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00:03Mommy, 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.
00:15Oh.
00:16So it's Mama's first game.
00:17So that makes sense.
00:19Yeah.
00:20Everyone gets so confused.
00:23I have two moms.
00:25Aren't you lucky?
00:27Mama's a little bit more famous than Penny, right?
00:32Oh, well.
00:36Where is it?
00:39There you go. There's your picture.
00:41You want to put it on?
00:43There you go.
00:44Very proud of that.
00:46Literally everyone here knows my name.
00:49My Mama works here.
00:51So they know me.
00:59And it goes.
01:01Sixteen.
01:15I had worked so hard to become the best player in the world.
01:19Diana Taurasi.
01:20Diana Taurasi.
01:21Diana Taurasi.
01:24There 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.
01:34That 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.
01:40I had no control.
01:42All those good things go away.
01:56Look, 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.
02:22I 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.
02:39And you couldn't say no to it.
02:40Diana maxed out at about 16 to 18x.
02:43Not included bonuses of her WNBA salary going overseas.
02:47And I remember us having different conversations about it being sort of financially irresponsible
02:52not to take the deal.
02:54The overseas market during this time period,
02:57if 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.
03:07A lot of WNBA players could go make money and get that lifestyle of a professional athlete
03:12that 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.
03:21Well, to be honest, I hated it. I hated everything about it.
03:25Yeah.
03:26It was an interesting year.
03:29It was an interesting year.
03:32They coached different.
03:34Having a Russian coach, they didn't speak the language.
03:37His name was Anus, funny enough.
03:40And he lived up to it.
03:43If you could make up the silliest drills in any sport that made no sense,
03:49he 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.
03:57There's always this point when you're overseas where you've just been there for a long time.
04:01The 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 Mack, cheers.
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.
04:27And she was thinking in those terms, in what it meant to make sacrifices.
04:33My 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,
04:43and good night before we go to bed.
04:44And I'd always have her flight on my phone,
04:47making sure her jet got to wherever they were flying.
04:53All the time.
04:54Because she, when it rains, it rains, it rains, storms, whatever.
04:59Every day she talks to her mother.
05:01I don't know how to talk much.
05:04Here's the house, mami.
05:06Here we are on the side.
05:08There's a lot of snow.
05:09Now I'm going to practice.
05:11Here we are.
05:13Diana, to communicate what's good, what's nice and what's bad.
05:26That season ended, and I say, I will never play here again,
05:29no matter how much they pay me.
05:31What 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,
05:37I'll get some nice for my parents and the people around me
05:39who've helped me a lot.
05:41But as far as getting stuff for myself, you know,
05:43I'm pretty plain, so nothing big.
05:48After my first year in Russia with Dynamo,
05:50I'm on the phone with my agent.
05:52I'm like, I'm never playing here again.
05:54And then all of a sudden, through a friend of a friend,
05:59they say, Shaptai would like to meet with you.
06:05You always heard about Shaptai.
06:07There was always this mythical unicorn out there
06:10in 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.
06:19Yeah.
06:20Shaptai owned Spartak, which is another team.
06:23He was 5'8", stocky, with the biggest curly mullet you'd ever see.
06:32It 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.
06:55Beautiful Mercedes with a driver.
06:57And you're just like, oh, okay, this is cool.
07:00We're basically going to the Kremlin.
07:02So 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,
07:11and we're either going to end up kidnapped or on top of the world.
07:16They'll send double doors open.
07:19Shaptai 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.
07:30His office was essentially a museum,
07:32whether 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
07:52and the different ways in which he can throw his weight around
07:54and the money that he's going to be able to pay us.
07:57He goes, I will show you a side of Moscow
07:59that you will love and never want to leave.
08:01And I was like, well, that sounds pretty good.
08:04You know, and then we got into numbers.
08:06And 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
08:31and really why he fell in love with basketball.
08:33We met him in Yekaterinburg.
08:35He began to talk to me in his usual manner.
