EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the fourth of a five-part series exploring Sue Bird’s career leading up to her jersey retirement on June 11. Read Part 1 , Part 2, and Part 3. Part 5 coming soon.
by Mark Moschetti, Seattle Storm
They hadn’t yet connected as friends That wouldn’t happen for a while.
But on the basketball court?
To hear Sue Bird and Lauren Jackson tell it …
… that happened in practically no time at all.
On the night of June 9, 2002, this top-caliber tandem of 21-year-old talent finally got to play together with the Seattle Storm.
Rookie sensation Bird, that year’s highly-touted No. 1 overall WNBA draft pick already had gone through a complete training camp and the first four games, of which the Storm had won the last three in a row. Jackson, the previous year’s highly-touted No. 1 overall draft pick and now beginning her second year with the team, had just recently gotten into town.
The opponent that night was the Utah Starzz, a charter member of the WNBA who subsequently morphed into the San Antonio Silver Stars and now the Las Vegas Aces. Playing just the fifth game of her career, Bird was already Seattle’s starting point guard, having racked up 25 assists in her first four games. Jackson was in the post, getting the start that night inside KeyArena in her first game of the season.
Jackson had scored an early basket to tie the score at 2-2. Then, with the Storm up 8-7, Bird hit her with a pass, and Jackson drained a 3-pointer to make it 11-7.
And all they needed was 5 minutes, 38 seconds of being out there together. Just 5 minutes, 38 seconds for the first official entry of “Basket: Lauren Jackson, Assist: Sue Bird” on a WNBA scoresheet.
“We had our roles to play, and she was incredible at getting the ball to where the ball needed to get to,” Jackson said. “Around that time, that was me. That really helped us have a connection on the court.”
Then, as if to show everyone what would eventually become commonplace over the next dozen years, Bird found Jackson for a lay-in just 23 seconds after that 3-pointer. She then fed her for another trey a mere 49 seconds after the lay-in.
That gave Jackson 10 points in the first seven minutes of the game, with Bird having a hand in the last eight of them.
No wonder expectations were so high — if not yet for the team, then certainly for the two of them.
“It did click right away on the court,” Bird said. “But (those high expectations) did naturally push us to where we had to become a unit, become this tandem – Sue and Lauren, Lauren and Sue, always. That really led us to becoming friends.
“It was almost inevitable.”
Lin Dunn knew she was blessed. The original coach and general manager of the Storm from their inaugural season in 2000 through the end of the 2002 season, she had the No. 1 pick in the 2001 WNBA draft and used it to select Jackson.
Then, when the lottery odds fell her way again and the Storm got the top pick in the 2002 draft, she selected Bird, despite having received many offers to trade the pick. (One story circulating at the time that people got a chuckle out of was that the New York Liberty were offering to trade Madison Square Garden for the rights to Bird.)
With the two of them on the floor together, Dunn knew what she had.
“When we brought Sue in and I saw how Sue and Lauren connected, that’s when, in my mind, I thought we were going to win championships,” Dunn said. “Those two were on the same page, they were going to be lifelong friends, they were going to be two of the best ever to play the game.
“The minute I saw that connection, I saw championships.”
Seattle didn’t get quite that far during that 2002 campaign, but it did get to the playoffs for the first time. A 17-15 record put the Storm fourth in the Western Conference and into a best-of-3 first-round matchup against the top-seeded Los Angeles Sparks. Jackson came into the series averaging 17.2 points, 6.8 rebounds and 2.9 blocked shots. Bird came in averaging 14.4 points and 5.96 assists, having played and started all 32 games.
It was a short postseason trip, as the Sparks won both games.
Still, the foundation had been laid.
“My first year in the WNBA, I didn’t have any expectations of the team or myself,” Bird said. “It was all new. But very quickly, because we made the playoffs maybe faster than people would have expected, now there are expectations.”
Same for the Sue and LJ combo: Now, there were expectations.
“I think the bond we had as point guard and post player, we played so well together by that time, I think we knew it was going to be something special for years to come,” Jackson said. “And we were going to be a part of that.”
Although Dunn accurately forecast championships once she saw Bird and Jackson play together, she wasn’t around to be part of them. Just two weeks after the playoff loss to the Sparks, she resigned her coach / GM positions, saying it was time for a break.
Anne Donovan came aboard, and, with all of her experience and success as the 6-foot-8 star at Old Dominion from 1979-83, she helped the 6-5 Jackson blossom into one of the dominant players in the WNBA.
While all of that was happening, the friendship between Jackson and Bird also began to blossom.
Bird likened it to a 2- or 3-year-old getting a new sibling and now suddenly having to share the attention.
“But eventually, you get over that,” Bird said. “I think Lauren can be really shy and reserved when she doesn’t know people, and I can be that way, as well. The basketball was always there. But then there was this moment toward the end of the first season, maybe even into the second season, where we finally had a moment that was like, ‘I like you, you like me, we’re good, we can be friends.’
“That’s when the friendship started to take off.”
Jackson agreed that it was just a matter of letting things take their course.
“It’s just something that happened over time. It wasn’t any one thing,” she said. “I think we started hanging out together socially a little bit more. We would go to bars together — we were only 21. I think just through conversation, it just naturally came. I don’t think it was anything that was forced.”
The Storm didn’t make the playoffs in 2003, falling short of a spot late in the season. Various injuries piled up, including a nagging knee issue with Bird that didn’t sideline her (she played all 34 games, averaging 12.3 points and 6.5 assists), but eventually did require surgery after the season. Jackson, playing under Donovan’s tutelage, boosted her numbers to 21.5 points and 9.3 rebounds.
