On Feb. 5, 2019, Maya Moore announced her decision to step away from the WNBA for the 2019 season in order to shift her focus toward her “family and ministry dreams.”
At just 29 years old, the four-time WNBA champion and perennial WNBA All-Star was walking away from the game in her absolute prime. Any conversation about the best women’s basketball players in the world had Maya Moore’s name mentioned in the first sentence.
On Jan. 23, 2020, Moore announced that she would not return to the WNBA in 2020 as she continued to focus her time and effort on criminal justice reform, specifically in the case of Jonathan Irons, a family friend that they believed to be wrongfully imprisoned for the past two decades.
Moore’s advocacy in Irons’ case helped lead to his charges being vacated in March 2020 and his release from prison in July 2020. Two months later, Moore and Irons announced that they had married following his release. On Tuesday, the couple will release a memoir titled “Love & Justice: A Story of Triumph on Two Different Courts” that recounts their unique love story.
On the eve of that book release – and on a day that we honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his pursuit of justice and equality – Moore has announced her retirement from the WNBA, closing the book on one of the greatest basketball careers ever.
What Maya Moore accomplished in her eight WNBA seasons rivals what any player has accomplished in this league. Here are just a few of her many accolades:
- 4-time WNBA Champion (2011, 2013, 2015, 2017)
- WNBA Finals MVP (2013)
- WNBA MVP (2014)
- WNBA Rookie of the Year (2011)
- 6-time WNBA All-Star (2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018)
- 3-time WNBA All-Star Game MVP (2015, 2017, 2018)
- 7-time All-WNBA Selection (First Team: 2013, 2014. 2015, 2016, 2017; Second Team: 2012, 2018)
- 2-time All-Defensive Selection (Second Team: 2014, 2017)
- Scoring champion (2014)
- Steals leader (2018)
- Member of Top 20@20 (2016) and W25 (2021) anniversary teams
And those are just her accomplishments in the WNBA. Don’t forget about her two Olympic gold medals (2012, 2016) and two World Championships (2010, 2014) with Team USA, her two NCAA Championships (2009, 2010) at Connecticut, her two EuroLeague Championships (2012 with Ros Casares Valencia, 2018 with UMMC Ekaterinburg), her three Chinese League titles with Shanxi Flame (2013, 2014, 2015) and one Spanish League title with Ros Casares Valencia (2012).
There is no word that is more synonymous with Maya Moore than the word “champion.” Everywhere she has played, she has led her team to championships. It started in high school, where she led Collins Hill High School to a 125-3 record in her four seasons, with three Georgia state titles and one national title in 2007. It continued at UConn, where she led the Huskies to four Final Fours and two national titles, becoming the only three-time winner of the Wade Trophy, which honors the top women’s player in college basketball.
When it was time to enter the WNBA, Moore found the perfect home to continue her winning ways. In 2010, the Minnesota Lynx finished 13-21 and missed out on the final playoff spot in the Western Conference due to a tie-breaker with the Los Angeles Sparks. That meant the Lynx were headed to the Draft Lottery, where their fortunes would take a dramatic turn for the better.
The Lynx won the lottery and added Moore with the first overall pick in the 2011 WNBA Draft, adding the talented forward to a roster that included veterans Lindsay Whalen, Seimone Augustus, Rebekkah Brunson, and Taj McWilliams-Franklin. This wasn’t a situation of a top draft pick joining a team in need of a savior; this was a situation that allowed Moore to step right in and play alongside All-Stars in pursuit of a deep playoff run.
Less than six months after hearing her name called first overall and holding up a Lynx jersey at the 2011 WNBA Draft, Moore helped lead the Lynx to their first-ever WNBA championship with a three-game sweep of the Atlanta Dream in the 2011 WNBA Finals.
Game 1 of that series gave us one of the top Maya Moore highlights, a shot that will be replayed when she is eventually inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame – she drove across the lane and swooped under the basket for the difficult reverse layup that brought backmemories of Dr. Jfrom the 1980 NBA Finals.
This was just the beginning of a dynasty in Minnesota as the Lynx would make six WNBA Finals appearances and win four WNBA titles in a seven-year span from 2011 to 2017. Moore would be named Finals MVP in 2013 as the Lynx once again swept the Dream in three games with Moore averaging 20 points on 54% shooting and the Lynx outscoring the Dream by 66 points in her 93 minutes on the court in the series.
Two years later, Moore had the biggest clutch moment of her WNBA career in Game 3 of the 2015 WNBA Finals against Indiana. With the game tied at 77 with 1.7 seconds remaining, Whalen inbounded the ball to Moore just outside the 3-point line. With Fever defender Marissa Coleman charging toward her, Moore kept her cool and gave a quick ball fake and sidestepped around Coleman, and rose up for the shot, which left her fingertips as the buzzer sounded. She drained the shot to give the Lynx a 2-1 series lead, and Minnesota would go on to win the series in five games.
After suffering a heartbreaking loss in the winner-take-all Game 5 of the 2016 WNBA Finals to the Los Angeles Sparks, the Lynx would avenge that loss a year later in a rematch with the Sparks in the 2017 WNBA Finals. Once again, the series would go the full five games, and Moore delivered the knock-out blow late in the fourth quarter.
With Minnesota clinging to a 79-76 lead with 30 seconds to play, Moore drove toward the lane and pulled up at the free throw line with a running jump shot that swished the net with 26 seconds remaining and put the Lynx up by five points. She finished the game with a team-high 18 points to go with ten rebounds and her fourth WNBA championship in her first seven seasons.
A year later, the Lynx and Sparks would meet in the playoffs again – this time in the single-elimination first round – where Los Angeles would end Minnesota’s season with a 75-68 win that would end up being the final game of Maya Moore’s WNBA career. She finished that game with 14 points, four rebounds, three assists, and two steals.
At that time, no one expected that would be the last we’d see of Maya Moore in the WNBA. While her career was brief, she packed plenty of memorable moments into those eight seasons for WNBA fans to remember for years to come.
Of course, after her playing days were finished, she became a champion for social justice, as well as a wife, mother, and now an author. We wish the best for Maya and her family as she assumes the title of WNBA legend now that her playing days are officially complete.
Longtime WNBA reporter Brian Martin writes articles on WNBA.com throughout the season. The views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the WNBA or its clubs.
