In Game 1, Bird set a record for assists in a final match with a score of 16. She disturbed her opponents with unclear passes and led an attack that beat Las Vegas Asos in three finals by an average of 20 points.

Oh, and the oldest WNBA player also led the league in shirt sales in 2020 – the first time this happened in her nearly two-decade career.

It’s cool, Bird said. “It kind of dawned on me: We must have some new fans in WNBA because at this point you’ve been here for a long time, if you’re a fan, then you probably got this shirt 10, 11, 12 years ago.”

Ionesco went to number one in this year’s draft to New York Liberty but missed most of the season due to an ankle injury. She was four years old in 2002, when Bird took first place overall. As Ionescu got older, Bird, who would turn 40 on October 16, became one of the most decorated basketball players in history.

Bird won two NCAA titles with UConn. She has four Olympic golds and, now, four WNBA titles: 2004, 2010, 2018, and 2020.

It’s not like all of the stars get along with Bird this season – quite the opposite. She was knocked out of the WNBA schedule for 2019 entirely while recovering from a knee injury. The pandemic lockdown forced her to wait another few months to return to full play on the field.

I did this while juggling a number of side gigs. Byrd is the vice president of the Players’ Union, who negotiated a ground-breaking collective bargaining agreement earlier this year. She helped lead social activism in the most socially active league of professional sports. It helped increase the salaries of the historically dominant US women’s basketball team, in which many WNBA players play.

Meanwhile, Bird and her friend, American women’s soccer star Megan Rapinoe, have continued to enhance each other’s profiles off the field – including bizarre posts on social media while spending their springtime in a shelter at the Birds Greenwich, Connecticut apartment.

The couple turns to life at home and turned into a joint television advertisement for a retirement plan sponsoring the storm, which was broadcast on the ESPN Finals broadcast. Rapinoe, who moved to the WNBA “barrage” in Bradenton, Florida, with Bird, used her spare time to write a streamlined, detailed review for WNBA. Players platform. Rapinoe also noted Bird’s three-point shooting clip that was roughly 47%.

For her part, Bird often likes to put the spotlight on her teammates, including 2018 League MVP Brianna Stewart and eminent Joel Lloyd.

“I think Stewie and Jewell were pretty much on fire; what do you think?” Bird said after performing 16 assists. “For me as a primary player, I’m just trying to find an open player. But like I said, and I’ve always said this, help is a thing for two people, and tonight these two played amazingly.”

She also effectively said it was her team-mates that made her job so interesting after winning everything she could possibly have won multiple times.

“It’s easy to say winning and Olympic gold medals and tournaments and all these things,” she said after Tuesday’s clinching match. “But I think the fact that I’ve been able to do this in different decades, and with the same privilege, not a lot of people can say it … kind of to be able to recreate that magic with different combinations.”

Bird has missed 11 games this season due to long left knee issues. But her vision on the field is better than ever, as a player, raising her regular season average of 5.2 assists to 9.2 during the qualifiers.

“It’s just a coordinator. It’s like a maestro outside that directs traffic and finds open people,” said Gary Kloppenburg, the storm’s trainer.

Her special year Byrd’s classmates hope to stay on for much longer.

“When I joined Seattle in 2016, this was what I thought: I’m going to play with the best goalkeeper in the world. Choose from UConn,” said Stewart, the 26-year-old who like Bird was the number one seed on the WNBA draft.

“She keeps getting better and is raising her bar … Maybe she will play until she is 50 years old.”

Byrd only said she was “cautiously optimistic” that she would be playing 2021 season. “It’s never like this Decision Day. I’m kind of getting into practice and seeing how I feel. I hope I can give you more, and I’m not trying to be out of reach. Listen, the way.” The way I feel now, if I can go outside my season and continue to build on that in a good way, I don’t understand why I won’t play next summer. “

Write to Louise Radnofsky at [email protected] and Rachel Bachman at [email protected]