Candace Parker Ribs 'Angry Old Head' Shaquille O'Neal Over Her Approach to WNBA Boom
Candace Parker will go down as one of the best women's basketball players of all time.
She was a three-time WNBA champion, two-time WNBA MVP, 2016 Finals MVP, played in seven All-Star Games, and won two Olympic gold medals with Team USA.
Parker announced her retirement from professional basketball in April 2024, thus ending an iconic 16-season WNBA career.
However, according to her comments from a recent episode of "The Deal" with Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly, Parker seemed to (half-jokingly) wish that her career had arrived a bit later because of the WNBA's current boom.
"I'm pissed that they started chartering [flights] the year I retired, I'm not gonna lie," Parker said.
She later added, "All of us feel a responsibility and a part of the growth that's happening right now. I mean, the league was hard for so many years, and that's what I said when I retired: 'I hope that it's not too hard for the next [generation]. Not so difficult.
"More so, I'm mad because I'm thinking of how much better I could have been if I had an offseason, if I didn't have to go overseas, and I could have put weight on, and I could have bulked up in the weight room," Parker continued. "But I also look at the doors that are opening now, and where the sport is... I work with a lot of angry old heads. I don't want to be the angry old head.
"So I'm not gonna be, you know, Shaq coming in, like 'Oh, man up!' I'm not gonna be that. I'm gonna be the person where I'm happy where it's at," she concluded.
Candace Parker, today, talked about how sometimes she gets mad with the fact that she couldn't enjoy this stage of the league, with the charter flights, practice facilities, and having offseason, without having to play overseas. that it could have made her a better player.
— LEO (@the22_LEO) November 7, 2024
Full… pic.twitter.com/C9QmHUIrf4
Shaq (who's Parker's colleague on NBA on TNT) will probably wonder why he had to catch a stray once he hears this.
Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.