Kevin PeltonApr 5, 2025, 12:20 PM ET
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- Co-author, Professional Basketball Prospectus collection
- Previously a specialist with the Indiana Pacers
- Evolved WARP score and SCHOENE gadget
On Saturday, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Corridor of Status decided on 3 of the best gamers in ladies’s basketball historical past as a part of a star-studded 2025 elegance.
Having each retired after the 2022 season, Sue Chicken and Sylvia Fowles assumed they had been headed into the Corridor in combination once they had been eligible. (In December, the Corridor introduced a discount within the ready duration from 3 complete seasons after retirement to 2.)
They had been joined by way of Moore, who final performed within the WNBA in 2018 earlier than stepping clear of the league to paintings on social justice problems and assist overturn the wrongful conviction of her long term husband, Jonathan Irons. After to start with maintaining the door open to a go back, Moore formally introduced her retirement in January 2023.
The timing signifies that 3 of the tip 10 gamers in ESPN’s rating of the WNBA’s biggest participants right through its twenty fifth anniversary in 2021 will input the Corridor of Status in combination (the category will likely be formally enshrined on Sept. 6). Let’s check out what made Chicken and Fowles — who had their numbers retired by way of the Seattle Hurricane and Minnesota Lynx, respectively, at the identical day in June 2023 — and Moore first-ballot alternatives in addition to why there is no precedent for a Corridor of Status elegance like this.
Sue Chicken’s first and fourth titles with Seattle got here 16 years aside: 2004, ’10, ’18 and ’20. Ned Dishman/NBAE by the use of Getty Photographs
Sue Chicken
UConn (1998-2002); Seattle Hurricane (2002-22)
The best sustained winner within the WNBA, Chicken retired having performed in additional wins (332) than every other participant within the league. Chicken’s longevity was once a key issue. She performed a file 580 video games throughout twenty years within the league, overcoming knee accidents to megastar on 4 Seattle championship groups from 2004 to 2020, the longest hole between titles for any WNBA participant.
Editor’s Selections
Chicken’s legacy additionally comprises being the best level guard in WNBA historical past. She surpassed Ticha Penicheiro because the league’s all-time chief in assists in 2017 and stays just about 400 assists forward of Courtney Vandersloot for No. 1 all time. Chicken’s skill to regulate a sport as a scorer or distributor was once progressive when she entered the league as the tip select of the 2002 draft, incomes All-WNBA first-team honors (the primary of 8 All-WNBA choices) and main the Hurricane to the playoffs as a rookie.
Earlier than becoming a member of the WNBA, Chicken began for UConn’s nationwide championship groups in 2000 and 2002, the latter most likely probably the most dominant group in ladies’s basketball historical past with a 39-0 file and a mean margin of 26.8 issues in line with sport within the NCAA event. Chicken was once the consensus nationwide participant of the 12 months in 2001-02.
After teaming with Diana Taurasi within the Huskies’ backcourt, Chicken become a fixture along her for USA Basketball, successful 5 gold medals from 2004 to 2021. Best Taurasi, who added a 6th final 12 months, surpasses Chicken in Olympic historical past.
Sylvia Fowles was once WNBA Finals MVP in serving to lead the Lynx to championships in each 2015 and 2017. She was once additionally league MVP in 2017. Adam Pantozzi/NBAE by the use of Getty Photographs
Sylvia Fowles
LSU (2004-08); Chicago Sky (2008-14); Minnesota Lynx (2015-22)
A four-time WNBA Defensive Participant of the Yr, the 6-foot-6 Fowles has a robust case as the best paint defender in league historical past. Best Tamika Catchings, with 5, received extra DPOY awards. Fowles is fourth all time in WNBA blocks and retired because the league’s all-time main rebounder earlier than being surpassed by way of Tina Charles final season.
A dominant pressure from the time she arrived in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Fowles led the Tigers to the Ultimate 4 all 4 seasons of her faculty profession and earned All-WNBA honors 4 instances in seven seasons with the Sky. It was once simplest after Fowles asked a industry and landed in Minnesota that her ability was once totally favored.
