Maya Moore Irons returns to Minneapolis this weekend for the ultimate honor of her honor-filled Lynx career – the retirement of her No. 23 on Saturday night.
The ceremony follows the Lynx game against Indiana and Maya Moore fan Caitlin Clark, who grew up in Iowa admiring Moore’s all-around greatness.
Any discussion about the best players in WNBA history must include Moore, the six-time All-Star forward, four-time league champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist who stepped away from the game at the height of her career to pursue criminal justice reform. If you never saw her play, you missed something special. Moore’s former Lynx coach, Cheryl Reeve, calls her “truly a generational talent, and in the conversation with the best ever.”
Moore’s number will be the fifth retired by the Lynx, following Lindsay Whalen (No. 13), Seimone Augustus (No. 33), Rebekkah Brunson (No. 32) and Sylvia Fowles (No. 34). Though Moore left the Lynx after the 2018 season, she didn’t officially retire until January 2023, hence the delay.
Moore, Whalen, Augustus and Brunson were the constants through the Lynx run of four WNBA titles and six finals appearance from 2011 – Moore’s rookie year – through 2017, when an aging Lynx team upended the defending champion Los Angeles Sparks in five rugged games. Moore always seemed to rise to meet the big moment, like in that decisive Game 5 in 2017 at sold-out and raucous Williams Arena. After two late Lynx turnovers put the outcome in doubt, Moore capped an 18-point, 10-rebound effort with a late runner to seal the 85-76 victory.
“Maya is more of a generational player than any of the others because she could do everything, without regard for position,” Reeve said.
It just took her a while to get going.
The rookie
“Everyone thinks Maya Moore was dropped into the Lynx and she was this tremendous basketball player who scored all the time,” Reeve said. “That wasn’t who Maya Moore was. She wasn’t our best player when she first got here.”
Moore arrived as the No. 1 overall draft pick out of the University of Connecticut, a three-time Wade Trophy winner as the best player in women’s college basketball who led the Huskies to two NCAA Championships, four Final Fours and a 90-game winning streak. You know how big Caitlin Clark is now? Thirteen years ago, that was Moore, an ESPN darling who brought new eyes to the WNBA.
She joined a Lynx team with three outstanding players – Augustus, Whalen and Brunson – but no tradition of excellence. At that point the Lynx had only two winning seasons in 12 years, never won a playoff series, and hadn’t even made the playoffs since 2004. The Lynx finished 13-21 in 2010, Reeve’s first season as head coach, missing the playoffs on a tie-breaker. That put the club in the draft lottery, where it landed the first pick and the right to choose Moore.
Reeve sensed things might be different the first day of practice.
“Everything she did, there was this level of passion, and commitment of giving to other teammates,” Reeve said. “That was the immediate feel that lifted our team into this really incredible space. So I’ll always remember the first day, going, OK, that’s a special player right there.”
Brunson said Moore adapted quickly because she filled a need.
“One of the good things at the Minnesota Lynx was we had a group of really great players that understood their specific roles,” Brunson said.
Needing rebounding help and veteran leadership, Reeve also brought in center Taj McWilliams-Franklin, a six-time All-Star whom Reeve coached as an assistant with the 2008 league champion Detroit Shock. McWilliams-Franklin, soon to be known as “Mama Taj,” took an immediate interest in the eager Moore. She stayed after practice to rebound Moore’s shots, then shared conversation and laughs as they soaked in adjacent cold tubs. McWilliams-Franklin remembers Moore holding a hot pack to her chest while soaking her knees and feet, and singing to pass the time.
“Having so many vets on the team I think that helped her tremendously get acclimated more than a lot of rookies had,” McWilliams-Franklin said in a telephone interview from New York, where she works for the WNBA. “You had so many people who really knew the game, knew about the physicality, knew about how she basically had to play.
“Maya’s a sponge. She watches. She learns. She does. It was pretty easy with her because you just said to her, ‘Maya, this is going to happen,’ and she was like, ‘Yes.’ So when it happened it wasn’t surprising to her, because we already told her how it was going to be. For me, training camp with her was easy – until it was time to start playing and understanding how physical, how strong, how big those players are going to be.”
