- 11 hours ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Mommy, this is going to take forever.
00:06Tonight's the home opener.
00:08Are you excited for the game?
00:10Why is a home opener?
00:12It means the first game at home.
00:14Oh.
00:16So it's Mama's first game.
00:18So that makes sense.
00:20Yeah.
00:21Everyone gets so confused.
00:23I have two moms.
00:25Aren't you lucky?
00:27Mama's a little bit more famous than Penny, right?
00:33Oh, well.
00:37Where is it?
00:39There you go. There's your picture.
00:41You want to put it on?
00:43There you go.
00:45Very proud of that.
00:47Literally everyone here knows my name.
00:49My Mama works here.
00:51So they know me.
00:57And it goes.
01:0116.
01:02And it's all you can win.
01:03It's all you can win.
01:05It's all you can win.
01:06It's all you can win.
01:07And it goes.
01:09It's all you can win.
01:11I had worked so hard to become the best player in the world.
01:15Diana Tarrasi.
01:16Diana Tarrasi.
01:17Diana Tarrasi.
01:18Diana Tarrasi.
01:19Wow!
01:20There was a lot of things that I had to sacrifice.
01:22There was a lot of things that I had to sacrifice.
01:27And then I sacrificed to be even more.
01:32I made such a bad decision that you're in shock.
01:35You don't even know what to think.
01:37You don't even know if it's real.
01:39You don't know what the future looks like.
01:41I had no control.
01:42All those good things go away.
01:52Look, I'm not perfect.
01:58I've done a lot of dumb shit in my life.
02:00And one thing I do is I always own up to it.
02:02From Russia with love.
02:22I went to Russia because in Phoenix we were pretty underpaid.
02:27My first salary as a rookie in the WNBA was at $42,000.
02:32Before tax, of course.
02:34That was the beginning of the Russian boom where they were just paying a shitload of money and you couldn't say no to it.
02:40Diana maxed out at about 16 to 18x, not included bonuses, of her WNBA salary going overseas.
02:47And I remember us having different conversations about it being sort of financially irresponsible not to take the deal.
02:54The overseas market during this time period, if you were one of the top dozen players in the WNBA,
03:01there were a couple teams in Russia paying a million dollars a season.
03:06A lot of WNBA players could go make money and get that lifestyle of a professional athlete that they were not getting in the U.S.
03:14The first team I played for was Dinamo Moscow.
03:17Got to play with Sue.
03:19A ton of money.
03:19Well, to be honest, I hated it.
03:24I hated everything about it.
03:25Yeah, it was an interesting year.
03:29It was an interesting year.
03:30They coached different.
03:34Having a Russian coach, they didn't speak the language.
03:37His name was Anus, funny enough, and he lived up to it.
03:43If you could make up the silliest drills in any sport that made no sense, he was making you do them.
03:50So you really have no idea what the fuck's going on.
03:52And so it's just the two of us, like, in the back, giggling, doing dumb stuff.
03:58There's always this point when you're overseas where you've just been there for a long time, the weather's still bad.
04:03It just becomes this long, never-ending winter.
04:06And then you insert Anus, and it just got that much longer.
04:10Those next two months were the hardest months of my basketball career.
04:16Sue, say hi.
04:17Jay back.
04:19Cheers.
04:19Marina, say hi to everyone.
04:21Back home.
04:22We didn't have the luxury of choosing something else.
04:24We're taking the best option available.
04:26That was about her family's future.
04:28And she was thinking in those terms, in what it meant to make sacrifices.
04:32My poor sister, she was having such a hard time, like, adapting.
04:37I talked to her probably 15 times a day, every day.
04:40Good morning in the morning, and throughout the day we're texting, and good night before we go to bed.
04:44And I'd always have her flight on my phone, making sure her jet got to wherever they were flying.
05:02That season ended, and I say, I will never play here again, no matter how much they pay me.
05:30What are you going to buy when you cash that first paycheck?
05:33I really don't live an expensive life, though.
05:35The money will probably go into savings, but, you know, I'll get something nice for my parents and the people around me who've helped me a lot.
