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One word for Sue Bird: Legendary Other teams would have swapped anything or everything for No. 1 pick, but Seattle would be her destination -- and her destiny

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first of a five-part series exploring Sue Bird’s career leading up to her jersey retirement on June 11. Read Part 2Part 3, and Part 4. Part 5 coming soon.

by Mark Moschetti, Seattle Storm

It’s said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Sue Bird’s journey of nearly 3,000 miles from Connecticut to Seattle began with a single word:

No.

Nothing more. Just …

… no.

That was Lin Dunn’s response to a query from an ESPN reporter Doris Burke on the night of the 2002 WNBA draft.

Dunn, then the head coach and general manager of the Seattle Storm, had the No. 1 overall selection. Without a doubt, that selection was going to be Bird, who had just led the powerhouse UConn team to its third national championship (and her second) and had collected multiple awards for her accomplishments.

In the moments leading up to the selection, Burke asked Dunn if she had ever considered trading the pick. Normally very chatty and always very quotable, Dunn didn’t have much to say.

But even now, 21 years later, Bird remembers that one-word moment — and it spoke volumes to her.

“Lin very bluntly said, ‘No,’” Bird said. “I always took that as the ultimate compliment that she would never consider trading it.”

The pick was announced. Bird was bound for Seattle … bound for what would become a collection of four WNBA championships … and bound for legendary status among the city’s sporting elite that will culminate on Sunday, June 11, when uniform No. 10 is raised to the rafters prior to the noon tip-off against the Washington Mystics.

It will all happen in front of what is likely to be a sold-out crowd inside Climate Pledge Arena, and a national television audience on ABC.

And it all started with Lin Dunn’s one-word answer.

“New York in particular and Detroit were the two that were the most aggressive (in wanting to trade for the pick),” Dunn recalled. “The interesting thing is, the more they offered me, the more I knew I was not going to let her go. I never had any interest in letting her go, anyway. So that reassured me that I made the right decision.”

“IT WAS LIKE A BLUR”

Two-plus decades after that monumental moment in her career on draft night, Bird and her legions of fans can’t picture her in anything other than a Seattle Storm uniform — doesn’t matter if it was a yellow one, a white one, a green one, or a black one.

But she does acknowledge that she had to warm up to the idea. Her entire life had been on the East Coast, from growing up in New York to starring at Connecticut. She had been to Seattle just once — on Nov. 24, 2000, when UConn spoiled the grand re-opening of Washington’s newly renovated Hec Edmundson Pavilion with a 100-54 blowout win. Bird finished with seven points and seven assists that night.

“I was excited to get picked No. 1. But as far as the city goes, I was kind of neutral,” Bird said. “It was really far — I knew that much.

“Little did I know it was going to be the perfect fit on and off the court. So it all worked out.”

Bird didn’t have time to dwell on it. The draft was on April 19; training camp was less than a month away, and her first official game as a pro would be just 41 days after she held up a Storm uniform for a photo with then-WNBA commissioner Val Ackerman.

“It was like a blur,” recalled Bird, who had won multiple major awards following UConn’s national championship — which meant multiple award banquets. “I was going to all these different places, trying to clean out my apartment and to pack my stuff. Then it’s draft night, I’m going to the draft and getting drafted.”

The draftees were eventually invited to a league combine of sorts, which Bird attended with some of her classmates and recalls as “more of an orientation.”

“Then boom — I went out to Seattle.”

The Sonics happened to have an NBA playoff game at home against the San Antonio Spurs the day she arrived, and Bird attended, meeting in person with Seattle-area media for the first time.

“Then all of a sudden,” she said, “I was at practice.”

A MODEL OF MATURITY – AT AGE 21

Although not a shy person, Bird is, by her nature, somewhat reserved. That certainly was true when she joined the Storm at camp.

“I’m kind of laid-back. I’m not going to walk into training camp as a rookie and say, ‘This is my team.’ That’s not my personality,” Bird said.

It made the getting-to-know-you process easier from both sides.

“Everybody was really nice,” Bird said. “One of the first couple days I was here, Charmin Smith was in camp and she offered to show me where the grocery stores are. Michelle Marciniak came up on Day One and said, ‘Let me take you to breakfast.’

“I never felt any older, veteran-player animosity toward the young players,” she added. “I never felt that at all. I felt our team was young, even though we had some older players. But everybody was trying to make a name, so we were all kind of doing that at the same time.”

Adia Barnes, now the highly successful head coach at the University of Arizona, was in her first camp with the Storm that year, and Bird made an immediate impression – and not only for what she did.

But also for how she did it.

“She was super-mature and was a superstar coming in, but she didn’t act like that,” Barnes said. “She was just so steady. You would think that a rookie in the WNBA, with so many accolades coming in, had this big name, you would think she would get shook.

“But she was so used to playing at the highest level that it didn’t really faze her. That’s what I really loved about her.”

Although Bird wasn’t ready to declare that it was her team, Lin Dunn essentially did that for her.

“She was (already) a veteran when it came to knowing the game, and her leadership,” Dunn said. “Like all rookies, it took her time to adapt to the speed of the game and the physicality of the game. It took her a year or so to do that. But as far as her knowledge of the game and her ability to run a team, she was not a rookie.”

