How do you even begin to describe the dominance of Sue Bird?
As an emotional Bird walked off the court for one final time after the Seattle Storm were eliminated from the 2022 WNBA Playoffs, phrases like "future Hall of Famer" and "G.O.A.T." were used when describing what she has meant to the game and the city of Seattle. Strong as those words are, they only begin to encapsulate Bird's greatness.
20 years after she was selected with the No. 1 overall pick in the WNBA Draft, Bird retires as one of the greatest that the game of basketball has ever seen.
She's one of the game's greatest point guards.
She's one of the game's greatest leaders.
She's one of the game's greatest winners.
A legendary career 🐐 @S10Bird pic.twitter.com/vRBM5e51lS
— 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬 (@sportingnews) September 7, 2022
Let's start by putting the winning into perspective. Bird has won at every level that she's played, doing her part to lead Christ The King High School to a national championship during her senior year in 1998, when the WNBA was still in its infancy and Michael Jordan was still with the Bulls.
After missing the majority of her freshman season at Connecticut, Bird bounced back to help lead the Huskies to the 2000 national title, the first of two that came during her time in Storrs, Conn. The second title capped off an undefeated 39-0 campaign that was Bird's senior season in 2002 — a fitting send-off for a winner of Bird's magnitude.
By 21, Bird had three national titles to her name along with a host of individual awards. It was only right that she would go first overall in the ensuing draft.
Bird didn't take home Rookie of the Year honors in her first campaign, but she was named an All-Star and named to the All-WNBA First Team as a rookie.
To put that feat into perspective, Bird, who earned an All-WNBA First Team selection in 2002, saw her career come to a close in 2022. No other member of the 2002 All-WNBA Team played past 2016.
Bird earned her fifth All-WNBA First Team selection in 2016.
That Bird earned a First Team selection in her 14th season speaks to the fact that she continued to perform at a high level throughout the later years in her career, with two of her four WNBA titles coming in her final four seasons on the floor.
Bird and the Storm won in 2004. They did it again in 2010. And again in 2018. And once more in 2020. That's titles in three different decades. Add in her storied prep and collegiate career, and you've got greatness that spans over the course of four decades.
In the later years, Bird wasn't just along for the ride, either. She started in every single game of her WNBA career — all 640 of them — maintaining a level of excellence in her final years thanks to her standing as one of the game's greatest point guards and leaders.
When you sustain excellence, you set marks that may take some time to be broken, if ever.
Bird bows out as the WNBA's all-time leader in several categories, including:
- Seasons played (20)
- Regular season games played (580)
- Assists (3,234)
- Minutes (18,080)
- All-Star appearances (13)
Oh, and in 2021, Bird and college teammate Diana Taurasi became two of just nine basketball players ever to compete in five different Olympic Games. They won gold each time.
Five gold medals? Add that to the championship tally and the list of records that may never be broken.
The Storm might not have won a title in Bird's final year, but with all that the all-time great has accomplished, she still retires on top.