Becoming a member of a Lynx group that had already received titles in 2011 and 2013 — extra on that during a second — Fowles propelled Minnesota to 2 extra championships over the following 3 seasons and emerged because the group’s highest participant, successful Finals MVP after each titles. In 2017, Fowles was once additionally voted league MVP.
As the remainder of the Lynx group slowly dissolved, Fowles was once a fixture. She received her ultimate Defensive Participant of the Yr award in 2021 at age 35, completing fourth in MVP vote casting that season. And Fowles was once an All-WNBA second-team select (and All-Defensive first-team variety) in her ultimate season, 2022.
At the world degree, Fowles teamed with Chicken for 4 Olympic gold medals from 2008 to 2021.
Maya Moore helped lead the Lynx to 4 WNBA championships, successful in 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2017. AP Picture/Mark J. Terrill
Maya Moore
UConn (2007-11); Minnesota Lynx (2011-18)
Moore’s all-too-brief WNBA profession matched up with the best sustained duration of group luck in league historical past. Over the 8 seasons Moore performed in Minnesota, the Lynx went to the Finals six instances and received 4 titles, starting in her rookie marketing campaign. The New York Liberty is the one different franchise that has reached the Finals six instances, and it took twenty years after their earlier 4 appearances for the Liberty to get again.
Moore wasn’t the one explanation why for the Lynx’s luck. Fowles merits massive credit score for the again part of the run, whilst all the technology additionally integrated Corridor of Famers Lindsay Whalen (elected in 2022) and Seimone Augustus (2024), plus five-time All-Superstar and five-time champion Rebekkah Brunson.
Nonetheless, Moore’s entire sport helped her group win anyplace she went. After incomes the Gatorade Nationwide Participant of the Yr, UConn received back-to-back championships in 2009 and 2010, with Moore as Maximum Exceptional Participant of the 2010 NCAA event. The one three-time winner of the Wade trophy as nationwide participant of the 12 months, Moore was once an glaring No. 1 select by way of Minnesota.
No facet of Moore’s sport was once as exemplary as Chicken’s passing or Fowles’ protection, however she may just do the whole thing at the courtroom. Moore led the WNBA in scoring in 2014 en path to her simplest MVP, but she was once similarly prone to assist her group as a defender or distributor. An All-WNBA first-team select each and every season from 2013 to 2017, Moore in particular shines in complex stats.
In spite of her brief profession, which featured fewer than part as many regular-season video games as Chicken, Moore was once moment in playoff wins above alternative participant (WARP) by way of my metric when she retired. On account of its emphasis on top contributions and postseason efficiency, Moore ranked fourth in my championships added estimate during the league’s first 25 seasons — the similar position she ranked in our vote casting.
Once more, Moore’s USA Basketball profession was once short, however she received gold medals with Chicken and Fowles in 2012 and 2016.
An extraordinary elegance of girls gamers
Remarkably, this 12 months will mark the primary time 3 ladies had been inducted into the Corridor of Status as gamers in the similar elegance.
Since first spotting feminine gamers with Lusia Harris and Nera White in 1992, the Corridor has had 8 different multiplayer categories, together with 3 of the previous 4 years. Up to now, the most productive pairings of WNBA gamers had been former MVPs Yolanda Griffith and Lauren Jackson in 2021 and the high-scoring duo of Katie Smith and Tina Thompson in 2018.
Jackson and Griffith, each within the height 13 in ESPN’s rating of the WNBA height 25, come closest to matching the top-end ability of this 12 months’s workforce. However all 3 participants of this 12 months’s elegance ranked forward of Griffith, Smith and Thompson.
Arguably the most powerful categories earlier than this 12 months predated the WNBA. In 1993, the Corridor known UCLA legend Ann Meyers, the primary lady to signal with an NBA group, in addition to Soviet megastar Uljana Semjonova. Two years later, USC celebrity Cheryl Miller was once joined within the 1995 elegance by way of Previous Dominion standout Anne Donovan.
Because the WNBA grows, we will be able to be expecting better Corridor categories that would replicate the lads, who normally quantity 3 to 4 and feature featured as many as six gamers in a 12 months. Nonetheless, it is usually a whilst till the timing traces up for a bunch as adorned as this 12 months’s elegance.
