The Republic-USA TODAY NETWORK
When the WNBA career of Tina Charles finally comes to an end, she will be considered one of the league’s greatest players ever.
For nearly a decade and a half, the UConn product has wowed fans with her unstoppable post moves, tenacity on the glass, and her instincts on defense. In the paint, Charles is powerful, relentless, and demands the attention of multiple defenders. That is why it was a bummer to a lot of folks when she decided to sit out the 2023 season.
“I thought I was retired… But God had a plan,” Charles told The Next earlier this season.
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In the year away from the court, the former MVP, Rookie of the Year, three-time Olympic gold medalist, and eight-time All-Star reinvested in her religious faith and switched to a pescatarian diet, which is similar to vegetarianism, but also allows for consuming seafood. At the age of 35, Charles felt more healthy than she’d ever been and rediscovered her love for basketball.
That’s showing on the court too. Charles signed a one-year deal with the Atlanta Dream in February. She’s the oldest player on the roster but is averaging 13.8 points and a team-leading 8.5 rebounds per game while shooting 45.1 percent from the floor and mentoring Atlanta’s young core.
“I love this game,” Charles told CT Insider. “I knew I definitely wanted to play as long as I possibly could. Who knows how long I’ll be around, but I just give thanks to God that I’m still able to be here just to see the changes throughout the WNBA. When I came to the league in 2010, the league was like 13 years old, so just to see the progression in players and resources, the eyes that are on the league. It’s really beautiful.”
While Atlanta isn’t doing a whole lot of winning this season – currently saddled with a 7-14 record – the club is providing a vehicle for Charles to play the game she loves and excels at and a path for her to climb the league’s record charts. Charles needs just 84 points to pass Tina Thompson for second place on the all-time scoring list.
And while it’s unlikely that Charles will catch the still-active Diana Taurasi as the all-time scoring leader any time soon – Taurasi has 10,423 career points, about 2,600 more than Charles – other records are within reach for the 6-foot-5 center from Queens, New York.
Charles needs to make just 12 more 2-point field goals to pass Candice Dupree for the record, and she needs less than 200 rebounds to pass Sylvia Fowles to be the league’s all-time glass cleaner.
While Charles doesn’t have a WNBA championship on her resume and has been a bit of a nomad – Atlanta is the sixth franchise she’s played for – her legacy and impact is clear: She’ll go down as one of the WNBA’s best players ever. And she’s not done yet.
Las Vegas Aces forward A’ja Wilson leads the league in scoring and looks like the frontrunner to win her third MVP award.
On Wednesday, she had 24 points, 20 rebounds, and four blocks in a dominant performance, leading her team to a win over the Seattle Storm. With those stats, Wilson became just the eighth player in WNBA history to have at least 4,000 points and 400 blocks in a career, and the second-fastest to do so, just behind Lauren Jackson who did it in one less game.
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Wilson’s 20 boards also tied an Aces’ franchise record for the most rebounds in a single game, matching marks previously set by Natalie Williams, Jayne Appel-Marinelli, and Liz Cambage.
The Indiana Fever lost to the Washington Mystics on Wednesday, but rookie sensation Caitlin Clark posted a stat line that’s never been seen in the WNBA and hasn’t been done in the NBA since at least 1973, according to the WNBA’s official X account.
The Iowa product finished with 29 points, 13 assists, five rebounds, five 3-pointers, five steals, and three blocks in a game. With those blocks, Clark also became the fastest guard in WNBA history to accumulate 20 career blocks.
Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark won’t be playing for Team USA this summer in Paris, France at the 2024 Olympic Games, but the pair of rookie stars will team up during WNBA All-Star Weekend to face the Americans in an exhibition.
Reese – who now owns the WNBA’s record for consecutive games played with a double-double – is looking forward to teaming up with Clark for the first time and hopes to be teammates with her again in 2028.
“It’s going to be really cool. I know so many fans are going to come out to watch both of us,” Reese, who was drafted seventh overall by the Chicago Sky, told ESPN this week. “We’re going to be playing together for a while… I know we’ll be all-stars again. Hopefully, in 2028, we’ll be Olympians together, too.”