Sue Bird of Team Stewart competes during the 2022 WNBA All-Star Game on July 10, 2022 in Chicago.
CHICAGO — The WNBA All-Star Game is intended to celebrate the league’s biggest stars each season. This year’s game and surrounding festivities turned into a tribute to two of the biggest stars the league has seen in its 26 seasons.
After taking home countless awards, championship rings and a lifetime worth of wins, Sue Bird and Sylvia Fowles are calling it quits after the current WNBA season.
Bird, a point guard for the Seattle Storm, is a four-time WNBA champ and the league’s all-time leader in assists and games played. Fowles, who plays center for the Minnesota Lynx, has won two WNBA titles and pulled in more rebounds than any player in league history.
Both had standout careers with Team USA, too, with Fowles earning four Olympic gold medals to Bird’s five. Bird also won four FIFA World Cups, tying her with teammate Diana Taurasi for the most decorated players in international basketball history, while Fowles earned one.
Following the current WNBA season, the more outspoken Bird, 41, and shyer-by-nature Fowles, 36, are stepping away.
Both players were all-smiles throughout All-Star weekend — Bird’s 13th appearance, and Fowles’ eighth — an indication they have made peace with their decision to leave the league they helped build.
“The word I’m landing on is maybe a little bit of closure,” Bird said following Sunday’s All-Star Game at Wintrust Arena in Chicago, where she and Fowles served as team captains. “I think as an athlete when you come to the end of your career, so much goes into the decision to actually retire. So the way people have reacted and these little moments I get both in Seattle and on the road, it just — I know it’s the right timing for me but it does, it gives it a little like, OK, this is going to be all right.”
There had been murmurs around the league before the 2022 WNBA season that Fowles was ready to move on from basketball. However, the 2017 league MVP and four-time Defensive Player of the Year decided to give it one more year.
The league has given her literal flowers along with video tributes and, in the Chicago Sky’s case, a recliner — ahem, throne — for when retires.
A throne (or recliner π ) fit for a legend
— The GIST USA (@thegistusa) June 27, 2022
Sylvia Fowles' former team, the Chicago Sky, gifted her a recliner ahead of her retirement π pic.twitter.com/ngAPSb7rcW
Even after she has continued to play at a high-level this year and went viral after finishing a one-handed dunk in the All-Star Game, Fowles said she has no regrets about calling the 2022 season her last.
“It has not made it harder,” Fowles said about all the attention she has garnered in her retirement tour. “You know when you have your mind made up. I appreciate the love that I’m getting, which is weird because I always shy away from it. But it’s been comforting knowing that people do appreciate the things that I have done throughout my last 15 years in this league.”