Tina Charles makes WNBA history and calls Diana Taurasi the GOAT

NBA History was made on a Tuesday night in Atlanta when Dream center Tina Charles passed Tina Thompson for second place on the WNBA’s all-time scoring list. Fittingly, she did so in a game against Diana Taurasi – the leading scorer in league history – who declared her the all-time leading scorer after the game.

Charles, an eight-time All-Star and one-time MVP, entered Wednesday’s game against the Mercury with 7,479 career points and needed 8 points to overtake Thompson.

She finally did it with a three-pointer in the fourth quarter of the Dream’s 72-63 win over the Mercury, and she finished the game with 12 points, 17 rebounds and 3 assists.

Charles now trails only Taurasi on the all-time points list, but that record-holder Taurasi has scored 10,497 points in her career, so it would take years for the 35-year-old Charles to surpass her. It certainly doesn’t help that Taurasi is still averaging 16.2 points per game at age 42 and shows little sign of slowing down.

The fact that Charles and Taurasi are both graduates of the University of Connecticut and longtime friends made this historic moment even more special.

“To hear my name in the same sentence as Diana is just unimaginable,” Charles said on the show. “What she meant to me personally, this league, her influence – she is definitely the GOAT.”

The win marked their third straight victory over playoff teams – since the Olympic break, they have now defeated the Storm, Sun and Mercury and improved their record to 10-17 on the year. Atlanta is now just one game behind the Sky for the 8th and final playoff spot, and considering the Sky lost their second-leading scorer Marina Mabrey during the break, it’s entirely possible to overtake Chicago.

“We just come together,” Charles said. “To have Rhyne (Howard) and Jordin (Canada) back on the team is just incredible. We have a future MVP and a point guard who is really serious about her job of bringing us all together, the head of the snake.”