05:41But as far as getting stuff for myself, you know, I'm pretty plain, so nothing big.
05:45After my first year in Russia with Dynamo, I'm on the phone with my agent, I'm like, I'm never playing here again.
05:54And then all of a sudden, through a friend of a friend, they say, Shabtai would like to meet with you.
06:05You always heard about Shabtai.
06:07There was always this mythical unicorn out there in women's basketball, especially in Europe.
06:11I'm large in money.
06:13We are the highest women's basketball-paying club in the world.
06:20Shabtai owned Spartak, which is another team.
06:23He was 5'8", stocky, with the biggest curly mullet you'd ever see.
06:30It was really curly, so it was always well, well done.
06:36And he dressed to the teeth.
06:38Brioni suits, always smelled amazing.
06:41You could just tell he had a command of the gym.
06:43Usually owners don't sit on the bench.
06:46He did.
06:49So we're like, let's go meet with him and we'll see what he says.
06:52So he sends a car over.
06:54Beautiful Mercedes with a driver.
06:57And you're just like, oh, okay, this is cool.
06:59We're basically going to the Kremlin.
07:03So we're going downtown to the Red Square.
07:06And we go to this beautiful office.
07:09We feel like we're in some movie and we're either going to end up kidnapped or on top of the world.
07:17They'll send double doors open.
07:19Shabtai would like to speak with you.
07:22He had this huge wooden desk.
07:24If you can think of an office of someone who was a hoarder, it was that.
07:29His office was essentially a museum, whether it's like artwork or different paintings.
07:35Israeli artifacts and Jewish artifacts and then just weird stuff.
07:39You'd go over to a table and there's walrus penises everywhere.
07:44He goes, what do you think if you two come and play for me next year?
07:47And I was like, I will never play in Russia again, thank you, but no.
07:50He's telling us about who he is and the different ways in which he can throw his weight around and the money that he's going to be able to pay us.
07:57He goes, I will show you a side of Moscow that you will love and never want to leave.
08:02And I was like, well, that sounds pretty good.
08:03You know, and then we got into numbers.
08:07And so then he slid two napkins and we signed our contracts.
08:11That led my career in a different trajectory in a lot of ways.
08:23And his wife, Anna, who was the Russian national team point guard for a long time.
08:28She was influential in the way he looked at basketball and really why he fell in love with basketball.
08:33We met him in Yekaterinburg.
08:36He began to talk to me in his usual manner.
08:39I didn't like it.
08:41He changed my tactics.
08:43And gradually, gradually, he became my friend.
08:49When a person starts to get closer to you,
08:52they are completely different human qualities.
08:57He was like this, so much, so much, so much, so much, and so much.
09:01And then, after three months, I lost my job.
09:09The goal of that moment, Shabtaya, was to raise the level of Russian basketball players
09:16on the highest level of basketball players.
09:18It's not important in which nationality you were in sport, you are great.
09:24Shabtaya's mission was to build this sort of global women's basketball enterprise as this collector of beautiful, interesting things.
09:42That's how he saw women's basketball.
09:44He became a collector of stars.
09:46Now there will be a lot of people in front of us.
09:51We are here to announce the season of the European basketball season.
10:13Shabtai, he always wants to put on a show, a show for the people.
10:20Shabtai has brought to the Mechadov theater.
10:27We have a gymn of our country, each name is a star.
10:32He's like, I view you guys as performers, like the same way an actor and actress on Broadway.
10:42They have to show up when the lights are on.
10:44In 2007, he brought all the stars.
10:47So there was a large collection of this amazing talent.
10:50And that was always his recipe.
10:52I'll get the best players and we'll work it out somehow.
11:02We ended up winning our first EuroLeague title.
11:12EuroLeague is about how much money can we pay these players to bring them in.
11:15If you win EuroLeague, it's 50,000.
11:17If EuroLeague MVP, it's 25,000.
11:19If you win Russian League, it's an extra 100,000.
11:22We were like living life.
11:24And in that moment, she was like, and this is what I've been looking for.
11:27If you've been to Russia, if you think we have nice things,
11:31their nice things are even nicer.
