished.
[reporter 2] Extreme DUI charges.
[reporter 3] I had no idea there was such a thing as "extreme DUI"
until Diana Taurasi.
Watching SportsCenter, and the ticker go all day long--
"extreme DUI."
[Kate] Diana's dealing with what it means
when a female athlete does something like this.
Because the role model thing is very real.
And so, to be seen as, like, the complete opposite of that
is a really difficult place to live.
It's not like she's an alcoholic. This was a really bad choice.
[Diana] The league suspended me for three games.
It was a low in my life.
Trying to get myself out of that disappointing place
-was the hardest thing ever. -[whistle blows]
And Penny was a sounding board for me.
I've been so lucky to be with Penny. We came in the same year.
And you just knew when she walked into the gym,
something was different.
-Penny was smart… -[crowd laughing]
-Penny was beautiful… -[crowd cheering]
Penny was calm and cool.
And I was none of those things.
[Penny] I think that I am, for her, the support.
I'm there to distract her from the pressures that she faces.
And, obviously, she would never describe it as "pressures."
Like, she just doesn't think like that.
I know that when she comes home, she can switch off.
She can just totally relax and be in a family environment.
And, hopefully, we are something completely different
than what she's going out into the world and facing every day.
[reporter] Diana, you talked about up and downs.
Was there any point at which you felt like you were in danger of losing focus?
Oh, well, for a minute I did lose my focus.
If it's something that you love to do, you should never put it in jeopardy.
I'll keep that in the back of my head for the rest of my life.
After the DUI, I just focused on basketball.
That's always been my safe space.
You know, there's nothing like getting yourself back
to where you want to be as a human being.
I honed in on being in the gym every single day, day after day.
And I had to block out all the noise.
I found a way, with help of my teammates and my family, to get back on track.
[sportscaster] The Phoenix Mercury are the 2009 WNBA Champions!
Their second title in three years!
They sit atop the WNBA mountain.
[crowd cheering]
And to be able to get out of that and win a championship
and be the MVP of the league and the finals…
there was something just so gratifying about that.
I felt like I'm back where I want to be.
So long, so hard.
That was always the bittersweet moment.
We win a championship.
Let's celebrate; let's take it all in.
Three days later, I'm in Russia.
[Diana] One thing about Shabs-- he always knew when you needed time.
He understood the psyche of a person.
He always knew when someone was overloaded.
He goes, "Come to Moscow. We'll go on vacation."
I was like, "Cool."
I get to Moscow, and Shabtai says, "We're gonna go to Israel."
So, we get on a plane and we go to Tel Aviv for four days,
and I hang out with his family, with his friends.
It was just such a nice, calm night.
A lot of times in this business, you don't make relationships,
because everything ends up being a transaction--
you play, I pay. But he made it different.
He brought us into his family.
I love ya. As a player, as a daughter.
She calls me "Papa." [laughing]
[Diana] He was literally our dad. He took care of us.
Everything he did was a gesture to make sure you were comfortable.
He knew you were in the middle of nowhere, that you could only talk to three people.
He wanted you to feel like you were the Queen of the World
and all you had to worry about was basketball.
November 2nd, one of our good friends, it was her birthday.
There was a Beyoncé concert that night, and Shabtai was like,
"Come to my office. Get your tickets."
So, we get to his office,
and, usually, his doors are open and we walk in.
The minute we got there,
there was a lot of people I've never met before.
And then I walk in, and everyone's in the waiting room,
which is already… strange,
because usually, we sit in his office.
His doors were closed.
So, we're waiting around…
and one of our teammates comes over, and she says,
"Shabtai's just been murdered."
We're all-- we're just… I mean… we're…
kind of in shock. I mean… [stammering]
When I heard it, I was just like, "There's no way he got murdered."
Like, we're waiting for him to go to the concert.
I just went on vacation with him. We just got back.
And then…
you know, we got confirmation he was murdered.
[bullets whizzing by]
[tires squealing]
[crashing sound]
[Diana] I felt like I had to see him one last time.
Sasha, my driver, he goes, "Do you wanna drive by?"
And I'm like, "Yeah."
His car is up on the curb, and I can see his body out of the car.
I don't know how many times we were in that car.
Hundreds of times.
And it was just, I mean…
I don't know. When you're in shock, you don't even know what to think.
You don't know if it's real. You don't know what the future looks like.
You don't even know if you're next.
We took that 35-minute drive,
and we both just literally cried all the way till we got to our house.
