Bird sheds ‘happy tears’ as she ends storied career
Seattle Storm fans wanted one more year. Sue Bird gave it to them.
She slicked back her signature ponytail, laced up her custom Nike sneakers and added to her legend with a farewell tour.
When the Storm set a WNBA single-game assists record for the regular season with 37, eight of them were hers. She stretched her formidable margin as the league’s career leader in assists and inched higher on the steals and 3-point lists. She helped the Storm make the playoffs for the 16th time in the 19 seasons she played. And then she was done. The Las Vegas Aces beat the Storm, 97-92, in Game 4 of their semifinal series Tuesday to advance to the WNBA Finals. For Bird, 41, who had said in June that she would retire after the season, the loss on her home court marked the end of an incredible career. As fans chanted “Thank you, Sue,” Bird stood on the court and cried.
At a postgame news conference, Bird said she hadn’t wanted to leave the court so that she could “soak it all in.” She started to cry again.
“I know the tears don’t look like happy tears, but there’s a lot of happiness,” she said.
Aces coach Becky Hammon said it was “bittersweet” to have beaten Bird to end her “fairy-tale” career. Bird had eight points and eight assists in the loss.
“I kind of feel like the girl that beat Serena,” Hammon said, referring to Ajla Tomljanovic, who beat Serena Williams in her final match at the U.S. Open last week. Williams said she planned to retire after the tournament.
Storm coach Noelle Quinn, who also played with Bird in Seattle, called Bird “the best point guard to ever play this game.”
Bird won four championships with Seattle, the last in 2020. That season showcased the traits that have come to define her: resilience and keen court vision. She missed half of the regular season with injuries. But she proved invaluable during Seattle’s six postseason games. Seattle never lost during that playoff run. Bird set a thenWNBA record for assists in a playoff game with 16 in Game 1 of the finals against the Aces. Then she had a double-double — 16 points and 10 assists — in Game 2. In the series-clinching Game 3, Bird spent the end of the fourth quarter on the bench laughing with forward Breanna Stewart. The Storm won by 33.
“The fact that I’m sitting here, I think I’m having this, like, in-shock moment, because it doesn’t really feel real that we just won and that I was able to contribute in the way that I did,” she said afterward.
Much of Bird’s 21-year career has come as a surprise, if only because there wasn’t enough time for someone to accomplish such feats before her.
“I really didn’t know what to dream,” Bird told the New York Times last month, “and so to sit here now with all the championships I have, I just feel really satisfied.”
The Storm drafted her No. 1 overall in 2002 out of Connecticut before the WNBA’s sixth season. She immediately became Seattle’s franchise leader in assists, with 191 that year. She came in second for the Rookie of the Year Award, but she and the player who beat her — Indiana’s Tamika Catchings — became the first rookies ever named to the All-WNBA first team.
Over the next 20 years, Bird would pile up honors, including a record 13 WNBA All-Star selections and five Olympic gold medals with the United States. Last year, she was voted to the W25, the WNBA’s list of the top 25 players ever as the league celebrated its 25th anniversary.
“These athletes have played the game at the highest level on the court — they are scorers and rebounders, assist makers and defensive stoppers, leaders and mentors,” WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert said in announcing the W25. She added, “Together, they have transformed the way the game is played, changed the way athletes are viewed, become incredible role models and inspired generations of young, diverse athletes.”
Bird, who is engaged to women’s soccer star Megan Rapinoe, is one of the most visible gay professional athletes. For most of the WNBA’s history, its most prominent stars were not openly gay, and players have said that they felt pressured to conform to heterosexual standards of femininity. But Bird is among a wave of stars — including Brittney Griner, Seimone Augustus, Elena Delle Donne and Diana Taurasi — who have been open about their sexuality and spoken about LGBTQ rights and acceptance.
But the core of Bird’s legacy is on the court.
“That’s a legendary player right there,” said Aces guard Chelsea Gray, who scored 31 points and fueled Las Vegas’ victory in Bird’s final game.