Candace Parker: From LeBron James comparisons to making basketball history

WNBA titles, Olympic gold medals, personal accolades – Candace Parker has won it all.

The 35-year-old has enjoyed yet another successful 12 months, clinching the WNBA title with Chicago Sky and welcoming a child with wife Anna Petrakova.

In celebration of the basketball star, GiveMeSport Women looks back at her career so far.

Parker was born in St. Louis in Missouri on April 19th, 1986, before her family moved to Illinois when she was two years old.

She was raised in a basketball mad family – her father played basketball at the University of Iowa in the 1970s, and her older brother Anthony Parker went on to become an NBA star.

At first, Parker, who grew up supporting the Chicago Bulls, was worried she could not play basketball to the same standard as her family. But she eventually took up the sport in eighth grade.

Parker became a sensation at Naperville Central High School, leading her team to state titles in 2003 and 2004. In the latter year, the prodigy became the first woman to win the slam dunk contest at McDonald’s All-American Game.

The Chicago Tribune even compared Parker to LeBron James, who was just about to become the number one pick in the NBA Draft.

Parker started at the University of Tennessee in 2004, but sat out of her first season due to a knee injury.

She subsequently began her career with the Tennessee Lady Vols during the 2005-2006 season, and soon became the first woman to dunk in an NCAA game.

Shortly after, Parker became the first woman to dunk twice in a single NCAA game. The star won back-to-back NCAA titles with the Lady Vols in 2007 and 2008, and earned numerous personal accolades.

Parker was unsurprisingly the first pick in the 2008 WNBA Draft, and was selected by the Los Angeles Sparks. She