Moore adjusted well enough to win the WNBA Rookie of the Year award, averaging 13.2 points and 4.6 rebounds. Yet in the first round of the playoffs against San Antonio, Silver Stars Coach Dan Hughes assigned 5-foot-6 guard Becky Hammon – yes, that Becky Hammon – to guard the 6’0” Moore. The Lynx took it as a slight and a motivator for Moore. The Lynx won that best-of-three series, 2-1, then went on to sweep Phoenix and Atlanta to win the title. Augustus led the Lynx in playoff scoring at 22 points per game, but Moore was second at 13.8, contributing key baskets and defensive plays throughout.
“As much as I love Becky, she wasn’t known as a great defender,” McWilliams-Franklin said. “They didn’t have a lot of great defenders on their team. I think they flipped a coin and were like, `Who’s the least likely to do something in the playoffs?’ Maya was new, so they probably went, `Let’s put Becky on Maya, she probably won’t be ready for the playoffs.’ Little did they know that kid was ready the moment she stepped on the court for every game.”
The shot
Four years later, Moore was a full-fledged WNBA superstar. The 2014 league MVP and scoring champion, Moore led the Lynx to the 2015 championship series against Indiana, who beat them for the title in 2012. With the series tied 1-1 and Game 3 tied 77-all with 1.7 seconds left, Moore delivered the biggest clutch shot of her Lynx career – a game-winning 3-pointer from the top of the key that silenced the Indiana home crowd of more than 16,000.
Lynx fans know this sequence by heart:
Reeve inserted Lindsay Whalen, who hadn’t played at all in the fourth quarter because of an achy right Achilles, to inbound the ball because she had the most experience running the play in practice. Two things to keep in mind: Sylvia Fowles was the first option in the low post, but Whalen couldn’t get it to her. And Reeve said when they practiced the play, it rarely worked.
“I honestly believe it was divine intervention,” Reeve said. “In that moment, there was this level of confidence.”
Moore ran back and forth to free herself from Indiana defender Marissa Coleman. Finally, Whalen saw daylight and lobbed a pass over Coleman.
“Syl was MVP of those finals, so she was kind of our go-to,” Whalen said. “Once I saw Syl wasn’t open, my main goal was to fake as much as I could to keep my defender from getting a deflection. I tried to fake it down as much as I could and wait for Maya to get open at the top. I tried to put it in a spot where she could do something with it.”
With the ball, Moore didn’t rush. Once Coleman bit on a pump-fake, Moore took one dribble to her right and lofted the shot just before the buzzer. Then she stood there, arms extended, as it swished through. Game, 80-77.
“What a moment,” Whalen said.
Brunson, battling Tamika Catchings for rebounding position in the lane, had the best view of the shot falling. Moore still had her arms out when a jubilant Brunson reached her, perfectly positioned for a hug. The Lynx won the next two games handily to take the title, then celebrated well into the night after Game 5 with Prince at Paisley Park.
“The thing about Maya … you talk about the confidence of players. You talk about understanding the magnitude of the moment. She’s been someone we knew we could rely on to hit big shots,” Brunson said. “It didn’t matter what happened in practice. That’s a testament to Cheryl for drawing that play up. The shots may not have fallen in practice, but the looks were always there.
“You have to think Maya was probably making mental notes of why I didn’t make it this time, or why I didn’t get it off this time. All of those things. And everything kind of came together at that moment.”
A photo of the shot hangs in the club’s Mayo Clinic Square practice facility, and Whalen has another in her basement.
“I love looking at the photo of the fans, the defeat,” Brunson said. “That’s what it’s really about. When you have the opportunity to go into somebody else’s building, it’s about hitting those shots. That’s the shot for Maya that will live on for eternity. It was a really great moment.”
None of the Lynx could possibly know this at the time, but a future Lynx star was in the crowd that night at Bankers Life Fieldhouse – Kayla McBride, then a second-year pro with San Antonio, which missed the playoffs. “I remember the shot,” said McBride. “Everyone went quiet.”
The person
Teammates say the best moments with Moore came off the court – on road trips, waiting for commercial flights in airports, and informal gatherings in the apartment complex where they lived during the season.
Whalen said she, Moore and Brunson met up regularly at the Axel’s in Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport for lunch before the team flew out for road games. (It’s now a Chili’s, just past security in Terminal 1.) McWilliams-Franklin remembers a rookie faux-hazing where Augustus made Moore dress up as an old lady named Betty Lou Jenkins on a road trip. Moore embraced the character, voice and all, then reprised it in a Pepsi Max “Uncle Drew” bit with Kyrie Irving and Nate Robinson.
McWilliams-Franklin also described a gathering at Moore’s apartment where Moore casually picked up a guitar and entertained the group. McWilliams-Franklin knew Moore could sing from their times in the cold tub, but had no idea she could play an instrument.
