Sue Bird’s final act: The evolution of an all-time WNBA legend

SEATTLE — Sue Hen walked off the courtroom Tuesday for the final time, her WNBA profession concluding the place it began 20 years earlier. Regardless of a season-ending loss, the Seattle Storm level guard acquired a becoming tribute from the group at Local weather Pledge Enviornment. The followers roared their appreciation for her 19 seasons as Hen unsuccessfully fought again tears, repeatedly acknowledging the group by elevating her palms earlier than disappearing into the tunnel.

Hen’s path from No. 1 general decide of the WNBA draft to future Corridor of Famer appeared direct. She walks away from the WNBA as probably the most adorned participant in league historical past, with a report 13 All-Star appearances and 4 championships throughout a profession spent totally in Seattle.

Over 20 years right here, Hen was a paragon of consistency, averaging double-figure scoring every of her first 16 seasons and not less than 4.8 assists in all however one in all her campaigns. But the regular play required Hen to navigate a collection of career-threatening surgical procedures on her troublesome left knee, an ever-changing group of teammates and her personal getting older.

All of it got here to an finish Tuesday, when the Las Vegas Aces eradicated the Storm 3-1 within the WNBA semifinals. As Hen has mirrored on her profession over the past a number of weeks, she was maybe proudest of profitable 4 WNBA championships throughout three completely different phases — and many years — of her profession. Hen first gained as a part of a duo with fellow 23-year-old Lauren Jackson, then once more with the 2 stars of their prime six years later. She added the ultimate two championships as a veteran presence on a roster anchored by youthful stars Jewell Loyd and Breanna Stewart.

“It wasn’t identical to lightning in a bottle the place you had an amazing roster for a few years,” Hen stated. “I used to be a part of groups the place every time we gained we needed to determine it out. It was a very completely different equation and we did it. I am actually happy with that.”

On the best way there, Hen thought-about leaving to complete her profession elsewhere earlier than recommitting to the Storm, in the end outlasting six head coaches, six teammates who’ve already beat her to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Corridor of Fame and even a constructing. (Longtime house KeyArena, now renovated as Local weather Pledge Enviornment.)

Because the curtain comes down one ultimate time, we revisit the 4 phases of one of many best skilled careers in girls’s sports activities historical past, together with the second Hen knew she would end her profession in Seattle.

Act I: ‘Huge Children’

Scene: October 2004. Confetti is falling at KeyArena. A sellout crowd has seen the Storm beat the Connecticut Solar to win Seattle’s first main professional sports activities championship because the Sonics 25 years earlier. Hen and Jackson, of their third season collectively, have fun the primary of what appears to be many titles collectively.

“We had no thought what we had been doing, we had been completely new to it,” Hen recalled. “It felt wonderful. It was the primary time. It was town’s first in [25 years] in order that pleasure was actual. We had been 23. We felt like we had been going to be within the Finals yearly — after which we weren’t.”

When Hen was drafted No. 1 by the Storm in 2002, the franchise was younger in each sense. The WNBA had expanded to Seattle simply two years earlier, and in contrast to different growth groups that constructed up rapidly, the Storm operated patiently. That resulted in back-to-back high picks yielding Hen and Jackson, precocious basketball abilities whose video games meshed completely.

“She and Lauren each, large children,” stated Jenny Boucek, who joined the Storm as an assistant underneath Anne Donovan forward of Hen’s second season. “They performed for the love of the sport. There was a pleasure about them that was indescribable and that was their edge. Sue and Lauren’s pleasure gave them a fearlessness and nearly a naiveté that trumped a number of issues that maintain groups and gamers again. They had been simply having a lot enjoyable.

“That was really just a little little bit of a problem for Anne as a result of it was so opposite to her character. I would typically have conversations with Anne like, ‘We have to maximise this. That is our edge. Although it is not how you use, our star gamers, they thrive in a enjoyable, playful setting.’”

It is exhausting to consider now, however one of many questions for Hen early in her profession was how you can be a pacesetter in a locker room stuffed with older gamers. Within the wake of a 2003 season that ended with Seattle simply exterior the playoff image regardless of Jackson profitable MVP for the primary time, the Storm centered on including extra expertise. Seattle added a pair of veteran starters, selecting Betty Lennox in a dispersal draft after the Cleveland Rockers folded, and buying Sheri Sam and key reserve Janell Burse by way of commerce.