11:33Shabtai always wanted the best of the best.
11:35Not only did he want the best players, best coaches,
11:38he wanted you to eat the best food, best hotels, best watches.
11:42He commissioned Louis Vuitton balls. Who does that?
11:45And we're like, we better fucking win.
11:47He had this sense of pride of, I'm going to take care of my team.
11:51He saw our value.
11:53That's what made all of us really hold on to Russia in a different way.
11:57It just felt like we had the world at our fingertips.
12:00So all we had to do was go play basketball.
12:13After all the success in Russia in 2007,
12:16taking that momentum back to Phoenix
12:18and really finding myself as a player
12:20and finding those winning ways again was really important.
12:25I was, in a lot of ways, the face of the league.
12:27Taurasi for the single-season score!
12:30Oh!
12:31Seven points!
12:32Taurasi from NBA Raids!
12:34And she ups and downs!
12:37It just came into my own as far as feeling like I was at the top of my game.
12:47When Diana's at her peak with the Mercury, this is a Diana that is hitting on all cylinders.
12:53Making shots, you just can't believe somebody can make her.
12:56I remember being a man with a deep three.
12:59And she has that Cali swagger.
13:02Oh, Diana Taurasi!
13:03Wow!
13:04The way she moves on the basketball court is what separates her from a lot of players.
13:08She has been the star!
13:12That is Diana Taurasi.
13:13In 2007, the Phoenix Mercury is rising to the top of the WNBA.
13:18They were the team.
13:20For the first time in their history, the Phoenix Mercury on a chance for the WNBA.
13:26We ended up winning a championship in 07.
13:29There's no way we should have won that first one.
13:32We were just kids, but Diana just makes it work.
13:35She is so good at valuing people and making them feel a part of something special.
13:42When that happens, it's a magical thing where it's like, we trust each other.
13:49For a long time, I was a big fan of Penny with the Cleveland Rockers.
13:52I just loved how she played.
13:56How fearsome she was.
14:05She had that Aussie-Euro tempo to her game.
14:13And in 2004, Penny and I were both drafted to the Phoenix Mercury.
14:18So we got to Phoenix the same day.
14:21All I knew was that Diana Taurasi had a great college career.
14:25I'd never watched a minute of it.
14:27I didn't even know what she looked like.
14:29This just like bounding ball of light comes running into the court.
14:34And like just shocked me.
14:35How can someone have that much energy?
14:37You know?
14:38Wowzer?
14:39I think wowzer will work.
14:40Let me hear it.
14:41Let me hear it, Penny.
14:43Let me hear it, wowzer.
14:45At first we were just friends.
14:47Wowzer!
14:48Wowzer!
14:49We were playing year round.
14:50We were playing year round.
14:51That was our whole lives.
14:52Travelling for basketball.
14:54And so it was like these little snapshots of time where we'd made connections.
15:00We used to go out as a team a lot and party pretty hard.
15:03All in baby!
15:04All in!
15:05She told me her feelings.
15:08Yeah, I initiated.
15:12Yeah.
15:14She doesn't let down her guard very often.
15:16And so when she opened up to me like that and let me in a little bit,
15:21it was like a really huge step.
15:25It was obviously a mutual feeling.
15:27Record setting day from the free throw line for Penny Taylor.
15:32This is Penny Taylor's husband.
15:34To which Diana Taurasi asked the question,
15:36is he the Eva Longoria of the WNBA?
15:41I'd never not been loyal to someone.
15:46It wasn't like a great moment for me.
15:50I'm not the type of person who can lie.
15:53Can't fake things.
15:57I had a lot of guilt in hurting someone.
16:01But I did know my own feelings and I had to follow them.
16:06Diana and I found in each other something that we loved.
16:10And we got married.
16:13Since then, it's just been us.
16:16Looking back, I probably always loved Diana.
16:20Like when we die, they'll have this like 30 years from now.
16:23Like, oh, look how young.
16:24And then trying to make that work when she's in Russia and I'm in Turkey.
16:32Diana would jump on a flight, fly to Istanbul.
16:37Spend like not even 24 hours and then jump on a flight back.