08:39He didn't like it.
08:41He didn't like it.
08:42He changed my tactics.
08:43And gradually, gradually, he became my friend.
08:49When a person started to get closer to you,
08:52there were completely different human qualities.
08:57He was surrounded by such a passion, such a pride.
09:02And after three months, I was lost.
09:09The goal of Shabtai at that moment was that
09:13he raised the level of Russian basketball players
09:16to the highest level.
09:19It doesn't matter what nationality you were in sport,
09:23you were great.
09:25That is, he, the basketball players,
09:28took him to such a pedestal,
09:30that we couldn't be able to respond.
09:33Shabtai's mission was to build this sort of global
09:37women's basketball enterprise
09:39as this collector of beautiful, interesting things.
09:43That's how he saw women's basketball.
09:44He became a collector of stars.
09:48Now we're not going to be used here.
09:51There is a greater charge for the team of national basketball.
10:02You are an incredibly oversprained performer.
10:07You are an incredibly improve размCl YouTuber.
10:07I will be here everyone whoậy is
10:10this city of Vienna and the European basketball.
10:16Shabtai, he always wants to put on a show.
10:19A show for the people.
10:39He's like, I view you guys as performers.
10:41Like the same way an actor and actress on Broadway.
10:43They have to like show up when the lights are on.
10:45In 2007, he brought all the stars.
10:48So there was a large collection of this just amazing talent.
10:51And that was always his recipe.
10:53I'll get the best players and we'll work it out somehow.
11:02We end up winning our first EuroLeague title.
11:12EuroLeague is about how much money can we pay these players to bring them in.
11:16If you win EuroLeague, it's 50,000.
11:18If EuroLeague MVP, it's 25,000.
11:20If 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.
11:28If you've been to Russia, if you think we have nice things,
11:31their nice things are even nicer.
11:34Shabtai always wanted the best of the best.
11:36Not only did he want the best players, best coaches,
11:39he wanted you to eat the best food, best hotels, best watches.
11:43He commissioned Louis Vuitton balls. Who does that?
11:45And we're like, we better fucking win.
11:48He had this sense of pride of, I'm going to take care of my team.
11:52He saw our value.
11:53That's what made all of us really hold on to Russia in a different way.
11:58It just felt like we had the world at our fingertips.
12:01So 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
12:21and finding those winning ways again was really important.
12:25I was, in a lot of ways, the face of the league.
12:28Taurasi for the single season score.
12:41It 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,
12:50this is a Diana that is hitting on all cylinders.
12:53Making shots, you just can't believe somebody can make her.
12:57That was a deep three.
12:59And she has that Cali swagger.
13:03Oh, Diana Taurasi.
13:05The way she moves on the basketball court
13:07is what separates her from a lot of players.
13:10She has been the star.
13:13That is Diana Taurasi.
13:14In 2007, the Phoenix Mercury is rising to the top of the WNBA.
13:19They were the team.
13:21For the first time in their history, the Phoenix Mercury on a chance for the WNBA.
13:27We ended up winning a championship in 07.
13:30There's no way we should have won that first one.
13:33We were just kids.
13:34But Diana just makes it work.
13:36She is so good at valuing people and making them feel a part of something special.
13:43When 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.
13:53I just loved how she played.
13:59How 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.
14:22All I knew was that Diana Taurasi had a great college career.
14:26I'd never watched a minute of it.
14:28I didn't even know what she looked like.
14:30This just, like, bounding ball of light comes running into the court.
14:35And, like, just shocked me.
14:36How can someone have that much energy, you know?
14:39Wowzer, I think Wowzer will work.
14:41Let me hear it.
14:42Let me hear it, Penny.
14:44Let me hear it, Wowzer.
14:45At first, we were just friends.
14:47Wowzer!
14:48Wowzer!
14:49We were playing year-round.
14:51That was our whole lives.
14:53Travelling for basketball.
14:55And 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!
