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#please someone tell these women the postal office is indeed still working
iswearfealtytolexa · 3 years
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(7) This is the part where I brag about Suzanne Brigit Bird.
I won’t lie….. I might be a little proud of her.
A few reasons why, in no particular order:
Union Sue. So much cool progress was made in the W’s most recent CBA. This current leadership — with Nneka as President and Sue as VP and so many other genius women involved — has set the players up for a lot of success, I think, both immediately as well as down the road. Average salary is way up. Rookie salaries are way up. The max is way up. They locked in family-planning reimbursements, fully paid maternity leave and a child-care stipend. I know how much all of that means to Sue: not just the particulars of the deal, but the bigger picture. The legacy stuff. Sue’s the kind of vet who looks out for the younger generation — who is trying to leave the league better off than how she found it.
Comeback Sue. Don’t fact-check this, but I googled “how many days from september 10th 2018 to july 25th 2020” and it spit out “684 days.” That’s the amount of time that passed between Game 3 of the 2018 Finals and Opening Night of the 2020 season, i.e. the amount of time that my girl spent on the proverbial shelf. Wait. What!!!!! That’s so many days. I almost still can’t believe it. And let’s be real: with COVID, it’s not exactly like Sue was able to go through a state-of-the-art rehab process. Actually, THIS is how improvised it was: With social distancing making it impossible to get real runs in, Sue was forced to train by playing 1-on-1 against……. moi. I won’t share the full scouting report on myself (need to keep a secret or two in my bag), but: You know how, in that interview, Tyler Herro said “I’m a bucket”?? Well — I’m a foul. Still not sure how Sue managed to overcome the adversity of being stuck with me.
Sniper Sue. Fun fact: The Bird is hitting 46.9% from three this year. (Let that sink in.) 46.9%!! That’s her CAREER HIGH. And before you dork off on me about sample size or whatever: This is her second straight season posting a new career high from three. So basically what I’m trying to say is we’re either dealing with a freak of f*cking nature, or one of the best players of all time, or both. I was listening to the J.J. Redick Podcast the other day, and he had Steve Nash on, and Steve was talking about how he sees now that he probably should have shot it more, considering how efficient he was and all of that. But at the same time, he came from this generation where the point guard’s main role was to be a floor general, and a distributor….. and nothing was supposed to get in the way of that. And I think Sue’s sort of built the same way. Like, she’ll go down as one of the best point guards to ever play the game. But I also love how she’s been showing over these last few years that — if she’d ever wanted to — she probably could have been a Steph / Dame type of scoring machine as well.
“This Is 40” Sue. Alright, here’s the deal I’m willing to make — I’ll make it with anyone who wants it. If you get yourself onto the cover of SLAM, accompanied by the headline “ICON”…….. then you can talk about Sue being 39 as much as you want. But until you do? You can’t say sh*t.
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