巴黎——Van·Chancellor知道他想让桃乐西加入2004年雅典奥运会代表队。她年轻、熟练、自信、鲁莽。他期望她在未来几年成为美国篮球界的核心人物，但他也知道，她仍然能够为入选他的球队的超级明星们做出贡献——“梦想前进”的成员们曾在1996年亚特兰大奥运会上重新获得女子篮球的金牌，从而重新成为世界女子篮球的中心。
那年，在桃乐西加入美国队的第一天，就在她帮助康涅狄格大学击败田纳西大学夺得全国冠军后的第二天早上，她在公交车上坐在Chancellor旁边，问了他一个非常直截了当的问题:教练，你需要我做什么?
“我需要你表现得像个菜鸟，”他对她说。
“教练，”她说，“如果你只需要这个，我已经准备好了。我已经准备好帮助这支球队了。”
那是20年前的戴安娜。四天前，在美国队连续33次为奥运会首发之后，教练谢丽尔·里夫(Cheryl Reeve)在美国队与尼日利亚队的四分之一决赛中将她换到了替补席上，让26岁的杰基·杨(Jackie Young)上场，她是名单上第二年轻的球员。当球队打破拥挤的人群时，桃乐西跳回板凳席，就好像这是球的位置一样。她坐了下来，搓了搓双手，锁住了房门。
在那场比赛中，球队需要她做什么?要做到这一点。做最好的领导者和队友，传递一点火炬，在路上点燃其他人的火焰。
本周日，桃乐西将参加她的最后一场奥运会篮球比赛。很难想象一个没有金牛座的美国篮球世界。在该项目取得的60连胜中，她参与了43场。
“她定义了美国篮球，”里夫说。“我不知道还有比她更强的竞争对手。在这方面，Dee是拉什莫尔山。”
球队在2021年东京奥运会上获得金牌后，当时39岁的桃乐西盯着NBC的摄像机，在赛后采访结束时大喊:“巴黎见!说完就走开了。苏·伯德也参加了采访，她回头看了看镜头，笑着说:“她说了她说的话。”
虽然许多人认为她是在开玩笑，但她不是。她说了她该说的话。然后，她做到了。她来到巴黎，带领这个团队。先是首发，然后是替补。
在对阵尼日利亚的比赛中，她没有在上半场上场，而是第一个从座位上跳起来的人，队友们打得很好，当她们坐到替补席上时，她指导她们。
在半决赛战胜澳大利亚后，里夫说，当这一切都结束时，她可以更真实地谈论带着连续八枚金牌的负担和对这个项目的期望。她没有睡多少觉，而是在录像室里辛勤工作，想象着篮球对有史以来最伟大的阵容之一的不公平。她说，她收到了道恩·斯特利(Dawn Staley)发来的一条信息，斯特利曾在东京率领中国女排获得了连续第七枚金牌，其中写道:“我对你无话可说。我知道你的感受。你只需要经历
它。”
你想让我怎么样，教练?你可以想象桃乐西说。
作为竞争激烈的金牛座，坐在替补席上，在某种程度上说明了这支球队无私的本质。在这个里夫像阿特拉斯一样无处不在的世界里，尽可能保持稳定。做一个里夫看着板凳上的时候不用担心的人。因为他们有迪。她什么都见过。没有什么能使她不安。
好吧，这是桃乐西的回答，如果你只需要这个，我准备好了。我已经准备好帮助这支球队了。
这是她第六次也是最后一次参加奥运会(这是事实——她在奥运会前对伦敦的记者打趣说，他们会在洛杉矶看到她……“在海滩上喝啤酒”)，她被列入这个名单受到了键盘喷子的争论，而他们甚至说不出三个队员的名字。
但就像她在2004年一样，她在2024年——她在这里帮助这支球队。现在看起来和十年前、二十年前不一样了，但她还是那个戴安娜。尽管如此，42岁的她仍然带领着警卫和侧翼队员进行每一次训练。
她是第一个站起来鼓掌的人。首先和队友击掌。首先将球员拉入小组，并在这些小组中第一个发言。
如果这听起来老套又不重要，那也许是因为这支球队所承受的压力完全是他们自己的。其他团队不需要Dee，因为其他团队没有在这个独特的完美空间中运作。
也许没有什么比世界上最好的两名球员——A 'ja Wilson和Breanna Stewart——把自己的空间、说话时间和“第一”的能力让给别人更好的代言了。
“我最喜欢DT的一点是她不会改变，”威尔逊说。“她做什么事情总是那么一致——这是她伟大的标志。”
金牛座的伟大在本届奥运会上得到了展示。无论是大事还是小事。在于她如何处理自己。她对自己角色的理解，以及角色是如何变化的。她不仅在这六场比赛中，而且在最后的43场比赛中保持了不变。
“想想看——20年，而不是20届奥运会，”前美国国家队教练、桃乐西在康涅狄格大学的大学教练吉诺·奥里玛说。“奉献和激情，对比赛的热爱——所有这些本身都将是不朽的。但再加上20年来，她是球队的形象，是最好的球员，最好的队友，也是篮球史上最伟大的赢家。”
有了这样的承诺，时代就成熟了。几年来，桃乐西一直在努力用一种不同的、更专注的方式来照顾自己的身体——吃素，在练习前和练习后做更长时间的伸展运动，以及比练习本身更长的治疗方案。她为了继续比赛做出了牺牲，为了继续留在这里，不仅为了她自己，也为了她的队友。
周日，她将在奥运会上最后一次穿上美国12号球衣。以前没有运动员能做到她所做到的，而且很难想象这种情况会再次发生。她将近一半的时间都在国际舞台上代表美国。但在桃乐西到来之前，很难想象60连胜或8连金。现在，美国队正处在这样的悬崖上。
她的传奇被巩固了，而且一直是，但在她的最后一届奥运会上，她向队友和下一代球员展示了什么是可能的。斯图尔特称她为美国篮球的“黄金标准”，她就是这样。这不仅仅是因为她已经获得了五枚金牌。
她的每一位奥运教练都要求她为自己的球队做一些不同的事情——做一名新秀，做一名得分手，做一名优秀的传球手，做一名领袖，做一名老将，从替补席上出场，更多地运用你的声音而不是你的传球技巧。简而言之：做自己。