15:05All in!
15:06She told me her feelings.
15:09Yeah, I initiated.
15:13Yeah.
15:14She doesn't let down her guard very often.
15:17And so when she opened up to me like that and let me in a little bit, it was, like,
15:23a really huge step.
15:25It was obviously a mutual feeling.
15:28Record-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, is he the Eva Longoria of the WNBA?
15:42I'd never not been loyal to someone.
15:46It wasn't, like, a great moment for me.
15:51I'm not the type of person who can lie, can'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.
16:07Diana and I found in each other something that we loved.
16:11And we got married.
16:14Since then, it's just been us.
16:16Looking back, I probably always loved Diana.
16:21Like, when we die, they'll have this, like, 30 years from now, like, oh, look how young.
16:26Look at Penny.
16:28You're a skinny ruler.
16:29And then trying to make that work when she's in Russia and I'm in Turkey.
16:34Diana would jump on a flight, fly to Istanbul, spend, like, not even 24 hours and then jump on a
16:42flight back.
16:43I couldn't go to Russia because you had to get a visa to go.
16:47So it really was dependent on her.
16:50Warning.
16:54That's such a sacrifice, right?
16:56Like, you get one day off, if that, a week.
16:58And she was doing that every week.
17:01Seeing her do that confirmed that we had strong feelings for each other.
17:09One time, we played a Russian league game on Saturday.
17:13The next day, we were leaving to go to Paris.
17:15And Chef Tite goes, what are we going to do in Paris tomorrow?
17:17I was like, I don't know, we'll probably go shopping a little bit.
17:19So he comes over, he hands me 15,000 euros.
17:23And I'm like, okay, what do I, so, you know, put it in my bag.
17:27And after dinner, we'd always go out a little bit, you know, enjoy the night.
17:33So we're hanging out.
17:35It's 3 in the morning.
17:35All right, let's get out of here.
17:37I go, I look into my bag, and the 15,000-year-olds are gone.
17:40We're in the bathroom, we're in the cushions.
17:42We're all over the club trying to look for the money.
17:44It was gone.
17:47So the next morning, Chef Tite comes to the airport as we're leaving.
17:50And I'm like, Shabs, I lost the money last night.
17:52He goes, you what?
17:54I was like, I lost the money last night.
17:56He gets his suitcase, opens it, another 15,000-year-old.
18:00And he says, enjoy Paris.
18:02And I'm just like, okay.
18:05Off to Paris.
18:09Diana came and she always came with money.
18:11Wow, how much money?
18:13Imagine.
18:15What's the name, Shampai?
18:17I can't say the name right.
18:19She says, we're playing well, Mom.
18:21She always gives us money.
18:30But we didn't know what the man really did.
18:34There was always rumors, and there was always stories.
18:37The rumors we heard were more so just like, oh, Chef Tite, he's got his hands in a lot of
18:42different pots.
18:43He might be affiliated with this, or he might be doing that, but like, 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 anger.
19:08You see, I'm not angry.
19:09I do not have relations.
19:11And 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.
19:28I 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.
19:40Diana Taurasi is going to make you pay.
19:44Taurasi to beat the buzzer?
19:45Yes!
19:46I'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.
20:10She had the all-time WNBA records for total points and scoring average.
20:15She also became the only player in league history to score 500 or more points in each of her first
20:21six seasons.
20:22WNBA MVP award to the Phoenix Mercury's, Diana Taurasi.
20:30I think that's when I really started having these feelings of, well, this is confusing to me.
20:35I'm the best player in the world and I have to go to a communist country to get paid like
20:40a capitalist.
20:41Playing in Europe during the WNBA's off season, 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
20:52big 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
21:04against the best competition in the world.
21:06The fucking janitor at the arena made more than me.
21:08It was a hard time. It 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.
21:38The league was constantly in survival mode as owners of teams consistently questioned whether their investment on a day to
21:47day 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.