But as Bird saw it, all of that ultimately played a role in helping the Storm go all the way in 2004.
“That (2003) season was really hard for me physically, and it ended up being a hard season for the team overall,” Bird recalled. “But I mean, this is what happens in sports: Just name me a team that didn’t have some sort of adversity the year before they win the championship. That’s just the way it goes.”
Jackson remembers that first championship season not only for her final-buzzer embrace of Bird after a 74-60 victory against Connecticut in the deciding Game 3 of The Finals in Seattle, but for the off-the-court part of the season between the two of them, as well.
“In that 2004 year … we just did everything together. It was really special,” she said. “I think particularly in those early year, that was so important for us.
“I think as our friendship developed, the way that we played together, I think we played a lot better together after we became best of friends, for sure.”
The playoff appearances would continue on an annual basis. But for five straight years after that title — 2005-09 — the Storm went out in the first round every time.
Then came the 2010 season that was nothing short of jaw-dropping. Seattle went undefeated (17-0) at home and 28-6 overall. The Storm essentially wrapped up the Western Conference regular-season title and the top seed in the playoffs with about two weeks to go. Jackson averaged 20.5 points and 8.3 rebounds Bird chipped in 11.1 points and 5.8 assists.
Seattle swept all three playoff series: 2-0 in the West semis against Los Angeles, 2-0 in the West finals against Phoenix, and 3-0 in The Finals against East champion Atlanta.
In the second game of the Phoenix series, the host Mercury were up by 12 points with 3:21 left, on the brink of forcing a deciding Game 3 back in Seattle. But the Storm finished on a 15-0 run. It was Bird who hit a game-winning 3-pointer with 2.8 seconds to go, that after assisting on Swin Cash’s lay-in to forge 88-88 tie with 36.2 seconds left.
“It wasn’t just one thing — it was the way she read the team, her innate belief in what we were able to achieve,” Jackson said. “She just had that killer instinct. She knew what had to get done, and she would get it done,”
Added Bird, “That was probably one of the best defensive teams I’ve ever played on. It was just the individuals we had — Tanisha Wright and Camille, and of course, Lauren was always a great defender. Offensively, Lauren still did Lauren things.”
Different injuries, including one to her hip that required midseason surgery, limited Jackson to just 13 games in 2011. Still, Seattle won eight out of the first nine after her return and reached the playoffs, but was ousted by Phoenix in the first round. The following year, she opted to focus on the 2012 London Olympics returning in September for a late-season push to the playoffs.
The Storm squared off against defending champion Minnesota in the Western semifinals, and took it to a deciding Game 3 in Minneapolis. It went back and forth before the Lynx finally prevailed, 73-72.
With 7:15 to play in the fourth quarter, Jackson buried a 3-pointer to tie the game at 60-60. That would turn out to be her last-ever Storm — and WNBA — basket.
Of course, at that particular moment, nobody had any way of knowing it would be her last one. However, since it ultimately was, how could it have been any more appropriate that picking up the assist …
… was Sue Bird.
Jackson eventually would get a last-second shot with a chance for the win. It didn’t go, but it was still a chance.
That’s something Bird could always count on when Jackson was around.
“No matter what year it was, whether it was the first two years where we were just trying to put the team on the map, or years like 2004 and 2010 when we knew we had teams good enough to win the whole thing, to everything in between: Whenever you sat next to Lauren in the locker room before the game, getting ready for a game, you looked around and saw Lauren, and you always knew with her, you had a chance.”
A series of injuries kept Jackson sidelined in 2013 and 2014. She talked of wanting to return to put a proper cap on her Seattle career in 2015, but knee surgery that spring wiped out those plans.
She ultimately announced her retirement on March 30, 2016.
Later that summer, the Storm retired her No. 15 jersey, raising it to the KeyArena rafters. Bird was the keynote speaker that night, sharing several previously untold stories about Jackson (and the two of them together) that had the sellout crowd laughing constantly.
She also mentioned how Jackson had taught her to be a competitor. That might sound a bit strange from someone such as Bird, who’s as highly competitive as they come.
But when asked about it during an interview in the lead-up to her own number retirement, Bird said Jackson took competitiveness up a few notches, hence making her the teacher to Bird’s student.
“She’s the ultimate competitor. She had this chip on her shoulder,” Bird said. “I feel like I’m competitive and know how to compete. But the way like she just wanted to rip everybody’s head off when she went out there — including her own teammates at times — that was another level.”
They’ll be together again this coming Sunday, June 11, when Bird’s jersey takes its place alongside LJ’s. Jackson, now the mother of two boys, is planning to make the trip Australia.
“Obviously, I miss the friendship,” Jackson said. “I’m watching her from Australia, and she’s amazing and a great leader. I think just watching her journey, I’ve loved watching it.
“I still wish I could have played a few more years with her,” she added. “It’s fun to watch her and be a fan and a friend.”
Bird, who has acknowledged that she “wasn’t necessarily thrilled” when she initially knew she would be coming all the way across the country from her East Coast roots to play in Seattle, now can’t imagine having played in any other place.
Or, for the first decade of her career, going through it all with any other post player.
“The way it turned out, I couldn’t have asked for anything better, in terms of the city and the fan base, but of course, being teamed up with Lauren,” she said. “It was the perfect fit.”
More than that, between Sue Bird and Lauren Jackson, it was the perfect connection …
… on and off the basketball court.