“我来这里是为了竞争。我来这里是为了打出高水平的比赛。我来这里是为了回报我的队友，我来这里是为了赢得一枚金牌——仅此而已。我不关心过去的20年。我担心的是未来20年。”
接下来的20年，美国队将会得到很好的安排。桃乐西已经确保了这一点。问问杨就知道了。或威尔逊。或者是Kahleah Copper。或者Sabrina Ionescu。
四年后，当这群人在洛杉矶争夺金牌时，希望她会在某个地方的海滩上，喝着冰镇啤酒。这是她应得的。
英文原文：
PARIS — Van Chancellor knew he wanted Diana Taurasi on the 2004 Olympic team in Athens. She was young, skilled, confident, brash. He expected she would be a centerpiece of American basketball in the years to come, but he also knew that she would still be able to contribute on the squad of superstars that had been selected for his team — “Dream On” members who had helped re-center the world of women’s basketball by retaking the gold in 1996 in Atlanta.
On Taurasi’s first day with Team USA that year, just the morning after she had helped UConn to a national title over Tennessee, she sat down on the bus next to Chancellor and asked him a very straightforward question: What do you need out of me, Coach?
“I need for you to act like a rookie,” he told her.
“Coach Chancellor,” she said, “if that’s all you need, I’m ready to roll. I’m ready to help this team.”
That was Diana 20 years ago. It was her four days ago, too, when after 33 consecutive Olympic starts for Team USA, coach Cheryl Reeve moved her to the bench in their quarterfinal game against Nigeria in favor of 26-year-old Jackie Young, the second-youngest player on the roster. When the team broke the huddle, Taurasi bounded back to the bench as if it were where the ball would be tipped. She sat down, rubbed her hands together and locked in.
What did the team need from her in that game? To do exactly that. Be the best leader and teammate, to pass the torch a bit and light everyone else’s fires on the way.
On Sunday, Taurasi will play in her final Olympic basketball game. It’s hard to imagine a USA Basketball world in which Taurasi doesn’t play a part. Of the 60-consecutive wins the program has had, she has been a part of 43.
“She has defined USA Basketball,” Reeve said. “I don’t know that there’s a greater competitor. … Dee is Mount Rushmore in that way.”
After the team won gold in 2021 in Tokyo, Taurasi, then 39, surprised everyone when she stared into the NBC camera and ended her postgame interview by yelling, “See you in Paris!” before she walked off. Sue Bird, who had been in on the interview, too, looked back at the camera with a laugh and remarked, “She said what she said.”
