MINNEAPOLIS _ Lynx star Maya Moore will skip the WNBA season for the second year in a row, she said in an interview with the New York Times that was published Wednesday.
Moore said she also will not vie for a spot on the United States Olympic team for this summer's Games in Tokyo.
"I'm in a really good place right now with my life, and I don't want to change anything," Moore, 30, told the Times. "Basketball has not been foremost in my mind. I've been able to rest, and connect with people around me, actually be in their presence after all of these years on the road."
Moore played eight seasons with the Lynx, winning four WNBA championships, and was the league's most valuable player in 2014. She took home Olympic gold medals in women's basketball in 2012 and 2016.
She surprised the Lynx and the WNBA last February when she announced that she intended to take a year off to focus on criminal justice reform, particularly the case of Jonathan Irons, a man serving a 50-year prison sentence for burglary and assault in Moore's hometown, Jefferson City, Mo. Moore believes he was wrongly convicted.
Asked by the Times if she would ever play basketball again, she said: "I don't feel like this is the right time for me to retire. Retirement is something that is a big deal and there is a right way to do it well, and this is not the time for me."
Lynx coach and general manager Cheryl Reeve said in September that she didn't have a timetable for when Moore would make her decision about 2020 but added that it would not impact the Lynx's offseason planning.
"We're continuing to build our team," Reeve said after an 18-16 season that ended with a first-round playoff loss. "There is nothing that will be in our way, in terms of preparing for next season."
Three Lynx players made the WNBA All-Star team in 2019: Sylvia Fowles, Odyssey Sims and rookie Napheesa Collier, who also won WNBA Rookie of the Year honors.
The Lynx open the 2020 regular season May 15 at Chicago.
