Erin Phillips
Erin Victoria Phillips is an Australian basketball player and former Australian rules football player. She played nine seasons in the Women's National Basketball Association for five different teams and is a two-time WNBA champion. She also represented Australia on the women's national basketball team, winning a gold medal at the 2006 FIBA World Championship for Women and serving as a co-vice captain at the 2016 Summer Olympics. She also played for the Adelaide and Port Adelaide Football Clubs in the AFL Women's competition, retiring in 2023. She is a three-time premiership player and two-time league best and fairest. She was inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame on 10 June 2025.
Phillips's father Greg played professional Australian rules football for, where he was an eight-time premiership player and earned an induction into the Australian Football Hall of Fame. Phillips played only Australian rules football until age 13, switching to basketball because of the lack of professional opportunities for female footballers at the time. She made her debut in the Women's National Basketball League for the Adelaide Lightning, her hometown team, at the age of 17 and was named to the All-WNBL Team three times by the age of 22, finally winning a WNBL championship in 2008 in her last year with the team. Phillips was drafted into the WNBA in 2005 by the Connecticut Sun. With the Indiana Fever, she established herself as a starter and won her first WNBA title in 2012. She won another WNBA title two years later with the Phoenix Mercury. During her basketball career, Phillips played both point guard and shooting guard, excelling at three-pointers and employing a physical style of play. Following her retirement from the WNBA, she was also an assistant coach for the Dallas Wings, the last team she played for in the league. In 2025, she returns to basketball in the NBL1 Central with the Woodville Warriors.
With the launch of the AFLW in 2017, Phillips began her football career at age 31 as a co-captain of Adelaide. Despite not having played competitive football in nearly 18 years, she quickly emerged as the league's best player and one of its biggest stars. She won the AFLW best and fairest award by a wide margin in both 2017 and 2019, as well as the AFLW Grand Final best on ground as a member of Adelaide's premiership teams in both years. Phillips played as a midfielder and was also one of the leading goal scorers in the competition.
Early life and education
Erin Victoria Phillips was born on 19 May 1985 in the Melbourne suburb of Carlton to Julie and Greg Phillips, during the time her professional footballer father was playing for Collingwood Football Club in the Victorian Football League. Her middle name relates to the state of Victoria.The family moved back to Adelaide and Phillips grew up with her two older sisters Rachel and Amy there. Her father played most of his career with the Port Adelaide Football Club in the South Australian National Football League, where he served as captain for three years, and was inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame in 2020. Phillips has said she wanted to be an AFL footballer just like her dad since she was a young child, and her father noticed that she was a gifted athlete from a young age.
Phillips attended Seaton High School, in the western Adelaide suburb of Seaton, during the time her father was at Port Adelaide FC. The whole family would attend every game, including her grandparents and aunts.
Phillips began competing in football with the SMOSH West Lakes Football Club under-9 side, where she was the only girl on the team. Her under-11 team won the grand final. She was also named the best and fairest player on her under-13 team. John Cahill, one of her father's coaches at Port Adelaide, praised Phillips's ability, saying she was "as good a 14-year old as I've ever seen play football", and Phillips had the opportunity to train with Port Adelaide on occasion while growing up.
Phillips began playing basketball at the age of 13. She decided to switch her sporting focus from football to basketball at the age of 14 due to the lack of opportunities at the time for female footballers to play professionally. Her father had also introduced her to Rachael Sporn, a member of the Australian national basketball team, around this time. As a junior, Phillips played for the West Adelaide Bearcats. She represented South Australia Metro in the under-16 and under-18 Australian national championships, winning the Norma Connolly Trophy as a member of the under-16 championship team in 1999. Phillips was also a member of the South Australia under-20 championship team in 2004, where she won the Bob Staunton Award as the most outstanding player in the women's tournament.
Basketball career
WNBL
Adelaide Lightning (2002–08): Three All-WNBL Teams, WNBL champion
Phillips made her professional basketball debut with the Adelaide Lightning in the Women's National Basketball League in 2002 at age 17. She played six consecutive seasons with the team through 2008. Adelaide made the finals in all six of those years. Phillips had earned an Australian Institute of Sport scholarship to join their WNBL team in 2003, but never played for them after being replaced before the start of that season. Phillips emerged as a breakout star in her third year and was named to the All-WNBL Team at the end of the 2004–05 season. Averaging 15.0 points, 8.6 rebounds, and 5.3 assists per game that season, she was second in the league in assists behind only her teammate Jennifer Screen who had 5.9 per game. Phillips was also fourth in the league in offensive rebounds with 3.1 per game and fifth in steals with 5.1 per game. Adelaide finished fourth on the ladder and lost their semifinal to the Sydney Uni Flames 94–93 in overtime. Before the game, the Adelaide team had been involved in a car accident that injured some of the players and delayed the start of the game. Phillips had 40 points in the loss. This was the third consecutive year that Sydney eliminated Adelaide in the finals.Phillips continued to be one of the best players in the league through the remainder of her WNBL career. She was named to the All-WNBL Team again in 2006 and 2007. During the 2005–06 season, she averaged 15.7 points, 7.5 rebounds, and a league-leading 4.9 assists per game. She was also fifth in free throw percentage at 80.0%. Adelaide finished in a three-way tie for first with a 14–7 record and entered the finals in the second position based on the tiebreak criteria. They lost both of their finals, which were against the Dandenong Rangers and the Canberra Capitals, the two other teams with the same record as them. The second loss to Canberra, who were led by Lauren Jackson, in the preliminary final again came in overtime and was highlighted by Phillips scoring 23 points. Phillips's 2006–07 season ended early after 17 games when she tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee during a collision with Canberra player Tully Bevilaqua. She finished the season with a career-high 16.5 points per game to go along with 7.2 rebounds and 4.9 assists per game. This was the second consecutive season she led the league in assists per game. For the second year in a row, Adelaide lost to Canberra in the preliminary final.