16:43I couldn't go to Russia because you had to get a visa to go.
16:45So it really was dependent on her.
16:48Warning.
16:54That's such a sacrifice, right?
16:55Like you get one day off, if that a week, and she was doing that every week.
16:59Seeing her do that confirmed that we had strong feelings for each other.
17:03One time, we played a Russian league game on Saturday.
17:08The next day we were leaving to go to Paris.
17:10And Chef Tite goes, what are we going to do in Paris tomorrow?
17:13I was like, I don't know, we'll probably go shopping a little bit.
17:15So he comes over and he hands me 15,000 euros.
17:18And I'm like, okay, what do I, so, you know, put it in my bag.
17:21And after dinner, we'd always go out a little bit, you know, enjoy the night.
17:29So we're hanging out, it's three in the morning.
17:30All right, let's get out of here.
17:31I go, I look into my bag and the 15,000 euros are gone.
17:35We're in the bathroom, we're in the cushions.
17:36We're all over the club trying to look for the money.
17:38It was gone.
17:40So the next morning, Chef Tite comes to the airport as we're leaving.
17:44And I'm like, Chef Tite, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like,
17:46I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like,
17:50I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm going to pay.
17:53I'm like a little bit tired of you.
17:55He gets his suitcase, opens it, another 15,000-year-old.
18:00And he says, enjoy Paris.
18:02And I'm just like, okay.
18:04Off to Paris.
18:08Diana came and she came with the money.
18:11Wow, how much money?
18:13Imagine.
18:15Champe, chaste in the palm, I can't say the name right.
18:18He said, as we play well, mom, he always gives us money.
18:30But we didn't know what the Lord really did.
18:34There was always rumors and there was always stories.
18:37The rumors we heard were more so just like, oh, Shabtai, he's got his hands in a lot of different pots.
18:43He might be affiliated with this, or he might be doing that, but we had no idea.
18:47We would always ask the Russian players, what Shabs do and be this man.
18:53I'm like, okay, cool, he's a businessman.
18:55I will have a question that may get you angry.
18:58What is your position concerning the suspicion about your relationship with the Russian mafia?
19:06First of all, no angry.
19:08You see, I'm not angry.
19:09I do not have relations.
19:12And no one in Russian media told that I have.
19:15Otherwise, I would sue.
19:17I don't know if anyone knew where his money came from.
19:21We didn't ask questions.
19:23We just went with it.
19:23I would play in Russia for eight months.
19:30Then I would go back to Phoenix in the summer for the WNBA season.
19:36Diana Taurasi time.
19:38Taurasi, that's too easy.
19:41Diana Taurasi is going to make you pay.
19:44Taurasi to beat the buzzer?
19:45I'd say unbelievable, but it's not.
19:48She does it so often.
19:49From half court.
19:51Taurasi, another 30-point game.
19:53Diana Taurasi has taken her game to another level.
19:56She made more three-pointers than any player in the league.
19:59Taurasi, the top one in the league right now.
20:02Just something very special about this young woman.
20:05Taurasi lets it fly and drops it in.
20:08She had the all-time WNBA records for total points and scoring average.
20:16She also became the only player in league history to score 500 or more points in each of her first six seasons.
20:22WNBA MVP award to the Phoenix Mercury's, Diana Taurasi.
20:27I think that's when I really started having these feelings of, well, this is confusing to me.
20:36I'm the best player in the world, and I have to go to a communist country to get paid like a capitalist.
20:41Playing in Europe during the WNBA's offseason, these women were going for seven or eight months.
20:46They were chasing their value.
20:47One time I came back and I was like, man, my parents have just gotten older, and I've missed a big part of it.
20:53We weren't making that much money.
20:55So generational wealth was coming from going to Russia every year.
20:59Now we have to come back home and get paid nothing to play in a harder league in worse conditions against the best competition in the world.
21:06The fucking janitor at the arena made more than me.
21:08It was a hard time.
21:10It really was a hard and challenging time.
21:13We were consistently voted the most likely league to go out of business.
21:18The WNBA struggling in many ways.
21:21They were losing a lot of money, and the NBA had to supplement their losses.
