Dom Amore: Former UConn Husky Sue Bird a player for the ages, and the ageless in Seattle
Early on, with a lot of the Sun’s attention on Jewell Loyd, or Breanna Stewart, or Katie Lou Samuelson, Sue Bird saw some openings and took her points, a couple of 3-pointers, a pull-up, a couple of assists. Bird had eight within the first six minutes, and the Seattle Storm had control of the game for good.
None of this is new or surprising, but that Sue Bird is still this good at basketball after 18 years in the WNBA, various injuries and turning the big 4-oh, is rather amazing, no matter how matter-of-fact she can still make it look.
“Sue is just doing what Sue does,” Stewart, 26, was saying Sunday, after the Storm (10-2), sometimes known as the “Seattle-UConn Huskies,” defeated the Sun 89-66 in a matchup of conference leaders. “Yeah, if you look at her and think she’s 40, then it’s like, ‘wow.’ But she’s showing you that age is nothing but a number, and continuing to make an impact, continuing to be aggressive, continuing to play the way Sue Bird plays.”
It’s time we talked more about this. We celebrate, as well we should, those special athletes who continue to play at an age in which most of their contemporaries have hung ‘em up and moved on. Bird, 40, took it in good humor when she recently learned she’s the same age as the mother of one of her teammates, but she and another former Husky, Diana Taurasi, 39, are pridefully showing that what Tom Brady is doing, what LeBron James is doing, what Serena Williams is doing, can be done in the WNBA, too.
“Any one of those athletes would tell you,” Bird said, “that it takes a lot to stay at the elite level at a certain age, because the reality is, your body is going to deteriorate in different ways, so the work you have to put in to maintain ... for a long time, I’ve joked that I’m not trying to beat Father Time, I’m just trying to tie him.”
For another day, Sue Bird held her own with the unbeaten one, finishing with 13 points and four assists. She scored 21, with a series of clutch 3s, in Seattle’s come-from-behind, OT victory against the Sun on May 25 in Seattle. Bird is among the WNBA leaders in shooting percentage among guards (50.6), 3-point shooting (44.6), and assists per game (6.3).
“I think we just have to enjoy the excellence that is Sue Bird,” said Seattle coach Noelle Quinn, “and not even think about the years put in, but the production she is showing night in and night out. We already know she has a mind for basketball. She’s a basketball savant. What you see on the court is in direct relation to the work she puts in. The level of elite standard she has set, you don’t want to talk about the age aspect of it because it kind of waters it down.”
No, that’s the thing. Bird is still a great player, far from just a great player for someone her age. Whatever she’s lost off her fastball, only she really knows, and she knows how to compensate for it.
“Listen, I’m not 22,” she said. “I actually saw something a couple of weeks ago, from my rookie year, and I was like, ‘Oh, wow I was fast.’ I’m not 22 anymore, but what I can do is try to maintain it, and that work comes in the offseason. It comes in the nutrition, and it’s a mentality. When players get older and their game does change, there’s a tendency to fight that a little bit, not necessarily accept it. I could go to bed at night being mad that I’m not as fast as I was when I was 22, or I can just embrace what I am now and still find ways to be successful.”
Bird could have retired five years ago and still be considered one of the best players ever. Her UConn teams went 114-4 and won two NCAA titles. She has won four WNBA titles since Seattle made her the No. 1 pick in the 2002 draft, four FIBA World Cups, five EuroLeague championships and four Olympic gold medals, with all indications she and Taurasi will take a run at No. 5 in Tokyo.
And her eye for the game only grows sharper with age. During the 2020 season, she told Samuelson, then with Dallas, “Your game would fit in Seattle so well.” Now teammates, Samuelson, 24, is starting and finding her niche in the league.
“I’m so grateful to get the opportunity to play with Sue,” Samuelson said, “getting a chance to experience the greatness she brings every single day. It’s been so cool to watch, but now being a part of it, it’s been great and really helpful for me to find a role for myself because she makes it easy to play with her.”
The Sun were without Jonquel Jones, who is playing in Europe, so the true measure of these two contending teams will come later. But the Storm represent a championship culture, and their lineup is like a timeline of UConn dominance with Bird, 1998-2002, Stewart, 2012-16, and Samuelson, 2015-19. The current Huskies made their way into the Mohegan Sun Arena to watch them play Sunday, saw Stewart get 22 points, nine rebounds and five assists, Samuelson eight points and four assists.
And they saw Sue Bird offer her example that basketball doesn’t have to end at 25, or 30, or with the first or second surgery.
“It’s a very prideful thing,” Bird said. “Playing to an age like 40, one part is being physically able, another part is wanting to do it. You have to want to continue to play, and for those that do, I hope players like myself and D, in the world of women’s basketball, have set a new standard. I jokingly bring up my age, but I feel like people bring up our age more than it is impacting our play, that ratio is definitely distorted. So hopefully we can change that conversation.”
Dom Amore can be reached at damore@courant.com.
