Candace Parker is retired, but her WNBA impact is still visible every night

After a hugely successful career spanning 30 years, WNBACandace Parker Officially retired from basketball Just before the start of training camp for the 2024 season.

On a personal level, I, like probably many of you reading this, have known about Candace Parker since I was in grade school, watching her Tennessee highlights on SportsCenter in the morning. Even before I got fully into the WNBA, Parker was a star, a celebrity, and in my heart, atop the sport. Having watched her play ever since I started watching basketball, it feels surreal to see her career end.

Though I never fully grasped or understood what I was watching from afar, it was clear that Parker had something special. To fully appreciate the 70-5 record and consecutive U.S. championships, you have to witness more, gain a better understanding of history as you get older and realize how rare success at that level is.

For nearly two decades afterwards, growing up, I would watch the highlights and clips and read stories about her strength and perseverance and connect those moments with my own.

There will never be another Candace Parker.

But what made Parker most unique was not just her influence and her ability to impact passionate fans, but also that she opened up an entirely new audience and generation of fans to women’s basketball, which I think is underappreciated at this point and is hard to quantify, but perhaps best expressed by our friends. Beyond the timelinethe best resource for contextualizing any record in women’s basketball: Whenever a milestone or statistical feat is achieved, a handful of players are almost always mentioned in the list of past people who have achieved that record… and Candace Parker. That is always the case.

Though Parker will never again step on a WNBA court, her impact on the game, the players who came after her and what it means to be a star will live on. Now more than ever, the evolution of the WNBA game can be seen as a kind of love letter to the importance of her career and the impact she made.

Parker had the best rookie season in WNBA history and one of the most decorated rookie years in the history of professional sports.

The Los Angeles Sparks remained one of the league’s powerhouses even after their dynasty era of the early 2000s, reaching the conference finals in six of eight seasons leading up to 2007 and winning two WNBA championships. Franchise icon Lisa Leslie missed the entire 2007 season due to pregnancy, and WNBA legend Chamiq Holdscrow retired just five games into the season (she returned for the 2009 and 2010 seasons). The Sparks finished 10-24 that year and made Parker their top pick in the 2008 draft.

Where Parker found herself is key to understanding just how impactful her rookie season was. It’s not uncommon for a rookie to come onto a team, figure out how to get the game right and get comfortable and perform at a high level, but it’s extremely rare for a rookie to come onto a star-studded team with championship aspirations and have the ability to make a high-level impact.

Consider this now prescient statement made by the legendary Carolyn Peck when asked how good Parker was during the national broadcast of Parker’s first pro fight.

“The theme of the WNBA is ‘Expect Great Things,’ and I think Candace Parker will be a great player in the WNBA. I think that’s because of her versatility, but also because she has great talent.”

Parker had incredibly high expectations from the get-go, and he exceeded them by winning the MVP award in 2008, becoming the only rookie to ever win the award. It’s also worth noting that Parker finished tied for fourth in the Defensive Player of the Year voting, an award that Leslie won himself.

Her first point in the WNBA was symbolic that she was a special talent from the get-go, and that she was a special talent in the history of the game.

In the mid-2000s, it wasn’t common to see a 6’4″ forward sprinting in transition. Now, so many players who grew up watching Parker, the young stars he inspired and the games he influenced, can see it every night. Whenever I see Breanna Stewart hoisting the ball after a steal or rebound, I can’t help but think of Candace.

Parker led the Sparks in points and assists, and in rebounds in the league, which speaks volumes about her versatility. She can ostensibly play any position in the frontcourt, and also drive the offense like a point guard with her floor vision and playmaking. The Sparks lacked a true point guard on their 2008 roster, so they relied entirely on Candace’s ability to tilt and flip the offense as the offensive engine at the forward spot. Watching Alyssa Thomas play as a floor general for the Connecticut Sun’s No. 4 again brings to mind the image of Parker.

Basketball is becoming a game of creating and exploiting mismatches and space. Candice was too fast for centers to guard. She was too long and too strong for No. 3s to guard. She was often too skilled for most No. 4s to guard. She was great at drawing help and launching easy attacks from there.

In her rookie season, she shot 58.2 percent from the field, the best indicator of basketball efficiency. That’s a remarkable number considering Parker led the Sparks in field goal attempts and was extremely effective at scoring, even though the league average efficiency in 2008 was 51.1 percent. Parker’s influence was felt when A’ja Wilson made a running hook against an undersized forward, bounced a center or kicked the ball to assist after a double team.

DeLisha Milton-Jones, one of the best defenders in the league’s history, returned to the Sparks in 2008 after three years with the Mystics.

LA’s offense was below average, but their defense was stellar, ranking second in defensive ratings in the 2008 season and reaching the Conference Finals. The trio of Milton-Jones, Leslie and Parker wreaked havoc on opponents and led the league in blocked shots, but looking back, the modernity of their play stands out.

Switching on screens has been around for decades, but it has most proliferated as a more fundamental strategy in the last 5 years or so. In an era when it wasn’t routine for centers to switch to the perimeter, Sparks used it to her advantage. Candice’s defense is the most underrated aspect of her game (it’s absurd that she wasn’t an All-Defense selection in 2022). She could guard anyone in a pinch, contain guards on the perimeter, contain forwards in the post, and wall off the best post players at the rim. Her help defense and communication set the tone and amplified the voices of those around her at every turn.

Her versatility and effectiveness only improved as she continued to perfect her game, becoming a more consistent long-range shooter, honing her passing and becoming an increasingly popular source of points as her career progressed. Parker entered the league as a great player and built her entire career from that foundation. Her Finals series against the Lynx in 2016 and 2017 will be unforgettable. Her incredible postseason run, returning to her hometown of Chicago to win the Sky’s first championship in history, remains etched in my mind. The 2023 Las Vegas Aces played some of the best basketball on television in the early part of this century until Parker suffered a season-ending injury.

Every moment in the WNBA and women’s basketball world over the past 15 years is interwoven with Parker’s influence, with her own story and career permeating more than half of the league’s existence.

When thinking of the greatest players to ever step on the court, Candace Parker’s name is sure to be first on the list, not just for the direct impact she had on the court, but also for the lasting legacy she left on the game. Though Parker is retired and we’ll never see her hit a fadeaway again, the majority of players who grew up playing the game she changed will still get a glimpse of her.

Parker may not be performing anymore, but if you look hard enough you can still see her every night.