21:24The NBA invested a ton of money, millions of dollars, to ensuring that the WNBA would be successful.
21:31But the outlook was very challenging because the culture at that time was not in support of women's sports.
21:39The league was constantly in survival mode as owners of teams consistently questioned whether their investment on a day-to-day basis was worthy of their time and money.
21:49The league couldn't stand on its own financially and culturally.
21:54That trickles down to everything.
21:56Economy flights, bus rides, low per diems.
22:00This is not what we think of in America when we're like the professional athlete lifestyle.
22:03And she goes to Russia, and here is this team that is sparing no expense making sure that any need that you had was taken care of.
22:14In Russia at the time, there was a real rise of the oligarchs.
22:16There was plenty of cash around, and, you know, they could have chosen horses.
22:22But for some reason, there was this fascination with women's basketball, and players were able to benefit from that.
22:28And I think that was the era where we were a little bit bitter of coming back home.
22:32D is pretty simple.
22:34I'm going to play.
22:35I'm going to ball the fuck out.
22:36And I'm going to get paid a lot of money to do it.
22:38And that's that.
22:39And I think that's where she bumped heads with the WNBA.
22:42What was really hard for her is that she wasn't being appreciated financially for being the best.
22:48WNBA, I'm there, and I'm rebounding for her.
22:53She has bruises all up and down her leg and all on her arms.
22:57Because the thing about Diana is, because she's such a physical player, teams just started beating her up.
23:02Tarazzo takes it right in on White, gets fouled again.
23:05It was like watching wrestling, practically, on Diana.
23:10One season, he gets paid by our Russian team to not play in the WNBA.
23:15That was them investing in her.
23:17They want to win all the early titles possible, so why risk her getting injured?
23:22Every time you play, it's a risk you're going to get hurt.
23:24So it frustrates her, and she gives you her opinion.
23:28She probably says some things personal that doesn't make the refs happiest.
23:32Oh, so I push her, so I can fly back.
23:34I remember one time they bring a check to her because she had so many technicals, and they would fine her for everything.
23:40She's fired up, and she gets a technical foul.
23:42She's going to pick up a technical foul as well.
23:43She has been ejected with her second technical foul of the game.
23:48The willingness to embody a villainous role.
23:56She just needed to be herself, even if that meant a kind of swagger that women's basketball hadn't seen.
24:01And that caused friction.
24:04She does not hear.
24:05Why even contest?
24:06Diana, very demonstrative.
24:10You're making all this money overseas.
24:12Why are you doing this?
24:13She's just like, I've got to keep the game alive.
24:15She's like, there's little girls out there, and I want them to want to be professional basketball players.
24:19It was a sense of you're doing this for the greater good of women's basketball, and the next generation, and the next generation, which, as women athletes, you're handcuffed, too, for life.
24:31I think our generation was one of just do the hard work and go with it.
24:36We didn't complain about everything, which I wish I would have complained more.
24:41At that time, they really didn't care what we had to say.
24:43There weren't any outlets where you can voice your opinion on how to be treated as an athlete, nor did we really know.
24:49There was more of an attitude, like, you're lucky to even have a lead.
24:54Get, get, get it!
24:56Oh, baby!
25:02Yeah, I drank a lot that summer, and that's what I did.
25:05Win championships and partied.
25:07Look, I'm not perfect.
25:09I've done a lot of dumb shit in my life, and one thing I do is I always own up to it.
25:15One night in Phoenix, we just finished playing a game.
25:18We go out to dinner, and then we go out to a lounge and having a good time, and it's time to go home.
25:24There's always that moment where you're like, should I get in the car?
25:27Should I drive?
25:28Do we get a taxi?
25:30I was a mile away from my house.
25:32I'm like, get in the car.
25:33We'll go home.
25:34It'll be fine.
25:35Make a left.
25:36I get pulled over.
25:41I'm like, I'm screwed.
25:43I knew already.
25:46Getting put in the back of a police car, you're just like, oh, man, this is really happening to me right now.
25:51I got the call at 2 a.m. that Diana was walking the line and had been pulled over, and that was a scary moment.