His funeral took place in our gym,
where we had so many amazing moments together.
[Diana] It's easy to talk about someone when they're dead.
And that's when the media got ahold of it.
There was a lot of reports of, you know,
his past life with the KGB and this underworld that Russia had.
[Diana] That was the first time where I was like,
"Okay, now I'm gonna start asking questions."
And I asked one of my Russian teammates,
and I'm like, "Who do you think killed him?"
And she goes, "Oh, Diana.
The person who killed him is probably in here right now."
And that's when I realized there's no point in asking questions.
This is a world I don't understand, will never understand.
And that was it.
[Kate] In the deepest, darkest way,
I don't think there's a lot of people who truly know who this man was.
But what we know is that he has
the kind of money that somebody who is tied to the Kremlin has.
[Lindsay] It didn't seem like he was hiding anything.
No one felt unsafe.
Sure, we heard the stories, but none of that
came into the lives that they were living every day.
Were we naïve? Probably.
Eighty percent of our lives there, we're just, like,
waiting for somebody to tell us where to go, what time the car is picking us up.
We have no idea what's happening around us.
Everybody's speaking Russian, and we don't speak it.
So, you're there, but you're really not.
And all we were really seeing was this part of Shabtai.
This guy who just really wants a good basketball team.
This guy who's bringing his family.
We had no concept. We couldn't really contextualize what was happening.
You need to take over the team
and its entire structure,
and lead the management team.
[Diana] Everything was really up in the air.
Was the team going to continue?
[Diana] Anna really stepped up to the plate, and she took over.
And it was hard for her.
I wanted to finish the season. I wanted to honor Shabtai.
You know, I wanted to defend what we had built here.
I mean, this is warmest it's been in six or seven months.
Snow's finally gone, which is good, though.
[Diana] EuroLeague, that's the Super Bowl of Europe.
That's the Champions League, that's the WNBA title.
You want to win EuroLeague.
EuroLeague, you get to that top four? [whistles]
Some of the best basketball games I've ever been a part of.
[Diana] The semifinal game, it was Spartak and Ekaterinburg.
It was the top twenty players in the world on two rosters.
They had come with Cappie Pondexter, Candace Parker.
The list goes on and on.
Ekat was our biggest rival.
It was the classic Real Madrid vs Barcelona; Liverpool vs Chelsea.
[epic music playing]
But it felt like his funeral in the arena.
[Sue] We all wore high socks in honor of Shabtai,
and we all stuck a card with his face on it in our socks.
So, he was, like, actually with us.
[Diana] We didn't say much that day. It was a very quiet, sad day.
The stakes were super high.
Emotions for us were high.
[epic music playing]
It was a hard moment to play basketball.
[sportscaster speaking Russian]
[Diana] That Ekat team was out for revenge.
Those games against Ekat were always tough. It was always 50/50.
Whoever could play a little bit better would win that game.
[sportscaster speaking Russian]
And that game was hard as fuck, because it was more physical.
[sportscaster speaking Russian]
Whenever something's going on in my life that's out of control,
the basketball part usually is on fucking point.
[sportscaster speaking Russian]
I felt like I was playing purely for Shabtai.
[sportscaster speaking Russian]
[Todd] It really did feel like there was an angel on her.
She was, like, stepping past half-court and shooting, and it was going in.
And everything was going in.
[sportscaster speaking Russian]
I was just possessed.
[Sue] There was a purpose greater than herself,
than being great, than helping a team win a trophy.
[sportscaster speaking Russian]
I love her. [chuckling]
As a player. As a player, as a daughter.
There was no way we were gonna lose that game.
[sportscaster speaking Russian]
[final buzzer sounds]
[Diana] We beat Ekat in the semifinals.
A couple days after that, we won the final game against Spain.
[crowd cheering]
[Diana] That was such an amazing moment.
That was the end of playing at Spartak.
I wouldn't trade it for the world.
It was just the best four years of my life.
It felt like basketball was gonna go in a different direction for me.
It was time for me to move on.
That was in the prime of my career.
Life's going well, and all of a sudden, it's not.
[reporter] Taurasi tested positive for modafinil.
[reporter 2] WNBA star Diana Taurasi has been suspended
by the Turkish Basketball Federation.
I was getting accused of doping. This one was devastating.
I've put in thousands of hours,
sacrificed my whole life to be called a cheater.
That was the worst moment of my life.
That means no Olympics, no overseas.
Done for four years.
What am I gonna do now? Is this the end of my career?
[closing music playing] Is this the end of my career?