Diana Taurasi entered the WNBA long before charter flights, luxury hotels and modern training conditions became part of the league’s everyday conversation.
Looking back on her early years, the retired Phoenix Mercury legend described a much less glamorous reality: commercial airports, modest hotels and players simply trying to survive the schedule in front of them.
“Twenty years ago, we were flying commercial,” Taurasi said. “We were staying at Holiday Inn Expresses. You didn’t understand what the future looked like because you were just trying to get through it.”
Taurasi was the No. 1 pick in the 2004 WNBA Draft and spent her entire 20-season career with Phoenix. Her comments underline how dramatically the league’s infrastructure has evolved during that span. The WNBA introduced a full-time charter-flight program in 2024, replacing the commercial travel system that had long created delays, tight turnarounds and difficult recovery conditions for players.
Even during the most frustrating moments, Taurasi said she viewed those sacrifices as part of building something larger.
“There were a lot of times when we would fly commercial and I would say to myself, ‘Magic Johnson and Larry Bird flew commercial,’” she recalled. “Someone’s got to do the hard work and the heavy lifting sometimes, so I always felt that responsibility.”
Diana Taurasi reveals what playing in the WNBA was like 20 years ago.
”20 years ago, we were flying commercial. We were staying at Holiday Inn Expresses. You didn’t understand what the future looked like because you were just trying to get through it.”
”There was a lot of… pic.twitter.com/uOE5dTAYKz
— fortunate (@Fortunate_hm) July 21, 2026
The comparison was not about pretending the conditions were acceptable forever. It was about understanding that every growing league has a generation responsible for pushing it forward. Taurasi and her peers competed through circumstances they hoped future players would no longer have to accept.
That future has started to arrive. Investment, salaries, audiences and travel standards have all improved, even as the league continues to face growing pains.
Taurasi helped build that progress while becoming the leading scorer in WNBA history and one of the sport’s defining figures.
Today’s players may travel differently because yesterday’s stars kept showing up. Sometimes the road to private planes begins at a Holiday Inn Express.
