Candace Parker on Cheryl Miller: 'greatest women's basketball player of all time'
Miller's selflessness is a significant factor in why she's revered and honored so widely. But, whether she's willing to accept it or not, she was arguably the greatest women's basketball player of all time, and Johnson and Parker wanted to reinforce that.
"You know when you can tell about somebody by the way they move, that they're different?" Parker asked, rhetorically. "Cheryl just had a before-her-time, in-any-era game. You put her in any era, she's successful. You put her in this era, it doesn't matter, she's going to do what she does."
Miller played four seasons at the University of Southern California, leading the Trojans to back-to-back NCAA Championships in 1984 and 1985. She averaged over 20 points per game in all four of her collegiate seasons, peaking at 26.8 in her junior year. She won the women's Naismith Player of the Year award in 1985 and 1986.
Miller, undoubtedly, dominated the best talent women's basketball had to offer at the time. However, the WNBA — which was founded in 1996 — did not exist when Miller was playing, so her career could not last past college. Therefore, it's tough to judge how she would stack up against potential professionals of her era, or the ones playing in the WNBA now.
But, from Parker and Johnson's perspective, Miller would have thrived.
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"You are the greatest women's basketball player of all time," Johnson said.
"To be honest, I'm one of many," Miller responded. "It's debatable. Depending on who you ask, it's debatable. I've been fortunate to play with great coaches and be in the right spot at the right time."
Regardless of how she feels, Miller certainly has the right to have an opinion on this debate. And, later on during the "Women's Hoops Pioneers," she shared her thoughts on current WNBA budding stars Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese.
"You had Magic and Larry, who competed (against one another) in college," Millers "It's kind of like the same thing a little with Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark."
To Miller's point, Reese and Clark had a similar fiery rivalry during their collegiate tenures at Louisiana State and the University of Iowa to the ones Magic Johnson and Larry Bird did while at Michigan State and Indiana State.
Reese and Clark faced off four times while in college, with Reese's LSU Tigers winning three of the four matchups, including the 2023 NCAA Division I women's basketball championship, and the 2024 Elite Eight.
Now, in the WNBA, Reese and Clark have played against each other twice, with Reese's Chicago Sky and Clark's Indiana Fever splitting the two matchups. Regardless of the results, Clark has had much more overall success than Reese since being drafted in 2024. As a rookie, she averaged 19.2 points and 8.4 assists over 40 games and won the WNBA Rookie of the Year award. She also made an All-Star appearance and earned All-WNBA first-team honors.
In fact, Clark was the first rookie since Parker in 2008 to make the All-WNBA First Team, so future the Hall of Famer respects Clark's game.
"She's a bucket," Parker said.
"Caitlin is a baller, she's a dawg," Miller added. "The same thing with Angel."
Reese, at heart, is a tenacious competitor, and has shown glimpses of being an elite post player in the WNBA, but her adaptation to the professional game hasn't come along nearly as quickly as Clark. Miller referred to it as "ever-evolving," while acknowledging Reese's impressive drive to win.
Reese has averaged a solid double-double of 13.3 points and 13 rebounds over 51 WNBA games, across two seasons. However, her field-goal percentage sits at 39.7% for her career. It's her finishing touch that could use some improvement, but if she gets that down, then she could reach her impressive ceiling.
The reality is that Clark and Reese aren't in their prime yet, and it will be interesting to see where their careers go. Miller is certainly excited. She believes there's a chance they could reach the heights that Parker and Johnson claim Miller did and become some of the greatest women's basketball players of all time.
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