22:04And she goes to Russia and here is this team that is sparing no expense making sure that any need
22:11that you had was taken care of.
22:13In 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 courses.
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.
22:32Dee is pretty simple.
22:34I'm gonna play.
22:35I'm gonna ball the fuck out.
22:36And I'm gonna 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.
22:50WNBA, I'm there and I'm rebounding for her.
22:53She has bruises all up and down her leg and all on her arms.
22:57But the thing about Diana is because she's such a physical player, teams just started beating her up.
23:02Tarazi takes it right in on White, gets fouled again.
23:05It was like watching wrestling practically on Diana.
23:10One season of Dee 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?
23:21Every time you play, it's a risk you're gonna 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.
23:31Oh, I push her so I can line back.
23:34I remember one time they bring a check to her because she had so many technicals and they would fine
23:39her for everything.
23:40She's fired up and she gets a technical foul.
23:42She's gonna 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.
23:55She just needed to be herself, even if that meant a kind of swagger that women's basketball hadn't seen.
24:02And that caused friction.
24:04She does not hear, but why even contest?
24:06Diana, very demonstrative.
24:10You're making all this money overseas, why 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.
24:20It was a sense of you're doing this for the greater good of women's basketball and the next generation and
24:26the next generation,
24:27which 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.
24:35We didn't complain about everything, which I wish I would have complained more.
24:40At that time, they really didn't care what we have to say.
24:42There weren't any outlets where you can voice your opinion on how to be treated as an athlete.
24:48Nor did we really know.
24:50There was more of an attitude, you're lucky to even have a lead.
24:54Get, get, get it!
24:56Oh baby!
25:02Yeah, I drank a lot that summer.
25:04And 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.
25:11And 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.
25:22And 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, we'll go home, it'll be fine.
25:35Make a left.
25:39I get pulled over.
25:40I'm like, I'm screwed.
25:42I knew already.
25:46Getting put in the back of a police car, you're just like, oh man, this is really happening to me
25:50right now.
25:51I got the call at 2am that Diana was walking the line and had been pulled over.
25:56And that was a scary moment.
25:57It was something that was going to impact basketball.
26:03I 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
26:21very serious.
26:22And it was embarrassing for me and for my family.
26:25She called me and said, mami, I'm trapped.
26:28Imagine, I almost died when she told me that was a bad moment.
26:33This 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.
26:44A stellar reputation tarnished.
26:46Extreme 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
27:02very 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.
27:11This was a really bad choice.
27:14The league suspended me for three games.
27:16It was a low in my life.
27:21Trying 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 and you just knew when she walked into the gym, something was different.
27:41Penny was smart.
27:44Penny 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.
28:08Like she just doesn't think like that.
28:10But I know that when she comes home, she can switch off.
28:13She can just totally relax and be in a family environment.
28:17And hopefully we are something completely different than what she's going out into the world and facing every day.
28:26Diana, you talked about up and down.
28:28Was there any point at which you felt like you were in danger of losing your focus?
28:31Well, 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.
28:48That's always been my safe space.
28:54You 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.
29:14The Phoenix Mercury are the 2009 WNBA champions.
29:19Their second title in three years.
29:22They sit atop the WNBA mountain.
29:29To be able to get out of that and win a championship and be the MVP of the league and
29:34the finals.
29:36There was something just so gratifying about that.
29:39I felt like I'm back where I want to be.
29:41So long, so hard.
29:45So long, so hard.
29:49That was always the bittersweet moment.
29:52We win a championship.
29:53Let's celebrate.
29:56Let's take it all in.
29:58Three days later, I'm in Russia.
30:09One thing about Shavs, he always knew when you needed time.
30:12He 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.
30:23I said, cool.
30:25I get to Moscow and Shavs says, we're going to go to Israel.
30:29So we get on the plane and we go to Tel Aviv for four days.
30:31And 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 because everything ends up being a transaction.
30:45You play, I pay.
30:46But he made it different.