“I feel the entire thought then was ‘Sue and Lauren are the cornerstones on this second, they’re this duo that we have to construct round,’” Hen stated. “‘How can we make their lives simpler as younger gamers? How can we make it so they only need to go on the market and play?’”

The strikes labored as envisioned. The Storm gained 20 video games for the primary time and loved home-court benefit all through the playoffs because of upsets elsewhere. Regardless of Hen breaking her nostril in the course of the workforce’s first-round win over the Minnesota Lynx and present process surgical procedure the day earlier than the deciding Recreation 3 of the convention finals, she handed out 14 assists as Seattle superior to the WNBA Finals.

After shedding Recreation 1 in Connecticut, the Storm got here house to a full KeyArena and gained the subsequent two video games. Lennox gained Finals MVP honors as Seattle celebrated a championship at house.

Free company, new to the WNBA as a part of a collective bargaining settlement signed after Hen’s rookie season, took a toll on the Storm’s championship roster. Sam and fellow starter Kamila Vodichkova departed, as did Hen’s backup, Tully Bevilaqua. Seattle nonetheless gained 20 video games the next season, however was upset within the opening spherical by the Houston Comets. By 2007, when Jackson gained MVP a second time, the Storm had dropped to .500 and had been swept out of the playoffs within the first spherical.

“We had a championship roster and we by no means received to construct on it,” Hen stated. “We by no means received to see what was going to occur with it as a result of free company got here in. Now you fast-forward to 2006, 2007, I will be trustworthy: These rosters weren’t adequate to win. Might we have now overachieved and gotten additional? Positively, however these rosters weren’t essentially championship rosters.”

Act II: Peaking

Scene: September 2010. Philips Enviornment, Atlanta. Coco Miller misses a 3-pointer that might have tied the rating and the Storm full an ideal postseason within the wake of a 28-6 common season. For the primary time since 2010, Hen is a WNBA champion. She leaps into Jackson’s arms to have fun.

“We had been very mission-oriented in a means,” Hen recalled of the 2010 season. “There was a mission. It was to win.”

Boucek, who returned to Seattle’s teaching employees in 2010 underneath coach Brian Agler, noticed the distinction 5 consecutive first-round exits made.

“I feel all of us took it with no consideration how ‘simply’ that got here and that we had been simply going to win a number of them,” Boucek stated. “It had been a very long time in our world that it did not occur. So there was a seriousness that wasn’t there the primary time, a spotlight, an appreciation for a way troublesome this was.”

This was additionally a distinct model of Hen. After profitable the primary title, she did not elevate her sport as anticipated in her mid-20s. She made the All-WNBA First Crew every of her first 4 seasons, however was left off each groups at ages 25 and 26. In 2007, when Hen handled midseason arthroscopic knee surgical procedure, her scoring common dropped to 10.4 PPG — the bottom it will be for a decade.

Enjoying with out Jackson, injured throughout first-round exits in 2008 and 2009, compelled Hen to grow to be extra aggressive offensively. In 2008, her scoring common bounced again to 14.1 PPG. In 2011, Hen averaged a career-high 14.7 factors, incomes All-WNBA honors each years.

“I at all times joke I am a Robin, I am not a Batman,” Hen stated. “However I am additionally like a chameleon in some methods. I’ve to suit into what the workforce wants. We had this participant that the whole lot was based mostly round. Now it was like, ‘Alright, we have to choose up the slack.’”

Throughout this stretch, Hen earned an unforgettable however profane nickname on a preferred WNBA message board for her tendency to make large pictures late in video games to assist the Storm put opponents away: Sue Die B—-es Hen. Teammate Tanisha Wright delighted in joking together with her about it.

“I do not know the primary time I heard it,” Hen stated, “but it surely’s a hell of a f’ing nickname. It is a praise.”

Within the 2010 playoffs alone, Hen made a pair of game-winning pictures to assist maintain the Storm unbeaten. In Recreation 2 at Phoenix, Hen moved off the ball whereas Wright ran a pick-and-roll, then delivered a catch-and-shoot 3 to cap a comeback from down 12 with 3:21 left and full the sweep.

Every week later, it was Hen operating pick-and-roll with Jackson, whose transferring display screen freed Hen to make a pull-up jumper within the ultimate seconds to win Recreation 1 of the WNBA Finals in opposition to the Dream.

