Diana Taurasi is well respected in basketball circles and certainly within the Phoenix Suns organization. When the Phoenix Mercury are still playing in early fall and the Suns are arriving back in town to prepare for their season and in May and June when the opposite occurs, there is considerable interaction between the teams.
Taurasi and Suns head coach Alvin Gentry talk often and Gentry frequently attends Mercury games. This season, Mercury head coach Corey Gaines is on Gentry's staff where he's taken on responsibility for developing some of the younger Suns players. And of course, Mercury General Manager Ann Meyers-Drysdale is also a Vice President in the Phoenix Suns organization.
Yesterday after the Suns finished practice, Gentry was asked to share his thoughts on Diana Taurasi's positive test for banned substances and subsequent dismissal from her Turkish club team.
"All I can say is that I've known Diana for a long time. I don't know the whole process about it but I would be pretty much ready to stake my reputation on the fact that whatever it is, it's not as it appears," Gentry said.
"I know that she loves basketball. I know that she takes great care of herself. I'm not sure all the details of it but if I was a betting man, I would not bet that she knowingly took any kind of drug that would make her ineligible to play basketball. I just don't think that's in her."