25:57It was something that was going to impact basketball.
26:00I ended up having to spend 24 hours in a cell.
26:07I made such a bad decision.
26:09Now decisions were taken out of my hands.
26:13And that was the worst feeling.
26:15I was the face of the league and of the Phoenix Mercury, which I take, you know, to this day very serious.
26:22And it was embarrassing for me and for my family.
26:34This is the shitty part about life.
26:36You could do all the things right.
26:38It just takes one little shitty decision.
26:41And all those good things go away.
26:43A stellar reputation tarnished extreme DUI charges.
26:47I had no idea there was such a thing as extreme DUI until Diana Taurasi.
26:52Watching SportsCenter and that ticker go all day long, extreme DUI.
26:56Diana's dealing with what it means when a female athlete does something like this because the role model thing is very real.
27:03And so to be seen as, like, the complete opposite of that is a really difficult place to live.
27:08It's not like she's an alcoholic.
27:10This was a really bad choice.
27:14The league suspended me for three games.
27:16It was a low in my life.
27:18Trying to get myself out of that disappointing place was the hardest thing ever.
27:28And Penny was a sounding board for me.
27:31I've been so lucky to be with Penny.
27:35We came in the same year.
27:37And you just knew when she walked into the gym, something was different.
27:42Penny was smart.
27:43Penny was beautiful.
27:47Penny was calm and cool.
27:51And I was none of those things.
27:55I think that I am, for her, the support.
27:59I'm there to distract her from the pressures that she faces.
28:04And obviously she would never describe it as pressures.
28:07Like, she just doesn't think like that.
28:10I know that when she comes home, she can switch off.
28:13She can just totally relax and be in a family environment.
28:18And hopefully we are something completely different than what she's going out into the world and facing every day.
28:24Diana, you talked about up and down.
28:28Was there any point at which you felt like you were in danger of losing your focus?
28:32Oh, well, for a minute I did lose my focus.
28:35If it's something that you love to do, you should never put it in jeopardy.
28:39I'll keep that in the back of my head for the rest of my life.
28:43After the DUI, I just focused on basketball.
28:49That's always been my safe space.
28:50You know, there's nothing like getting yourself back to where you want to be as a human being.
29:00I honed in on being in the gym every single day, day after day.
29:05And I had to block out all the noise.
29:09I found a way with the help of my teammates and my family to get back on track.
29:14And to be able to get out of that and win a championship and be the MVP of the league and the finals.
29:35There was something just so gratifying about that.
29:39I felt like I'm back where I want to be.
29:41So long, so hard.
29:46So long, so hard.
29:49That was always the bittersweet moment.
29:52We win a championship.
29:54Let's celebrate.
29:56Let's take it all in.
29:58Three days later, I'm in Russia.
30:00One thing about Shavs, he always knew when you needed time.
30:13He understood the psyche of a person.
30:16He always knew when someone was overloaded.
30:21He goes, come to Moscow, we'll go on vacation.
30:24I said, cool.
30:24I get to Moscow and Shatai says, we're going to go to Israel.
30:29So we get on the plane and we go to Tel Aviv for four days.
30:32And I hang out with his family, with his friends.
30:35It was just such a nice, calm night.
30:39A lot of times in this business, you don't make relationships.
30:42Because everything ends up being a transaction.
30:45You play, I pay.
30:47But he made it different.
30:50He brought us into his family.
30:51I love you.
30:54As a player, as a daughter.
30:55She calls me Papa.
30:58He was literally our dad.
31:00He took care of us.
31:02Everything he did was a gesture to make sure you were comfortable.
31:07He knew you were in the middle of nowhere.
31:09That you could only talk to three people.
31:12He wanted you to feel like you were the queen of the world.
31:15And all you had to worry about was basketball.
31:21November 2nd, one of our good friends, it was her birthday.
31:26It was a Beyonce concert that night.
31:28And Shatai was like, come to my office, get your tickets.
31:31So we get to his office.
31:33And usually his doors are open and we walk in.
31:37The minute we got there, there was a lot of people I've never met before.
