If you missed it, the WNBA’s Seattle Storm unveiled a statue of their recently retired point guard Sue Bird on Sunday. Bird has many admirers and one of them is former Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, who raved about Bird to Seattle sports radio host John Curley. Check out what he said about Bird:
“Sue Bird is the ultimate point guard. I love Sue Bird. I wish I had the honor of coaching her. She took that position to the highest level, not only in what she did physically, but what she did mentally and
emotionally. I love her, and I think she is the absolute best…The assists, she saw things that no one else saw in the moment. Her ability to think in the moment and play with courage allowed her to make those plays. No one in the history of women’s basketball really has made the number of plays like she has.”
High praise indeed. The last time we heard K rave about a player on the woman’s side was when he interviewed Caitlin Clark. It shows just how far his coaching eye roams. He pays a lot of attention to many sports. Can you imagine watching, say, a soccer match with him and the things he would pick up on that you never would? It would be fascinating.
Speaking of perceptive thoughts, Coach K also talked about how much he liked Seattle and not least of all because of the basketball culture that has grown up there and that the elite players…“have a commitment to the game and to one another that is just beautiful, and it’s not seen hardly anywhere else in the country.”
We hadn’t thought of it in those terms but we have seen comments from former Blue Devil Paolo Banchero about his hometown that tend to support that.
He also briefly gets into the expansion talk about Seattle and while there is no official news on that front, we hope a team gets back there soon. And Oklahoma City, where Clay Bennett moved the Supersonics in 2008, should surrender the rights to the Supersonics name if the new team wants to go retro.