The 2007–08 season was Phillips's last that she played in the WNBL. She was not ready to return from her ACL injury at the start of the year and ended up playing only 17 out of 24 games during the regular season. Although Phillips did not make the All-WNBL Team, her teammates Tracy Gahan and Jessica Foley were named to the team as they led Adelaide to a 21–3 record, earning them the minor premiership. Phillips had slight drops in her averages, finishing the year with 14.6 points, 5.4 rebounds, and 3.3 assists per game. After Adelaide lost the semifinal to Sydney Uni, they defeated Dandenong to set up a rematch with Sydney Uni in the WNBL Grand Final. Adelaide won the grand final 92–82 for Phillips's first and only WNBL championship. Phillips scored 16 points in the game, second on her team behind Renae Camino who had 32 and was named Grand Final MVP.
Seven years later, Phillips planned to return to the WNBL for the 2015–16 season. After originally wanting to return to the Adelaide Lightning, she became the first player to sign with the South East Queensland Stars, a new WNBL franchise. However, Phillips never played for the team due to injury and the franchise dissolved at the end of their first season due to financial difficulties. Phillips ranks in the top ten all-time for the Adelaide Lightning in points, assists, rebounds, and steals as of 2019. She is tenth in points with 1498, sixth in assists with 423, seventh in rebounds with 731, and ninth in steals with 139.
WNBA
Connecticut Sun (2006–09): Debut at 21 years old
The Connecticut Sun of the Women's National Basketball Association selected Phillips in the second round of the 2005 WNBA draft with the 21st overall pick. She was the only player taken in the draft who did not play college basketball in the United States and one of two international players drafted along with fifth overall pick Sancho Lyttle. She did not play during the 2005 WNBA season, instead choosing to play on tours and in training camps with the national team in Australia to increase her chances of making the team.Phillips decided to join the Sun for the 2006 season despite national team coach Jan Stirling's saying it would hurt her chances of playing in the FIBA World Championship later that year, which was scheduled to begin just a week after the end of the WNBA Finals. Phillips played in all 34 games in her debut season. She was named a starter in the 22nd game of the season after an injury to Nykesha Sales and ended up starting the last 13 games. The Sun won their first eleven games with Phillips as a starter as part of a franchise-record twelve-game win streak. She recorded a season-high six assists in her first game as a starter, and then had season-bests of 19 points and 6rebounds a few games later. Overall, Phillips averaged 5.4 points and 2.5 assists per game. She was also ninth in the league in free throw shooting percentage at 88.0%. Led by their top scorer Katie Douglas and point guard Lindsay Whalen, the Sun finished the regular season with the best record in the WNBA at 26–8. With Sales back from injury, Phillips returned to the bench for the playoffs, where the Sun swept the Washington Mystics 2–0 in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. However, they were eliminated in the Eastern Conference Finals 2–1 by the Detroit Shock, the eventual champions. Phillips's only start in the playoffs came in the first game of that series, a loss on the road.
Phillips missed the entire 2007 season while recovering from an ACL injury suffered during the offseason while playing in the WNBL in Australia. She did not return to the WNBA until the second half of the 2008 season after missing the first half of the season to train with the Australian national team for the Olympics, which took place in August in the middle of the WNBA season. Phillips played in eight regular season games, all off the bench. In the last game of the season, she scored 18 points and recorded a career-high eight rebounds. Overall, she shot a career-high field goal percentage of 46.4%. Although the Sun finished second in the Eastern Conference, they were eliminated in the Eastern Conference Semifinals by the third-place New York Liberty, losing the decisive third game of the series at home by four points.
Phillips began the 2009 season as a starter. After starting the first 18 games of the season, Phillips and Amber Holt lost their starting roles to bench players and fellow guards Anete Jēkabsone-Žogota and Tan White. As a starter, she averaged 9.3 points, 3.2 rebounds, and 1.9 assists per game. She finished the season with a low three-point field goal percentage of 29.3%, shooting just 20.9% off the bench. The Sun did not make the playoffs that season due to the tiebreak criteria, despite finishing tied for fourth with the Mystics and Chicago Sky. The Sun attempted to trade Phillips before the start of the 2010 season. She was at risk of losing playing time after the team signed experienced guards Renee Montgomery and Kara Lawson to complement Jēkabsone-Žogota and White. They were unable to find a trade and did not sign her to the team roster. Phillips ultimately did not play the 2010 WNBA season.