Maya Moore has 'no regrets' about basketball career as she enters Naismith Hall of Fame

Over six years after she stepped away from her basketball career for good, Maya Moore is at peace. The feelings of joy and accomplishment that came from winning two national championships at UConn, two Olympic gold medals and four WNBA titles with the Minnesota Lynx haven’t gone away — they’ve just come from other monumental achievements surrounding her life.

“JJ (her son), he had his first successful poopoo in the potty recently and it's just like, ‘This is it. This is like championship-level joy,’” Moore laughed. “You just don't realize how important poop becomes until you become a parent.”

On the weekend in which she’s set to be enshrined into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, Moore reminisced fondly on her legendary career while making it clear she’s happy that chapter of her life is now in the past.

“I have no regrets as far as what I was able to enjoy and experience as a player while I played,” she said. “I played so much basketball, I can't be greedy. I did everything I could have possibly done, and then did it again — either from an individual standpoint, obviously from a team standpoint — so I just don't have that thirst or desire. There's nothing more. I've been to the mountaintop, right? And then we went to the mountaintop again.”

Moore’s spot in the Hall of Fame is well-deserved. In addition to the aforementioned team champions, she has a laundry list of individual accolades: A four-time First Team All-American, three-time national player of the year, No. 1 overall pick, WNBA Rookie of the Year, 2014 WNBA MVP and a six-time All-WNBA First Team selection.

Yet it’s because of all the success that Moore doesn’t mourn the end of her playing days. There’s no tinge of sadness when she looks back.

Moore did admit there were times when the thought of returning to the court crossed her mind. She left basketball at age 29 — the prime of her career — and is still only 36. Fellow 2025 inductee Sue Bird played until she was 41 — a half decade older than Moore is now. Diana Taurasi made it past her 42nd birthday. Tina Charles and Tiffany Hayes — two of Moore’s UConn teammates — are still in the league.

Those thoughts about a comeback never made it far, though. Moore might occasionally miss playing but she doesn’t miss the work that it took to be one of the best players in the world.

“There's every now and again where you're just like, ‘Oh, if I get back out there, I can…” but that's just the mind talking. That's not the body talking because it takes so much work,” she explained. “I think now more than ever, I'm appreciative of what I was able to do with my body, with my life because it was so hard. It was so focused and fragile. It's a delicate place to be able to stay at that elite level the way we do.”

It’s not as if Moore has struggled to find purpose since hanging it up, either. When she first stepped away from the sport in 2019, she put her time and energy towards a new challenge: Helping free family friend Jonathan Irons from prison after he was wrongfully convicted of burglary and assault. Just as she did on the basketball court, Moore came out on top — the charges were overturned and Irons was released in 2020 after 23 years behind bars. The pair married soon after and had their first child, Jonathan Junior — JJ — in 2022.

All of that has kept Moore busy and plenty fulfilled.

“I've just really enjoyed discovering who this phase of Maya is. I'm a mom. I'm a wife,” she said. “The next challenge is just continuing to figure out how my family can thrive in each season of life, figuring out how Jonathan and I can continue to grow closer and stronger in our marriage and the impact we want to have in our community.”

The latter is particularly important to Moore. She admitted that she didn’t leave the house much in her first few years post-basketball, though that’s since changed. Even still, she’s mindful about taking on more than she can handle.

“I'm taking care of myself and not running myself too thin,” Moore said. “We have the opportunity to do everything, but that doesn't mean we should.”

Moore has always been driven by a purpose. First, it was basketball and when that ended, it was freeing Irons. Now that she’s settled into family life, Moore’s aspirations aren’t as specific as they used to be, but they’re guided by an overarching ideal.

“We have to be better together as a community, especially now more than ever,” she said. “When I get a chance to speak, it's hopefully to encourage us to be better together because it's the best way to be, best way to win, the best way to play.”