Bird was fully aware that she and Lauren Jackson, the previous year’s No. 1 pick who hadn’t yet arrived in Seattle for her second season, would, in all likelihood, be shouldering the load for a third-year team still trying to make the playoffs.

Even then, some 3,000 miles away from everything that was familiar to her, trying to get familiar with a whole new set of life circumstances, a whole new team and system — and the sky-high expectations that went along with it — Bird was ready to take things as they came.

“It just happened naturally, whether it was in training camp or the first couple of games,” Bird said. “It just naturally did become that I became the point guard of the team. It became my team – my team and Lauren’s team. And that just showed itself naturally. It didn’t have to be said, it didn’t have to be demanded; it just kind of happened.”

Added Barnes: “She was always years ahead of her age. I think she played in so many big moments (at UConn), playing in the WNBA was just another thing for her. She was consistent with the way she led the team, even as a rookie, and consistent with how she performed. That made her like a connector: People gravitated to her.

“She was a good teammate, so I think that made it easy for her to lead.”

ENOUGH HYPE — IT’S TIME TO PLAY

On May 30, 2002, after exhibition games against the Utah Starzz (now the Las Vegas Aces) and Sacramento Monarchs (now defunct), Sue Bird stepped onto the court for the opening tip-off against the New York Liberty. Joining her in that starting five were Adia Barnes, Danielle McCulley, Simone Edwards, and Semeka Randall.

Bird played 35 minutes that night, hit 5 of 12 from the field (including 4 of 8 from 3-point range), drained all four free throws for a total of 18 points — and, perhaps more significantly, handed out the first six of what would become a WNBA all-time leading total of 3,234 career assists.

But the Liberty were too much. Coming off a 21-11 campaign that took them all the way to the Eastern Conference finals, they were up by 10 at halftime on the way to a 17-point rout, 78-61.

“New York was a proven team. They had all the veterans,” Bird said. “To be honest, playing against New York was really exciting — that’s the one team I did watch (growing up). I always looked up to Becky Hammon, Teresa Weatherspoon, and Sue Wicks. I remember thinking this was one of the teams to beat.”

Things got better. The Storm won their next three in a row, staying slightly on either side of .500 for most of the season. Then, they closed by winning seven of their last nine, finishing at 17-15 and securing the franchise’s first postseason berth.

Included in that 7-2 stretch was an 83-74 homecourt victory against the now-defunct Portland Fire in front of a record KeyArena crowd of 12,737 fans. The result reduced the Storm’s playoff-clinching “magic number” to one.

But it wasn’t just the fans setting a record. Bird set one herself with a franchise-high 33 points on 10-of-18 shooting from the floor, going 3 of 4 from downtown and 10 of 11 at the free-throw line — and of course, another half dozen assists.

The playoff clincher came two nights later with a 74-57 victory against Utah at the Key.

To this day, however, that Portland game ranks high on Bird’s list of favorites.

“We had a lot of big games throughout that season, some must-win moments,” Bird said, “Especially against Portland, because we had that little I-5 rivalry, that game was one of the first moments where we could say, ‘This is who we are.’”

RAISING THE BAR RIGHT AWAY

The team was primed. The fans were primed. An action photo of Bird dribbling upcourt dominated the cover of the team’s 2002 playoff media guide.

However, after the regular season ended on Aug. 13, the Storm’s first trip to the postseason ended just four days later. The Los Angeles Sparks, who already had become a big rival, with chants of “Beat L.A.” cascading down to the KeyArena court, swept Seattle away in a best-of-3 first round series: 78-61 up here, and 69-59 down there.

Bird delivered plenty, but it wasn’t enough. She went 35½ minutes with 11 points, eight assists and three steals in the Game 1 homecourt loss, then went 37 minutes with 17 points, four assists and two steals in Game 2 on the road.

It wasn’t the desired outcome. And now, Bird’s inaugural pro season was officially at an end.

“There are goals. We may have talked about making the playoffs in Year One (of my career). But it wasn’t a written-down goal,” Bird said.

Perhaps not. Now, however, the standards had been set. The bar had been raised.

The die had been cast – not only on the court between the players, but also between Bird and her teammates and the fans.

“Right away, I felt we had an exciting team,” Bird said. “I was 21, which meant Lauren was 20 going on 21. So you had these two 21-year-olds and they’re going to be the backbone and foundation of your team, and that’s pretty exciting. I think the fans took to us – not just me and Lauren, but they took to the entire team. You could sense it.”

One can sense that Bird still gets tingles thinking about that inaugural playoff run.

“We had that pivotal game against Portland, we sold out the arena, and we had to win this game. Because the franchise was in its third year and hadn’t made the playoffs yet, this was kind of like putting our stamp on the fact that we knew how to win, and we knew how to win big games,” she said. “And this was us establishing that.”

Although the postseason was short, Bird’s mindset allowed her to scan the horizon of that thing they call “the big picture.”

“My first year in the WNBA, I didn’t have any expectations of the team or myself,” Bird said. “It was all new. They say ignorance is bliss for a reason. You get to go through not thinking about much.

“But very quickly, because we made the playoffs, maybe faster than people would have expected, now there are expectations.”

And that was just fine with her. Yes, Year One was now done.

But Sue Bird was just getting started.