While many assumed the statement was in jest, she did not. She said what she said. And then, she did it. She came to Paris and led this team. First from the starting lineup, and then from the end of the bench.
Against Nigeria, she didn’t enter the game in the first half, and instead was the first to jump out of her seat with good plays from her teammates and coached people up when they came to the bench.
After the semifinal win over Australia, Reeve said that when this is all over, she could speak more truthfully about the burden of carrying the legacy of eight straight gold medals and the expectations of this program. She hasn’t slept much and instead has toiled in the film room imagining all the ways basketball could be unfair to one of the greatest rosters ever assembled. She said she received a message from Dawn Staley, who coached the team in Tokyo to its seventh consecutive gold medal, that read: “There’s nothing I can say to you. I know what you’re feeling. You just have to go through it.”
What do you need out of me, Coach? You can imagine Taurasi saying.
To take a benching, as competitive Taurasi is, in a way speaks to the unselfish nature of this team. To be as steady as possible in a world where Reeve must feel like Atlas at every corner. To be someone who Reeve doesn’t have to worry about when she looks down the bench. Because they have Dee. She has seen everything. Nothing rattles her.
OK, would be Taurasi’s response, if that’s all you need, I’m ready to roll. I’m ready to help this team.
In her sixth and final Olympics (that part is fact — she quipped to reporters in London ahead of the Olympics that they would see her in Los Angeles … “on the beach with a beer”), her inclusion in this roster has been argued by keyboard jockeys who couldn’t name three players on the team.
But as she was in 2004, she is in 2024 — she’s here to help this team. It looks different now than it did a decade ago, two decades ago, but it’s the same Diana. Still, at 42, she leads the guards and wings through every drill. She’s the first to stand up and clap from the bench. First to high-five teammates. First to pull players into the huddle, and first in those huddles to speak.
If that sounds cliché and unimportant, then perhaps it’s because the pressure this team exists underneath is entirely its own. Other teams don’t need a Dee because other teams don’t operate in this unique space of perfection.
Perhaps there’s no better endorsement of Taurasi than the fact that the two best players in the world — A’ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart — cede their space, their speaking time, their ability to “be first” to someone else.
“The biggest thing that I love about DT is that she does not change,” Wilson said. “She is always so consistent in what she does — that is a sign of greatness.”
Taurasi’s greatness has been on display through these Games. In moments big and small. In how she has handled herself. In her graciousness in understanding her role, and how it has changed. In how she has remained constant in who she is not just in these six games, but in her last 43.
“Think about that — two decades not two Olympics,” said Geno Auriemma, former U.S. national team coach and Taurasi’s college coach at UConn. “The commitment and passion, the love of the game — all these in and of itself would be monumental. But add in that for two decades she was the face of the team, the best player, best teammate and the greatest winner in the history of the game.”
With that commitment and that time has come age. For several years now, Taurasi has made efforts to take care of her body in a different, more focused, way — went vegan, did lengthier pre- and post-practice stretching and treatment regimens longer than the practice itself. She has sacrificed to continue to play, to continue to be here for not just herself but her teammates.
On Sunday, Taurasi will put on her No. 12 USA jersey one final time in an Olympic setting. No athlete has done what she has done before, and it’s hard to imagine it happening again. Nearly half of her life has been spent representing the U.S. on an international stage. But before Taurasi came around, it was hard to imagine 60-straight wins or eight-straight gold medals. Now, Team USA is on the precipice of just that.
Her legacy is cemented, and has been, but in these final Games for her, she has shown what’s possible to both her teammates and the next generation of players. Stewart calls her the “gold standard” of USA Basketball, and she’s just that. And not just because she already has five gold medals to her name.
Every Olympic coach she has had has asked her to do something different for her team — be a rookie, be a scorer, be an elite passer, be a leader, be a veteran, come off the bench, use your voice more than your passing skills. In short: Be Dee.
“I’m here to compete. I’m here to play at a high level. I’m here to give to my teammates and I’m here to win a gold medal — that’s it,” Taurasi said when she arrived in Paris. “I don’t care about the last 20 years. I’m worried about the next 20 years.”
The next 20 years of Team USA are in good hands. Taurasi has made sure of it. Just ask Young. Or Wilson. Or Kahleah Copper. Or Sabrina Ionescu.
And four years from now, when this group is going for a gold medal in Los Angeles, she’ll hopefully be on a beach somewhere, drinking a cold one. She has more than earned it.