Malone thrilled with hiring of WNBA’S Bird
NEW ORLE A NS» Nuggets coach Michael Malone is thrilled with the front office addition of WNBA legend and three-time champion Sue Bird, but he had nothing to do with it.
Malone credits president of basketball operations Tim Connelly, the Nuggets’ front office and the team’s ownership for “thinking outside of the box” in hiring Bird as a basketball operations associate.
“Any time you can surround yourself with greatness, winners, championships, people who know what it takes, you’d be foolish not to,” Malone said at shootaround prior to Saturday’s game in New Orleans. “For me personally, it’s always great to have another New Yorker in the house.”
Malone made sure to note her roots – Christ the King high school in Queens – before detailing her blazing path from Uconn to the WNBA to USA Basketball stardom.
Bird, while preparing for her 17th WNBA season and a chance to defend the title with the Seattle Storm, will do some scouting for the Nuggets while also learning the front office business. Malone said he’s long been a fan of Bird, the WNBA’S all-time leader in assists.
“That’s what I love,” Malone said. “You have a pair of eyes, if you know the game, if you see the game, it doesn’t matter what color you are, it doesn’t matter what gender you are. You know the game or you don’t. Sue Bird knows the game. She has an unbelievable IQ , great feel for the game, she knows talent, she knows players and I think she’ll definitely be an asset in that regard.”
Malone doesn’t have an extensive history with Bird, but he was close with San Antonio Spurs assistant Becky Hammon when she was with the WNBA’S New York Liberty to start her career. When Malone was an assistant with the Knicks in the early 2000s, he’d help out when Liberty coach Richie Adubato needed fill-ins for practice.
“When their season was starting, a lot of their players were still in Europe, and so he’d always ask me, ‘Hey Mike, would you mind helping us out in practice, we need another body,’ ” Malone said. “And so I’d go out there and play, and that’s when I really gained a real respect for the WNBA player. How talented these girls were. That’s when me and Becky got to be pretty close, and obviously Becky and Sue have a relationship.”
Malone said he played against Bird a few times in that setting.
“Not that she would’ve remembered me, but I remembered her,” he said.