“I have a guitar that I was gifted when I was in Israel from one of my teammates,” McWilliams-Franklin said. “I pick it up, I sound like a screeching owl. She picked (hers) up and started strumming some chords, and I was like, ‘What? Who are you?’ It was so crazy. It was the most hilarious and coolest thing I’ve ever seen. And I’m like, Maya can do anything. Clearly.”
Yet even among her teammates, Moore kept certain facets of her personal life private. Not until late in her career were teammates I spoke with aware of her interest in criminal justice reform.
When she joined Augustus, Brunson and Whalen at a July 2016 press conference to speak out against the shootings of Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, La. and five police officers in Dallas, it was believed to be the first time Moore publicly addressed a controversial topic. Augustus, who grew up near the site of the Sterling shooting and had been racial profiled by police earlier in her Lynx career, initiated the discussion. Moore later told Kurt Streeter of The New York Times that during that time, “I’d found my voice.”
For years, Moore’s family quietly advocated on behalf of Jonathan Irons, who they believed was wrongly imprisoned in Missouri on burglary and assault charges. (They met Irons doing prison ministry.) Moore, a person of deep Christian faith, left the Lynx in February 2019 to focus on getting Irons released, hiring lawyers to work on his case. Moore and Irons also had fallen in love, which Moore kept to herself.
Thirteen months later, a Missouri judge who found problems with the way the case was tried and investigated vacated the conviction. Irons was freed in June 2020, and he proposed to Moore the next day. They married soon after. Now they have a son, J.J., born in 2022.
“Without her saying anything, I think we got a feeling there was something bigger than basketball that was happening in Maya’s life,” Brunson said. “We know she loved the game. We know she loved music. She had all these things she loved and wanted to be successful at. But this was a very personal issue that really was taking a lot of her attention – rightfully so – during that time period. I think you could kind of tell there was a little bit of pull with her because she had something that was weighing heavily on her spirit.”
McWilliams-Franklin retired after the 2012 season but kept in touch with Moore and Whalen, often meeting them after games when they found themselves in the same city. McWilliams-Franklin said she and Moore never discussed Irons or criminal justice reform. But when she heard Moore left basketball, she understood.
“As a person of faith, you always want justice to be served, and that fuels everything that she does and who she is,” McWilliams-Franklin said. “If you know Maya, you know that. If you have faith in something that is true and right, you’re willing to do whatever is necessary to right that wrong. So her stepping away from the game, her being involved in social justice, her finding her voice and using it for good was not surprising to me at all. And if you knew Maya intimately, you know that wasn’t surprising. Her word, her faith, her life is all about that. That’s who she is.
“It also encouraged me, too. You have a kid here who had everything, won everything. And at some point, you’re also questioning, what’s next? As a person of faith, your legacy, what you’re leaving on this earth after you go is an important part of your faith and who you are. When you reevaluate yourself in terms of what you believe, you’re willing to step out. You’re willing to say the tough things that you may not have said before, because that’s important to you.”
The legacy
Moore did more than lead the Lynx on the court. She was often the last player to enter the locker room after home games, stopping to sign autographs for fans waiting behind a barrier in the hallway under the stands.
She always had time for kids. Moore never forgot the WNBA players who took time to speak to her as a young girl attending Dream games in Atlanta. After a practice one day at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in south Minneapolis, Moore stayed long afterwards to chat up and pose for photos with a large group of students waiting to see her.
“Maya the person was just really consistent in terms of the joy she lived life with, the strength in her faith, the way she treated her teammates and the organization, her connection with me, her connection with the captains, whatever,” Reeve said. “I use her as an example for players in regard to emotional maturity … What really made Maya special is, you never knew if Maya messed up. You never knew if it was Maya who forgot the play or messed up the defensive coverage. We’d be over there losing our minds. Teammates would be frustrated. But Maya was the same. If she messed up, we knew she would get it back. She’d run down and get a deflection, block a shot, get a steal, whatever.”
Whalen appreciated Moore’s steadiness on the court, and her character off it.
“She was one of the first to come in with any kind of celebrity,” Whalen said. “It was fun to get to know her aside from all those things. She was so thoughtful and so professional.
“But one thing about Maya as a teammate: You never felt you were out of a game. She could always rattle off a bunch of threes in a row, get a defection, take it coast to coast. You were never out of it, ever, with her on our team, because she was a superstar.”
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