Candace Parker

Explore about the Famous Basketball Player Candace Parker, who was born in United States on April 19, 1986. Analyze Candace Parker’s net worth, age, bio, birthday, dating, height-weight, wiki. Investigate who is Candace Parker dating now? Look into this article to know how old is Candace Parker?

Candace Parker Biography

Star WNBA Forward who made her name with the Los Angeles Sparks; won both the WNBA Rookie of the Year and MVP awards in 2008.

She won two NCAA championships during her career at the University of Tennessee.

She was named to her first WNBA All-Star game in 2011, and in 2013 she was named All-Star game MVP.

She has one daughter, Lailaa, with NBA center Shelden Williams. Her older brother Anthony played in the NBA.

She became the second player to dunk in a WNBA game. The first was Lisa Leslie.

Parker and her family moved to Naperville, Illinois at the age of two, where she spent her childhood. Her family loved basketball and she began playing at an early age. Her father played basketball at the University of Iowa in the 1970s. The Parker family were also huge Chicago Bulls fans. Candace was worried about playing basketball, fearing she would not live up to the level of play her father and brother demonstrated, so she focused on playing soccer. It wasn’t until the eighth grade that her family convinced her to play basketball. Her father helped coach and critique her. Parker said of the experience, “He did things to make me mad, to challenge me, because I was so much more athletic and had so much more knowledge of the game than everyone else that sometimes I just coasted. If me and my dad went to a park and he didn’t think I was practicing hard enough, he’d just get in the car and leave. And I’d have to run home. I mean run home. Once I figured that out, I’d always try to go to close-by-parks.”

Parker was born on April 19, 1986 to Sara and Larry Parker in St. Louis, Missouri. She has two older brothers: former NBA basketball player Anthony Parker and Marcus Parker, who is a doctor.

Candace Nicole Parker (born April 19, 1986) is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Sparks of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA). She was the first overall pick in the 2008 WNBA Draft. In 2016, along with other stars such as Alana Beard and Nneka Ogwumike, Parker helped the Sparks to win their first WNBA Finals title since 2002. In high school, Parker won the 2003 and 2004 Gatorade National Girls Basketball Player of the Year awards, becoming just the second junior and the only woman to receive the award twice.

On December 27, 2001, Parker dunked for the first time in competition as a 15-year-old sophomore at Naperville Central High School, this is believed to be the first slam dunk by a female athlete in Illinois.

On July 11, 2003, Parker tore her ACL in her left knee in a summer league game. On November 11, Parker announced her commitment to Tennessee on ESPNEWS, becoming the first women’s player to announce the oral commitment live on ESPNEWS. On December 29, Parker returned to action for Naperville Central and a few months later, led her team to its second consecutive state title.

She is the only two-time award winner of the USA Today High School Player of the Year, winning the award in 2003 and 2004. Parker also won the Naismith Prep Player of the Year Award and Gatorade Female Basketball Player of the Year Award in 2003 and 2004. In 2004, she was named Gatorade Female Athlete of the Year, WBCA All-American and McDonald’s All-American. She participated in the 2004 WCBA All-America Game where she scored 9 points. She was also a consensus pick as player of the year in Illinois in 2002, 2003, and 2004, and was a four-year member of the All-State first team.

Parker, was a member of the USA Women’s U18 team which won the gold medal at the FIBA Americas Championship in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. The event was held in August 2004, when the USA team defeated Puerto Rico to win the championship. Parker was the leading scorer for the team, averaging 16.6 points per game.

In August 2004, Parker led the undefeated USA Junior World Championship team to a gold medal with 16.6 points and 8.8 rebounds per game. While training, Parker had a relapse of knee pain and was required to undergo surgery both the lateral meniscus and the lateral articular cartilage in her left knee.

On March 29, 2004, Parker won the slam dunk contest at McDonald’s All-American Game, becoming the first female to win the event and beating the likes of Josh Smith and J. R. Smith.

Like her older brother Anthony Parker, she attended Naperville Central High School in Naperville, Illinois in 2004. While in high school, Parker led her basketball team to Class AA state titles in 2003 and 2004, and compiled a school-record 2,768 points (22.9 points per game) and 1,592 rebounds (13.2 rebounds per game) while starting 119 of the 121 games in which she played.

Parker entered the University of Tennessee in the fall of 2004. On February 17, 2005, Tennessee announced Parker would redshirt her first season due to a knee injury.

Parker was the only college player named to the USA squad for the 2006 FIBA World Championship for Women in Brazil. The USA squad finished in third place.

Parker started for the Tennessee Lady Vols during the 2005-06 season. On March 19, 2006, in an NCAA tournament first-round game against Army, she became the first woman to dunk in an NCAA tournament game, then became the first woman to dunk twice in an NCAA tournament game. She was the SEC Rookie of the Year (Coaches and AP) and helped the Lady Vols win the 2006 SEC tournament championship. With 17 seconds remaining in the SEC tournament championship game against LSU, Parker hit the game-winning shot. She was named tournament MVP and was named to the 2006 Kodak All-America team, making her one of the few to ever receive the award as a freshman. However, in the NCAA tournament regional finals against North Carolina, Parker got in early foul trouble and was out of the game for much of the first half. Tennessee ultimately lost the game.

