Diana Taurasi thinks women coaching men’s basketball is on the horizon, but she’d ‘rather just be on a beach’

• Diana Taurasi thinks we'll see women coaching men's basketball soon.
• But the WNBA legend has no interest in coaching herself, as she'd "rather just be on a beach."
• Taurasi is interested in ownership, but she'll leave coaching to WNBA alums such as Becky Hammon.
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Diana Taurasi thinks that women head coaches in the NBA and men's basketball are on the horizon.

But don't expect the WNBA's all-time leading scorer and unofficial greatest of all time to be in the mix of coaching contenders.

"Uh, no," Taurasi told Insider when asked if she'd ever considered a future in coaching on the men's side. "I'd rather just be on a beach."

She'll leave the history-making, boundary-breaking, and glass-ceiling-shattering to some of her former WNBA and Olympic counterparts who are already making names for themselves in the coaching arena. Becky Hammon, a San Antonio Spurs assistant who has long been considered the obvious candidate to become the first woman head coach in NBA history, was long Taurasi's foe in domestic and international competition.

Kara Lawson – Taurasi's teammate at the 2008 Olympics and another WNBA alumna – was rumored to be in contention for the Boston Celtics head coaching gig after Brad Stevens vacated his post, according to The Athletic's Jared Weiss. And Dawn Staley, a WNBA legend who was a veteran on Taurasi's first Olympic team in 2004, was listed as a "top head-coaching candidate" alongside Hammon early on in the Portland Trail Blazers' head coaching search this summer, per The Athletic's Shams Charania.

"Those three names ... obviously have incredible coaching experience and resumes, and they're at the top of their game," Taurasi said. "There's always a holdup when you're talking about a woman breaking through in a man's business, and we all know the NBA - it's a boys' club. It'll just take one [woman] to get that opportunity and really succeed."

"As long as we keep putting ourselves in that position and that situation with great experience, it'll happen," she added. "And once it does, that is really gonna open up the doors and opportunities for a lot of women to be able to coach in the NBA and men's college basketball."

While Taurasi has little interest in coaching once her prolific playing career comes to an end, she's long been vocal about her aspirations at the ownership level. During a booze-fueled conversation on Instagram Live featuring her wife, Australian basketball legend Penny Taylor, as well as Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird, Taurasi said she was "so disappointed in the women that have a lot of money" for not choosing to "invest in things that don't make money yet, but you want to make them better."

"Everyone is like, 'Do you want to be a coach? Do you want to be a GM?'" Taurasi said, "No, I want to f---ing own it."

She can own a team from a beach somewhere, right?

"You sure can!" she told Insider. "With the internet and Zoom, you can own from anywhere!"