30:50He brought us into his family.
30:53I love you, as 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.
31:22November 2nd, one of our good friends, it was her birthday.
31:25It was a Beyoncé concert that night.
31:27And Shavta 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.
31:36The 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.
31:44Which is already strange.
31:48Because usually we sit in his office.
31:50His doors were closed.
31:52So we're waiting around.
31:55And one of our teammates come over and she says,
32:01Shavta has just been murdered.
32:03We're just, I mean, we're kind of in shock.
32:08When I heard it, I was just like, there's no way he got murdered.
32:11Like, we're waiting for him to go to the concert.
32:14I just went on vacation with him.
32:16We just got back.
32:21And then, you know, we got confirmation he was murdered.
32:39And then, you know, it was a guy that always wanted to be.
32:46I was looking for him to see where I had.
32:49And so he learned to see where he was murdered.
32:52And then, you know, we were told to see where he was murdered.
32:55It's hard to remember about this.
33:04I was very worried about it.
33:08I always had a very small amount of time.
33:14I said,
33:15Petya, we have 20 minutes to drive.
33:22There was a lot of flow.
33:25The cars were standing there,
33:27they were waiting for them.
33:28I went ahead and went ahead.
33:31There was a lot of attention to the first to start moving.
33:36With the right side, with the right side,
33:38I saw that there was another car.
33:43And at that moment, there was an assault.
33:52There was an assault.
33:57When I saw that Shabtai
33:59didn't give any signs of life,
34:01about 18 bullets in him,
34:04in a shock state,
34:07I decided to try to kill them.
34:16I, of course,
34:18I caught them.
34:19He had two bullets in his way.
34:22We went to the street
34:24and between the cars.
34:28The speed was about 120-140,
34:31maybe 150 km per hour.
34:34I managed to get the control,
34:35and left.
34:36So...
34:54I felt like I had to see him one last time.
34:58Sasha, my driver,
34:59he goes,
35:00do you want to drive by?
35:01And I'm like,
35:03yeah.
35:06His car is up on the curb,
35:07and I can see his body out of the car.
35:12I don't know how many times we were in that car.
35:14Hundreds of times.
35:16And it was just, I mean,
35:18I don't know.
35:19When you're in shock,
35:19you don't even know what to think.
35:21You don't even know if it's real.
35:21You don't know what the future looks like.
35:24You don't even know if you're next.
35:34We took that 35-minute drive,
35:36and we both just literally cried
35:38all the way till we got to our house.
35:43His funeral took place in our gym,
35:46which we had so many amazing moments together in.
35:51But you were in pain.
35:53It was just as if you want to get the body out of the body.
35:57You used to burn the body out of the body.
35:58He was for my streets
36:00and a friend,
36:02a friend,
36:03a friend,
36:04a friend,
36:05a student,
36:05and a woman.
36:08I could sleep at night,
36:10so I wanted to get to my siblings
36:12and I was confident that
36:13they'll see us as soon as they are too.