A versatile player, Parker mainly plays the forward position. In college she was listed on Tennessee’s roster as a forward, center and guard. Parker was the first woman to dunk in an NCAA tournament game and the first woman to dunk twice in a college game. She set both milestones as a redshirt freshman on March 19, 2006. Parker became the second player to dunk in a WNBA game on June 22, 2008. Prior to her first WNBA game, Parker had signed long-term endorsement deals with Adidas and Gatorade. In leading the Lady Vols to two consecutive national championships, Parker was named the Final Four’s most outstanding player in both occasions, and was a two-time consensus national player of the year.

On May 7, 2007, People named Parker to its 100 World’s Most Beautiful people list.

On January 28, 2007, in an away game against Alabama, Parker scored her 1,000th career point as a sophomore, making her the fastest player in Lady Vol history to do so. She did it in 56 games, beating Chamique Holdsclaw’s mark of 57 games and Tamika Catchings’s of 58 games. On March 1, at the SEC tournament in Duluth, Georgia, Parker was named the 2007 SEC Player of the Year. On April 3, she led the Lady Vols to their first National Championship victory since 1998, beating Rutgers 59–46, Parker finished the game with 17 points and earned the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player honor.

On November 13, 2008, Parker married Shelden Williams, who played college basketball at Duke University and also played in the NBA. The couple has a daughter named Lailaa Nicole Williams, born on May 13, 2009. In 2013, the couple purchased a 7,000-square-foot (650 m) home in Encino, Los Angeles, for $3.56 million. In November 2016, the couple split up after eight years of marriage when Williams filed for divorce, citing “irreconcilable differences”. They had been living separately for three months prior to the divorce. TMZ reported in April 2018 that the former couple had sold their home and split the profits from the sale, and that Parker agreed to a one-time payment of $400,000 as opposed to ongoing spousal support for Williams upon finalizing the divorce, as well as their mutual agreement to joint legal and physical custody of their daughter, with neither parent receiving child support payments from the other.

Parker played for Team USA in 2008, winning her first gold medal as USA beat Australia 92-65.

On October 3, 2008, Parker became the first WNBA player to win both the Rookie of the Year and the Most Valuable Player awards in the same season, joining Wilt Chamberlain and Wes Unseld as the only professional American basketball players to win both ROY and MVP trophies in the same season.

In August 2008, the WNBA suspended play for a couple of weeks to allow some of their players to join the national team at the 2008 Summer Olympics. Parker was selected to go, and the US team cruised with eight straight victories to win the gold medal. Parker averaged 9.4 points and 4.5 rebounds per game, and scored 14 points in the final game.

Parker was one of 11 people suspended in the Sparks-Shock brawl on July 21, 2008.

On July 9, 2008, Parker scored a career-high 40 points, along with 16 rebounds and 6 assists, in an 82–74 overtime win against the Houston Comets.

Parker was named the Hanns-G ‘Go Beyond’ Rookie of the Month for the month of May and July 2008.

On June 22, 2008, she became the second woman in WNBA history—after her teammate Lisa Leslie—to dunk during a regulation WNBA game, against the Indiana Fever. The dunk was on the same basket as the dunk of Lisa Leslie. On June 24, 2008, she became the first player to dunk twice in their WNBA career, during a regulation game against the Seattle Storm

On May 17, 2008, in her debut game against the Phoenix Mercury, she scored 34 points, 12 rebounds and 8 assists. Her 34 points broke the record for a rookie in a debut game. The record was previously held by Cynthia Cooper, who scored 25 points in her debut game in 1997. It is a record that still stands to this day.

Shortly after the NCAA victory, Parker was selected as the first pick in the 2008 WNBA Draft by the Los Angeles Sparks on April 9, 2008. She played alongside Olympic teammates Lisa Leslie and DeLisha Milton-Jones. Shannon Bobbitt, Parker’s teammate at Tennessee, joined the Sparks after being drafted in the second round.

Shortly after the NCAA victory, Parker was selected as the first pick in the 2008 WNBA Draft by the Los Angeles Sparks on April 9, 2008. She played alongside Olympic teammates Lisa Leslie and DeLisha Milton-Jones. Shannon Bobbitt, Parker’s teammate at Tennessee, joined the Sparks after being drafted in the second round.

Parker announced on February 21, 2008, that she would forgo her final season of eligibility at Tennessee in order to focus on the 2008 Olympics and pursue a professional career in basketball. She graduated with her incoming class in May 2008. A sports management major who had a 3.35 grade-point average as of December 2007, she was named University Division I Academic All-American of the Year in women’s basketball for 2008 by the College Sports Information Directors of America.

Parker was invited to the USA Basketball Women’s National Team training camp in the fall of 2009. The team selected to play for the 2010 FIBA World Championship and the 2012 Olympics is usually chosen from these participants. At the conclusion of the training camp, the team traveled to Ekaterinburg, Russia, where they competed in the 2009 UMMC Ekaterinburg International Invitational.

Parker missed the first eight games of the 2009 WNBA season after giving birth to her daughter, Lailaa Nicole Williams. By this time, the Sparks acquired Tina Thompson and Betty Lennox to help carry the team during Parker’s absence. On June 30, Parker returned to practice with her teammates for the first time. She played her first game back from maternity leave on July 5, 2009. Parker was named to the All-WNBA second team and All-Defensive second team despite missing almost a full month, due to her maternity leave. She had averaged a career-low in scoring but led the league in rebounding by the end of the season. Parker helped the Sparks get to the Western Conference Finals, but lost in three games to the eventual champions, the Phoenix Mercury. In the playoffs, Parker averaged 18 points and 10.7 rebounds per game.

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