Who are the top 5 leading scorers in WNBA history? Re-examining the list after Diana Taurasi breaks 10k barrier

Diana Taurasi has just accomplished what no one in WNBA history has ever done before. The Phoenix Mercury superstar breached the 10,000-point barrier and is putting more distance between herself and her closest pursuers.

Leading into tonight’s matchup against the Atlanta Dream, Taurasi was sitting at 9,982 points, just 18 shy of 10K. She cut the magic number to eight by halftime. In the third quarter, she finally put herself on a pedestal no one else has reached in the WNBA.

It will likely be a long time before anyone can be even within a mile away from the 2009 MVP. Among the top five all-time WNBA scorers, only Tina Charles is in the top five and she still has plenty of catching up to do.

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Here are the WNBA’s top five all-time point leaders:

#5 Candice Dupree

Candice Dupree played for five different teams in 15 years. She averaged 14.0 PPG on 49.5% shooting during her career. Her best scoring marks came during her stint with the Chicago Sky. She averaged 16.5 PPG in 2007 and 16.3 PPG in 2008.

Dupree’s final season in the league, which was in 2021, was the worst of her career. She played for the Seattle Storm and the Atlanta Dream before retiring, averaging 6.4 PPG.

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#4 Tina Charles

Tina Charles is the only active player on the list and possibly the only one capable of hitting at least 9K points in her career. Charles has played 391 games and piled up 7,115 points. She is a relentless and efficient scorer.

The former UConn superstar is averaging 18.2 points on 45.0% shooting, including 32.5% from deep, for her career. She averaged at least 20.0 PPG twice in her career. Charles had 23.4 PPG in 2021 for the Washington Mystics and 21.5 PPG in 2016 for the New York Liberty.

Charles would have to be consistently good over the next seven years or so to come within sight of Diana Taurasi’s incredible record.

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#3 Tamika Catchings

Tamika Catchings is third in the WNBA points leaderboard. The 10x All-Star has 7,380 points in 457 games. She averaged 15.5 points on 42.1% shooting, including 36% from distance.

The Indiana Fever icon never played for another team and was the 2011 WNBA MVP.

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#2 Tina Thompson

The legendary Tina Thompson was a four-time WNBA champ. Thompson’s scoring exploits were a big reason why the Houston Comets won all those titles.

Thompson finished her Hall of Fame career piling up 7,488 points in 496 games. The most she averaged in a season was in 2004 when she had 20.0 PPG on 40.2% shooting.

Tina Thompson hung up her jersey with a career average of 15.1 PPG, hitting 44.2% of her shots.

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#1 Diana Taurasi

The WNBA’s undisputed points leader is distancing herself from the rest of the pack. 10K points is almost surreal considering that Tina Thompson didn’t even breach the 8K mark.

Diana Taurasi hit her 10,000th point with a curl off the right side to hit a difficult fall-away 3-pointer. No one has been as consistently good as her in getting buckets, and she has been doing it for nearly two decades now.

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