Maya Moore walked away from basketball in the prime of her career as arguably the best women\u2019s player in the world. She\u2019d won two college national championships at the University of Connecticut, four WNBA titles with the Minnesota Lynx, two Olympic gold medals, and both a regular-season and WNBA Finals MVP award. When she left the league in 2019 after just eight seasons to focus on social-justice activism\u2014which included working to overturn the conviction of an inmate whom she would then marry\u2014fans wondered how much more damage she would have done to the record books if she had continued to play. Would she now be considered the greatest women\u2019s player of all time?<\/p>\n
When I interviewed her two weeks ago, ahead of her induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Moore ruminated over a different \u201cwhat if\u201d\u2014one that she had never considered and that occurred to her mid-thought, as she was reflecting on her brilliant career. Would Moore still be playing if she\u2019d been able to make more money in the WNBA?<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we were getting paid more of our fair value while I was still playing,\u201d Moore said, before her voice trailed off. She paused. \u201cI\u2019m not a big what-if person, but it\u2019s actually a really intriguing what-if question.\u201d<\/p>\n
The prospect should be embarrassing for the WNBA. Over the course of her career, Moore made $646,000 in salary. (For comparison, the minimum one-year NBA salary during her final season was just shy of $900,000.) Under her final contract, signed when she was the women\u2019s equivalent of Lebron James, her salary was just $117,000. During the offseason, like many WNBA players, she played overseas\u2014in her case, in Spain, China, and Russia\u2014to supplement her income. Playing internationally, Moore was making more each year than the value of her entire WNBA career.<\/p>\n