31:41And then I walk in and everyone's in the waiting room, which is already strange because usually we sit in his office.
31:50His doors were closed.
31:52So we're waiting around and one of our teammates come over and she says, Shatai's just been murdered.
32:02We're just, I mean, we're kind of in shock.
32:07We don't even, when I heard it, I was just like, there's no way he got murdered.
32:11Like, we're just, we're waiting for him to go to the concert.
32:15I just went on vacation with him.
32:17We just got back.
32:21And then, you know, we got confirmation he was murdered.
32:32It was Sunday, 2 ноября.
32:43We're going to go to the Kremlin.
32:46The time was already time to pick.
32:50It was about 16.30am.
32:57It's hard to remember, on the самом деле, to say.
33:02I was very nervous, because I always had a very small amount of time left.
33:14I said to him, he said to me, we have 20 minutes to drive.
33:19There was a lot of flow.
33:25The cars were waiting for the стрелку,
33:28and I was like, I was like, I went like this before they were going,
33:33and I was like, I was like, what's going on?
33:36And I was like, what's going on?
33:39I saw the other side of the vehicle.
33:41And then, the other side of the car was started.
33:46I saw that Shabtai didn't give any signs of life,
34:01about 18 bullets in his head,
34:04in a shock state,
34:07I decided to try to kill thieves.
34:16I caught them with two bullets.
34:21We went to the opposite direction,
34:25and between the cars.
34:28The speed was about 120-140,
34:31maybe 150 km per hour.
34:34I managed to get out of control,
34:36and I left.
34:46I felt like I had to see him one last time.
34:56Sasha, my driver, he goes,
35:00do you want to drive by?
35:01And I'm like, yeah.
35:05His car is up on the curb,
35:07and I can see his body out of the car.
35:09I don't know how many times we were in that car.
35:13Hundreds of times.
35:15And it was just, I mean, I don't know.
35:18When you're in shock,
35:19you don't even know what to think.
35:20You don't even know if it's real.
35:21You don't know what the future looks like.
35:23You don't even know if you're next.
35:25If you're next.
35:34We took that 35-minute drive,
35:36and we both just literally cried all the way
35:38till we got to our house.
35:43His funeral took place in our gym,
35:45which we had so many amazing moments together.
35:48Well, it's like,
35:51as if you were like,
35:53you're like, a workout,
35:54you would have turned the body out.
35:58He was for me,
35:59at the same time,
36:00a friend,
36:01a friend,
36:02a boyfriend,
36:04a son of my children.
36:09I couldn't sleep night.
36:10I was able to hug my sons and was convinced,
36:13that they would also be fired.
36:18it's easy to talk about someone when they're dead and that's when the media got a hold of it
36:26there was a lot of reports of you know his past life with the kgb and this underworld that russia
36:32had that was the first time i was like okay now i'm going to start asking questions
36:46and i asked one of my russian teammates and i'm like who do you think killed him and she goes
36:52oh diana the person who killed him is probably in here right now
36:57and that's when i realized there's no point in asking questions this is a world that i don't
37:05understand i will never understand and that was it in the deepest darkest way i don't think there's
37:13a lot of people who truly know who this man was but what we know is that he has the kind of money
37:20that somebody who is tied to the kremlin has it didn't seem like he was hiding anything no one
37:28felt unsafe sure we heard the stories but none of that came into the lives that they were living
37:34every day were we naive probably eighty percent of our lives there we're just like waiting for
37:42somebody to tell us like where to go what time the car is picking us up we have no idea what's
37:47happening around us everybody is speaking russian and we don't speak it so you're there but you're
37:52really not and all we were really seeing was this part of shabtai this guy who just wants a really
37:59good basketball team this guy who's bringing his family we had no concept we couldn't really
38:04contextualize what was happening yair nosotros dos despertamos y dijimos miran el peligro que
38:10estaba nuestra hija con este hombre que podría haber estado en ese auto y la podrían haber matado
38:15también a ella y a la su porque estaban juntas pero doy gracias a dios que nuestra chica a nuestra hija
38:21que sóloальное desarrollo no le pasó nada porque podrían haber estado encerrada
38:23junto2 con él
38:27why
38:29Don
38:30cuando
38:31eres
38:32cuando
38:33los
38:36los
38:37el
38:49was really up in the air.