“I’ve by no means been round a extra clutch shooter than Sue Hen,” Agler stated. “Her capacity to hit key free throws, hit key pictures within the guts of the sport, there have been a number of occasions she did that within the years I used to be there. There is not any means I might have extra confidence in anyone else than her.”

The 2010 postseason marked one other turning level for Hen: With Boucek unable to journey for playoff video games as a result of a rule briefly limiting groups to at least one full-time assistant coach, they started watching movie collectively to review opposing defenses and work out how Hen might finest counter them, one thing Agler stated “took her sport to a different degree.”

“I’ve by no means been round a extra clutch shooter than Sue Hen.”

Former Storm coach Brian Agler

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“Sue’s mind may be very very like a pc,” Boucek defined. “If you happen to put the information within the file cupboards and also you load up that database, she is healthier than anyone I’ve ever seen at with the ability to pull from massive quantities of data on the proper time. By the point she received to the sport, she would use her genius to drag from it, however she was ready.”

To Hen, the additional examine was all about discovering any edge obligatory throughout a playoff run the place the workforce’s ultimate 4 wins got here by three factors or fewer.

“If you happen to can steal a possession in that means, simply by outsmarting them,” Hen stated. “I’ve form of discovered that is the place a number of my energy lies — with the ability to use my IQ to form of manipulate. Jenny helped me set up that.”

Act III: Rebuilding and recommitting

Scene: September 2015. Evening of the WNBA draft lottery. UConn star Breanna Stewart, who has already gained three consecutive NCAA titles, is the prized No. 1 decide subsequent spring. Seattle has the perfect odds. Watching at a sports activities bar close to Seattle, Hen sees WNBA president Laurel Richie open an envelope with the Storm’s brand and is aware of it means she’ll end her profession the identical place it began.

“Stewie does not comprehend it,” Hen stated, “however she form of saved my profession right here in a number of methods. If we do not get the No. 1 decide that 12 months, I do not know. I actually do not know. On the similar time, if I am going to New York, who is aware of if I final so long as I’ve lasted now. Issues occur for a motive and I am glad they occurred the best way they did.”

To get in place to land Stewart required Seattle to rebuild for the primary time in Hen’s profession. The roster had aged and atrophied, with Jackson final enjoying within the WNBA in 2012 as a result of harm. The Storm had been coming off a 12-22 report in 2014, when Agler departed for the Los Angeles Sparks. Hen’s future in Seattle was additionally turning into a query mark.

“The query I needed to ask myself,” Hen stated, “Effectively, someone else, I feel it was [UConn] coach (Geno) Auriemma, posed it to me this fashion, which was: ‘Do you ever wish to play in a significant WNBA sport once more?’ I used to be like, ‘Oh man, while you put it that means.’”

Enjoying for her hometown New York Liberty loomed as an choice. Not solely had been they a contender led by a pair of native New Yorkers — Tina Charles and Epiphanny Prince, each of whom performed with Hen throughout her ultimate season — the Liberty additionally had added former Seattle teammates Wright and Swin Money, two of Hen’s closest mates within the league.

“Stewie does not comprehend it, however she form of saved my profession right here in a number of methods. If we do not get the No. 1 decide that 12 months, I do not know.”

Sue Hen, who thought-about leaving Seattle previous to Seattle profitable the 2016 WNBA draft lottery and the correct to pick out Breanna Stewart at No. 1

Inevitably, they tried to recruit Hen to New York. And Hen might simply envision enjoying at iconic Madison Sq. Backyard with family and friends in attendance.

“I positively fell in love with the fantasy of that,” Hen stated. “It turned very enticing.”

Particularly as losses mounted in the course of the 2015 season.

“We’re shedding a number of video games,” Hen recalled. “That is what we signed up for. That is what I signed up for. Clearly Stewie was popping out of faculty the subsequent 12 months, in order that was very a lot the motivating issue, but it surely received exhausting. Dropping is tough.

“You simply wish to really feel good on the market. It does not at all times need to be about shedding and profitable, however you wish to really feel good on the market. It was powerful.”

On the similar time Hen was deciding the place she would end her profession, she was additionally taking steps to make sure she saved enjoying at a excessive degree deep into her 30s. Hen started working intently with efficiency coach Susan King Borchardt, who had been a part of the Seattle group seasonally, on a year-round foundation. The distinction was evident.