36:20it'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 gonna start asking questions when I asked
36:47one of my Russian teammates and I'm like who do you think killed him and she goes oh Diana the
36:54person who killed him is probably in here right now and that's when I realized there's no point
37:01in asking questions this is a world that I don't understand I will never understand and that was it
37:09in the deepest darkest way I don't think there's a lot of people who truly know who this man was
37:17but what we know is that he has the kind of money that somebody who is tied to the Kremlin
37:23has it
37:25didn't seem like he was hiding anything no one felt unsafe sure we heard the stories but none of that
37:31came into the lives that they were living every day were we naive probably 80 of our lives there
37:40we're just like waiting for somebody to tell us like where to go what time the cars picking us up
37:45we
37:45have no idea what's happening around us everybody is speaking Russian and we don't speak it so you're
37:51there but you're really not and all we were really seeing was this part of Shabtai this guy who just
37:58wants a really good basketball team this guy who's bringing his family we had no concept we
38:03couldn't really contextualize what was happening yeah he also does that tamo yidigimo miran el peligro
38:10que estaba nuestra hija con este hombre que podría haber estado en ese auto y la podrían haber matado
38:15también a ella y a la azul porque estaban juntas pero doy gracias a dio que nuestra chica nuestra hija
38:21y a la
38:21azul no le pasó nada porque podría haber estado enterrada junta con él cuando ya закончили
38:31похороны приехали как бы наши кураторы по баскетболу от правительства московской области тебе
38:40надо взять команду и всю вашу эту структуру и встать во главе в руководство
38:48everything was really up in the air is the team going to continue
38:55and i really stepped into the play and she took over and it was hard for her
39:03когда я приняла руководство я не понимала насколько будет сохранено
39:08финансирование потому что shabtai очень сильные финансово участвовал во всем у нас
39:14образовалась огромная финансовая дыра и были задержки по зарплате очень серьезные
39:20i wanted to finish the season i want to honor shabtai you know i wanted to defend what we built
39:26here
39:28the diana national общем собрании поднялась я готова играть за бесплатно до конца сезона
39:36это слова настоящего лидера за которым пошла команда у нас до конца сезона не ушел ни один игрок
39:44i mean this is probably the warm it's been in a good six seven months snow finally gone which is
39:51good
39:51though
39:53и на нас конечно никто уже не ставил она все поставили крест нам сказали ну все эта история
40:01закончилась мы выходим финал четырех евролиги
40:08евро league that's the super bowl of europe that's the champions league that's the wmba title you want
40:13to win euro league you're a league you get to that top four some of the best basketball games i've
40:19ever
40:19been a part of the semi-final game it was spartek and then a kattenberg it was the top 20
40:26players in
40:26the world on two rosters they had come with kappy pondexter candace parker the list goes on and on
40:33ekat was our biggest rival it was the classic real madrid versus barcelona the liverpool versus chelsea
40:48but it felt like his funeral in the arena
40:55we all wore high socks in honor of shabtai and we all stuck a card with his face on it
41:01in our socks
41:01so he was like actually with us we didn't say much that day it was a very quiet sad day
41:12the stakes were super high emotions for us were high
41:23it was a hard moment to play basketball
41:29that ekat team was out for revenge
41:34those games against ekat were always tough it was always 50 50 whoever can play a little bit better
41:39would win that game
41:44that game was hard as because it was more physical
41:51and again the francis
41:53we played almost all the game
41:56one of the games
41:57one of the games
41:59one of the games
42:02kandace parker
42:0436 36
42:06whenever
42:08something is going on in my life that's out of control
42:12the basketball part usually is on point
42:22i felt like i was playing purely for shabton
42:32it really did feel like there was an angel on her
42:37she was like stepping past half court and shooting and it was going in and everything was going in
42:46i was just possessed
42:49there was a purpose greater than herself than being great than helping a team win a trophy
42:57leader
42:57i love it as a player as a player as a daughter
43:05there was no way we're going to lose that game
43:20we beat ekat in the semi-finals a couple days after that we won the final game against spain
43:27sport
43:27champion
43:28евролиги
43:34you don't believe that you did it again
43:37but it was like
43:38what I am now
43:40I am on a mirror and I will be in the cosmos
43:43I have never seen such a success
43:45ever since the players
43:47I was able to
43:49close
43:51all financial obligations
44:00That was such an amazing moment.
44:04That was the end of playing at Spartak.
44:09I wouldn't trade it for the world.
44:11It was just the best four years of my life.
44:18It felt like basketball was going to go in a different direction for me.
44:26It was time for me to move on.
44:31I was in the prime of my career.
44:34Life's going well, and all of a sudden it's not.
44:39Tarazi 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, sacrificed my whole life to be called a cheater.
44:56That was the worst moment of my life.
44:58And that means no Olympics, no overseas, done for four years.
45:04What am I going to do now?
45:05Is this the end of my career?
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