38:50Is the team going to continue?
38:59Ana really stepped into the plate, and she took over.
39:02And it was hard for her.
39:19I wanted to finish the season, I wanted to honor Shabtai,
39:24you know, I wanted to defend what we had built here.
39:45I mean, this is probably the warmest bit in a good six, seven months.
39:50Snow is finally gone, which is good, though.
39:54And nobody put on us, of course, but we all put a cross.
39:59We said, well, that's all.
40:00This story is over.
40:03We are going to the final of the four of the Euroleague.
40:08Euroleague.
40:09That's the Super Bowl of Europe.
40:11That's the Champions League.
40:12That's the WNBA title.
40:13You want to win Euroleague.
40:14Euroleague.
40:15You get to that top four.
40:18Some of the best basketball games I've ever been a part of.
40:20The semifinal game, it was Spartak and then a Kattenberg.
40:25It was the top 20 players in the world on two rosters.
40:29They had come with Cappy Pondexter, Candice Parker.
40:32The list goes on and on.
40:34E-Kat was our biggest rival.
40:39It was the classic Real Madrid versus Barcelona.
40:41The Liverpool versus Chelsea.
40:43But it felt like his funeral in the arena.
40:55We all wore high socks in honor of Shabtai.
40:58And we all stuck a card with his face on it in our socks.
41:01So he was, like, actually with us.
41:03We didn't say much that day.
41:06It was a very quiet, sad day.
41:12The stakes were super high.
41:14Emotions for us were high.
41:15It was a hard moment to play basketball.
41:25That E-Kat team was out for revenge.
41:30Those games against E-Kat were always tough.
41:36It was always 50-50.
41:37Whoever can play a little bit better would win that game.
41:43That game was hard as fuck because it was more physical.
41:47It was more physical.
41:54We played almost all the game.
41:56We played almost all the game.
41:57We played almost all the game.
41:58We played almost all the games.
41:59And we hit the siren.
42:02Candice Parker.
42:0536-36.
42:07Whenever something's going on in my life that's out of control,
42:13the basketball part usually is on fucking point.
42:17I felt like I was playing purely for Shepton.
42:33It really did feel like there was an angel on her.
42:37She was, like, stepping past half court and shooting,
42:39and it was going in, and everything was going in.
42:41I was just possessed.
42:49There was a purpose greater than herself, than being great,
42:54than helping a team win a trophy.
42:56I love it.
43:01As a player.
43:02As a player, as a daughter.
43:04There was no way we were going to lose that game.
43:06We beat Ekat in the semifinals.
43:21A couple days after that, we won the final game against Spain.
43:25Spartak, champion of the EuroLeague!
43:26You don't believe that you did it again.
43:27But it was like...
43:28I'm standing on the mirror and flying into the cosmos.
43:30You don't believe that you did it again.
43:31But it was like...
43:32I'm standing on the mirror and flying into the cosmos.
43:37That was such an amazing moment.
44:02That was the end of playing at Spartak.
44:08I wouldn't trade it for the world.
44:11It was just the best four years of my life.
44:14It felt like basketball was going to go in a different direction for me.
44:21It was time for me to move on.
44:28That was in the prime of my career.
44:34Life's going well.
44:36And all of a sudden, it's not.
44:38Tarazi tested positive for Modafinil.
44:41WNBA star Diana Karazi has been suspended by the Turkish Basketball Federation.
44:45I was getting accused of doping.
44:47This one was devastating.
44:48I've put in thousands of hours.
44:50Sacrificed my whole life to be called a cheater.
44:53That was the worst moment of my life.
44:57And that means no Olympics, no overseas.
45:02Done for four years.
45:03What am I going to do now?
45:05Is this the end of my career?
45:06Is this the end of my career?
45:07Is this the end of my career?
45:11the end of my career?
45:12Plus, it depends.
45:14This was a SA community.
45:16Well, next video.
45:17And then we'll see if we look more into εF the
Comments