“She did an outstanding job of creating the choice that she was going to put money into her physique and care for her physique in these latter years,” Wright stated. “I do know that is a irritating half since you’ve had these knee points … however I feel Sue did an outstanding job of creating the choice to say, ‘I am committing to this,’ and clearly it is helped her tremendously these final 5 years.

“When you noticed her in motion, it is like, ‘Oh, s—.’ That is real-deal stuff. For her to make that dedication at that age? Kudos to her.”

“Sue’s mind may be very very like a pc. If you happen to put the information within the file cupboards and also you load up that database, she is healthier than anyone … at with the ability to pull from massive quantities of data on the proper time.”

Former Storm coach Jenny Boucek, on watching sport movie and serving to Hen put together for opposing defenses

In the meantime, Boucek — who changed Agler as head coach in 2015 — was putting in an offense that might spotlight Hen’s decision-making prowess in addition to function Stewart, ought to the Storm be capable to draft her.

“I am so grateful for that,” Hen stated, “as a result of I used to be at a spot in my profession the place I felt like I used to be plateauing and wanted to alter my eating regimen. That fashion actually breathed new life for me. It wasn’t like catered towards me but it surely actually was designed for a participant like myself.”

With Seattle locked right into a battle in opposition to the San Antonio Silver Stars for pole place within the draft lottery, Hen sat out 4 of the final 5 video games in 2015, together with a loss to San Antonio within the regular-season finale that assured the Storm the perfect odds. When the profitable mixture got here up for Seattle, Hen’s alternative in free company was clear. She took conferences to undergo the free company course of however by no means significantly thought-about leaving.

“I knew deep down,” Hen stated, “if we received the No. 1 decide I used to be not going wherever.”

Act IV: Again on high

Scene: September 2018. Hen is celebrating a championship once more, this time in opposition to the Washington Mystics. She’s now the veteran on a gaggle of gamers largely experiencing profitable a title for the primary time, as is coach Dan Hughes.

“For me personally,” Hen stated, “what was completely different from 2004 and 2010 is I legitimately by no means thought I’d be on the No. 1 workforce going into the playoffs and having an opportunity to go to the Finals. That was off the desk for me. I simply did not even permit myself to think about it that means. I haven’t got like a favourite Sue Hen’s ultimate act: The evolution of an all-time WNBA legend per se, however I feel when it is all stated and carried out, 2018 will at all times stand out.”

Seattle’s success with Stewart wasn’t instant. After reaching the playoffs throughout Stewart’s rookie season, when Hen was voted All-WNBA First Crew at age 35 after taking pictures what was then a career-best 44% from 3-point vary, the Storm backslid in 2017, costing Boucek her job. Hughes, one of many league’s winningest coaches, took over however retained a lot of the offense Boucek had put in.

Regardless of Stewart’s potential, Hen famous Seattle was nonetheless picked seventh going into the 2018 season, when Hughes, a longtime WNBA head coach, took over. Hen and newcomer Natasha Howard, a reserve on championship groups in Indiana and Minnesota, had been the lone core gamers with vital postseason expertise.

“No one realized the influence Natasha was going to have on our workforce,” Hen stated. “I do not assume we realized it. In actuality, in the event you have a look at it, she did not even begin [the first game]. It wasn’t till [Crystal Langhorne] received harm after which she needed to begin. We had all the proper items in a number of methods and Natasha Howard getting into that lineup unlocked all of it.”

In Hen, who had seen all of it by that time, a younger workforce additionally had the proper veteran chief. At all times able to main by instance — Boucek known as her an amazing “influencer” of her teammates — Hen had grow to be extra snug as a vocal presence within the locker room over time.

“Sue had the knowledge to know that a number of issues received to occur to place your self in place to be champion once more,” Hughes stated, “particularly after a rebuild scenario. I feel the identical issues she appreciated, I appreciated.

“I feel that appreciation is one thing that wasn’t misplaced to the teammates that hadn’t lived that life to know that that is uncommon air. You need the whole lot you possibly can at that second to be invested in the correct means. As a pacesetter of our workforce, that was an amazing message she carried.”

