Sue Bird WNBA, Background, Career Highlights, Awards, Salary, Net Worth and Relationship

The four times championship titleholder, Sue Bird WNBA records are high enough to declare her a winner holding a remarkable place in her professional career.

Synopsis

American professional player, Sue Bird plays for the Seattle Storm of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA). Bird also established her career outside of the United States. Sue Bird WNBA career started in 2002. Before that, she was New York State Player of the year in her high school. Her professionalism in her career rewarded her with prestigious awards like Wade Trophy, Naismith Award and Nancy Lieberman Award thrice. Moreover, she is the winner of WNBA Championships twice and Olympic gold medals for four times.

Birth and Background

Sue Bird was born as Suzanne Brigit Bird on October 16, 1980 in Syosset, New York. She is an American belonging to white ethnicity. Raised as Christian, Sue has an elder sister named Jen who was athletic and inspired Sue too who was interested in sports from early days. Sue was only 11 when she started playing basketball impressively. However, Sue also played soccer and tennis.

High School Days

Sue attended Syosset High School where she played in her freshman and sophomore years. Nevertheless, the overachiever wanted more of a competition. Therefore, she went to Christ King Regional High School in Queens, New York. She spent 2 seasons with Royals during which her team won a New York State Championship thereby winning national title. Moreover, she scored 11 points in WBCA High School All-America Game.

College Career

Since Sue had earned popularity from her high school days, a number of teams like Stanford and Vanderbilt recruited her. However, she chose to commit to UConn because it was close to home and had winning record for long time. Before Sue Bird WNBA career took a flight, she endured torn ACL in her freshman season.

Sue led UConn win the Big East Championship and the 2000 NCAA Women’s Division I Basketball Tournament when she was in her sophomore year. Sue Bird and her team, UConn Huskies, lost to Notre Dame in the final tour which was her last loss. She led the team to win remarkably over Notre Dame shooting at the buzzer. Therefore, the game was referred to as “the best women’s basketball game ever played” and Sue was mentioned in a book, Bird at the Buzzer. She ended her college career turning into the member of inaugural class (2006) of inductees to the university’s basketball team “Huskies of Honors” recognition program.

Professional Career Highlights

Sue Bird WNBA career started as Seattle Storm selected her in 2002 WNBA draft. Her excellence led her to become a runner up for the rookie of the year. Moreover, she was the only one of the two rookies to make the All-WNBA First Team. She also has been selected to the Western Conference All Star Team since her rookie year. Storm won its first WNBA Championship with Sue Bird, Betty Lennox and Lauren Jackson as its dominant trio.

In 2012, Sue Bird was only able to play 29 games despite her knee injury and surgery.  However, she made a healthy comeback in 2014 WNBA season averaging 10.6 ppg. In 2016, Sue Bird WNBA career continued with her re-signing with Seattle Storm as an unrestricted free agent. The same year, she made her career-high averaging 12.8 ppg leading the league. Sue had to undergo knee surgery for the second time in 2016. But, she returned resulting in victory over the Washington Mystics in 2017 season.

In addition to Sue Bird WNBA career, she has played overseas in Russia in 2004-05 leading the team to Russian Championship. She also played with Spartak Moscow Region in 2006-07 helping the team to win the Russian Super League and the EuroLeague Women championship. Moreover, she played three off seasons for UMMC Ekaterinburg in the Russian League from 2011 to 2014 contributing three consecutive championships wins.

Sue Bird WNBA performance was strong enough to get into the USA national basketball team to compete in the World Championship. Team USA won 9 games in 2002 World Championship. In 2004, she contributed to team USA’s win in 2004 Women’s Olympic Basketball taking home gold. Again, the team won gold in 2008 Olympic basketball team where Bird led the team with 14 steals in 8 games. She was also one of the players to represent the USA Basketball team in the WNBA versus USA Basketball apart from being selected in 2010 FIBA World Championship.

Awards, Achievements and Honors

As Sue contributed Royals to national title, she won New York State Player of the Year, and the New York Daily News Player of the Year. In addition, she received WBCA All-American title. In her college year 2002, Sue won the Wade Trophy and Naismith Award as College Player of the Year. Moreover, Sue Bird won the award, Nancy Lieberman Award in 2000, 2001 and 2002; the award given to top guard in the nation.

After Storm won WNBA championship, Bird received an Olympic Gold medal, NCAA Championship and a WNBA Championship along with other 8 other players. She also received the highest votes to become one of the Top 15 players in 2011. In addition, Sue Bird WNBA career has seen a lot of successful accomplishments despite her knee injury in 2012. She again received high votes for WNBA All-Star in 2014.

Besides being the WNBA All-Star Selection from 2013 to 2015 consecutively, she was also a WNBA Peak Performer. In 2016, Sue Bird received All-WNBA First Team for the fifth time in her career. In addition, she won the prestigious WNBA Top 20@20 in the WNBA’s 20^th anniversary. All these awards and honors prove Sue Bird WNBA career was amazingly brilliant.

Relationship and Net Worth

Sue Bird has low profile regarding her personal life. She was dating Nick Carter from Backstreet Boys in early 2000 but it seemed like she did not take the relationship seriously as she has a picture of her preferred man in her mind.

With the astounding basketball skills and perseverance, Sue Bird WNBA has paid her well enough. She earns $350,000 annually as her salary while her net worth is around $5 million.