CLAY MOYLE AND SON CALEB
I attended a Seattle Storm game this past Sunday with my friend Tom. He and his wife are season ticket holders and she wasn’t going to be able to go so I accepted his invitation to join him.
I guess I’ve been to about four Storm ballgames over the years now and have a couple of observations to share. First, the women’s game has come a long way in the past 20-30 years. There are some very talented women playing in the WNBA these days.
But, what I really enjoy in terms of the Seattle Storm is watching Sue Bird play. From my perspective she is absolutely brilliant and a real joy to watch play the game of basketball. Now 34 years old, I’m sure she’s lost a step or two, but I can spend the whole game watching the way she orchestrates the offense, runs a pick and roll with the precision of a John Stockton or Steve Nash, pulls up on dribble drives toward the hoop to drop in nifty little jumpers, or bangs in three pointers from beyond the arc.
SUE BIRD
But, that’s only part of her game. She moves without the ball on offense as well as Ray Allen or Reggie Miller and is a terrific defensive player as well. The girl can just flat out play and is as heady a ballplayer as you’ll find. If you have a youngster who you want to show how to play the guard position take them to a Storm game and tell them to spend the whole time watching every single move Sue Bird makes.
I told my friend that it will be a lot less enjoyable for them to attend Storm games whenever she decides to hang it up. He told me he didn’t think it would matter that much because the team has some good young talent. I couldn’t disagree more. You just don’t replace players like Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, or Michael Jordan and as far as I’m concerned Sue Bird is every bit as important and iconic to the Storm as those men were to their teams. She’s that special.
Against the Washington Mystics on this particular day she led her team to an 89 to 86 overtime win to improve the team record to 6-9 overall. It isn’t one of their better teams, but Bird is still playing at an extremely high level. In this game, she played 40 of 45 possible minutes, scored 21 points, grabbed four rebounds and dished out five assists without a single turnover.
As good as those numbers were, they don’t come close to telling how good her performance was. There were numerous pinpoint passes to teammates throughout the game that should have led to scores that they failed to convert. She could have easily had as many as 12-15 assists, and the fact is they’re just not anywhere near the same without her out there on the floor directing the action on both ends of the floor.
Bird received an award just prior to the game for becoming the first WNBA player to accumulate 2,000 career assists to go along with at least 4,000 points. I don’t know how much longer she intends to play, and maybe she has no idea herself at this point, but one thing I do know is she’s one helluva ballplayer and the local fan base should savor the time they have left watching her in action.
But, as much as I enjoyed watching Bird and the rest of the Storm cast in action, I have to say I am a bit mystified with their current “W.N.B.A Pride” campaign that the team and league are promoting. It’s well-known that the W.N.B.A. has always been very popular with the lesbian community and that they make up a significant portion of the Storm’s fan base, but the targeted marketing campaign directed toward the gay community has now come very obvious.
I find it odd, and somewhat objectionable, that a sports league of any kind become involved with promoting a particular kind of lifestyle, whatever it is. I’m all for tolerance and acceptance of diversity but I find this particular aspect of the Seattle Storm experience bizarre.
But, clearly the league believes this is an important niche for them and will become an even larger part of their marketing campaign.
A national televised W.N.B.A. game between the Tulsa Shock and Chicago Sky on the same day was apparently billed as the first national Pride Game, and promoted as part of a bigger initiative by the league to embrace the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender) community.
The league’s president, Laurel Richie, said they created the campaign to unify the individual LGBT marketing campaigns of individual teams and is a result of marketing research which identified the size of the league’s fan base this group represents.
Bottom line, the W.N.B.A. has determined it is in their best financial interest to assume a greater role in promoting the LGBT lifestyle, and if you have any idea about taking your family to one of their ballgames it’s something you should be prepared for.
Personally, it doesn’t bother me so long as they don’t focus their Kiss cam on my buddy and myself as they pan the arena and pick out couples of the same sex seated next to one another during one of their breaks.
The W.N.B.A.’s current campaign aside, I enjoyed the ballgame itself very much and cannot say enough about how much I appreciate Sue Bird and her overall game