Two years later, after each Hen (as a result of yet one more knee surgical procedure) and Stewart (Achilles rupture) missed the chance to defend the title in 2019, the Storm gained a fourth championship underneath distinctive circumstances. The 2020 season was performed in a bubble on the IMG campus in Bradenton, Florida, with gamers using their platform to focus on social justice, particularly the “Say Her Title” marketing campaign.

To Hen, the 2020 Seattle workforce — additionally undefeated within the playoffs — deserves to be thought-about among the many WNBA’s best groups ever.

“We had the identical expertise from 2018, solely we received higher and deeper,” she stated. “Now we had these vets — clearly I am an older vet, however Stewie and Jewell are actually vets. Then you definitely add Jordin [Canada] and Cedes [Mercedes Russell], they are not vets, however they’re WNBA gamers. It isn’t their rookie 12 months anymore.”

For all of the younger expertise round Hen, she remained an indispensable a part of the Storm’s final two championship groups. In 2020, they went 16-1 within the 17 video games Hen performed, struggling three of their 4 losses together with her sidelined in the course of the common season.

As Hen turned older, she discovered methods to compensate for shedding the pace Agler stated made her a “a lot, a lot better athlete than individuals gave her credit score for” in her prime. Alongside the best way, Hen’s manufacturing remained remarkably constant into her 40s.

“I’ve actually been a distinct participant in every five-year phase,” Hen stated. “I have been just a little bit completely different bodily and I’ve simply been capable of finding methods.

“I by no means in my life have relied on my dimension, on my energy. I feel there have been occasions earlier in my profession the place I relied on quickness just a little bit — not relied on however I wanted it. It is how I received locations. With every change bodily that has come, I have been in a position to adapt as a result of I by no means actually relied on it in these different methods. My expertise and my smarts, so long as I had that, you possibly can overcome a few of the bodily adjustments.”

Now Hen is strolling away from the WNBA after enjoying extra video games than some other participant in league historical past (579; solely Diana Taurasi has additionally performed in not less than 500 video games) and doing so on her phrases, having determined to return for a ultimate season after followers chanted “Another 12 months!” following Seattle’s 2021 playoff loss to Phoenix.

After initially leaving the door open to extending her profession, Hen introduced her retirement halfway by way of the Storm’s schedule, giving followers a chance to indicate their appreciation throughout her ultimate marketing campaign. A sellout crowd of 18,000-plus, the biggest in franchise historical past, turned out for her ultimate regular-season sport in Seattle.

Hen is conscious well being might have prevented that ending, because it did for Jackson’s WNBA profession — particularly contemplating Hen’s left knee points relationship to an ACL tear throughout her freshman 12 months in 1998 however accelerated by microfracture surgical procedure to deal with a meniscus harm in 2003. No different skilled basketball participant is thought to have performed so lengthy after microfracture, which has grow to be more and more uncommon as a traditional therapy.

“The story that no person talks about is my knee,” Hen stated. “That is the knee of a 70-year-old. Within the bubble I had a bone bruise. I received an MRI and the physician who was on website opened it up and was like, ‘WTF?’ My knee normally will get that response from docs. Folks always inform me, ‘I do not know the way you are doing it.’ I do not know the way I am doing it both! A few of it’s luck, a few of it’s good genetics.”

Because the psychological and bodily toll of enjoying grew and Hen ready for her subsequent act as an investor in NJ/NY Gotham FC of the Nationwide Ladies’s Soccer League, co-owner of the ladies’s sports activities media model TOGETHXR and a broadcaster, the time to retire was proper “for thus many causes,” she stated.

Certain, there is a sport right here or there Hen needs had gone in another way, a go she hadn’t made or a shot she had taken. Nonetheless, she’s retiring happy with a profession that can be troublesome for future generations of WNBA stars to match.

“There’s like these tiny little regrets by way of that,” Hen stated. “However I feel that is simply pure as an athlete to be like, ‘Dang, I want we might have gained that one.’ However typically talking, I really feel very a lot at peace and comfy with my profession. I haven’t got heavy remorse. I haven’t got just about any shoulda coulda wouldas.

“I do know that I did the whole lot I might to win championships and we had been profitable in that regard, so it feels actually good. I do know I had a optimistic influence on my group, on my groups. I do not really feel like all stones had been unturned in that means.”

Earlier than becoming a member of ESPN, Kevin Pelton spent 10 years working for the Seattle Storm because the workforce’s web site reporter.