Basketball star Candace Parker takes stock of life beyond the court

CANDACE PARKER WAS ALREADY ENJOYING A monumental run in her life last year. One of the greatest women’s basketball players of all time won her second WNBA championship, capping a storybook return home: the Illinois-raised athlete had signed with the Chicago Sky before the previous season and delivered the franchise its first ever WNBA title. Her media work, providing commentary on TNT’s highly popular and influential NBA program, was receiving rave reviews. Parker was a basketball force.

Then, late last year, her journey took another significant turn. On Instagram, she revealed publicly, for the first time, that she had been married for two years to Anna Petrakova, a former Olympic basketball player from Russia who played with Parker on a pro team there. Parker, who was