Sue Fowl Grew to become the Legend She Wanted: ‘There Was No Actual Path’

Sue Fowl peeked upcourt as she caught the outlet go. Her Seattle Storm teammate Natasha Howard had streaked forward of her like a large receiver, as she often did at any time when Fowl was operating the offense in transition. Howard realized that she was open beneath the basket and braced herself. Fowl, she knew, would discover her like at all times. She simply didn’t understand how.

Fowl slithered into the lane, drawing a defender. Then, with out wanting, she whipped the ball over her head and into Howard’s awaiting palms.

“My fingers have been at all times prepared for Sue when she handed me the ball,” mentioned Howard, now with the Liberty. She added: “That proper there, it’s like: ‘Wow, OK, Sue. You bought eyes behind your head.’”

Fowl counts the go amongst her favourite assists in her 19 seasons with the Storm. She has loads of passes to select from: Fowl is the W.N.B.A.’s profession chief in assists.

“I’ve a bit of little bit of a Rain Man mind so maintain on a second,” she had mentioned as she tried to select her favourite help. After a second, she cited the no-look go to Howard, in 2018, and a between-the-legs go to a trailing Lauren Jackson within the 2003 All-Star Recreation. She wasn’t completed.

“Oh, there’s additionally one other one to Lauren,” Fowl mentioned. “It was within the playoffs in opposition to Minnesota. I believe it was like 2012 and we have been down 3. We wanted a 3, and it wasn’t a flowery help by any means, however we ran a play to perfection. I hit Lauren. She hits the shot.”

These are the sorts of assists that Fowl constructed her repute on. “The timing round an excellent go is so the particular person you’re passing to doesn’t have to vary something that they’re doing,” Fowl mentioned.

At 41 years outdated, Fowl is inside weeks of the top of her W.N.B.A. profession. In June, she introduced that she would retire on the finish of the season, although most individuals had anticipated as a lot. On the finish of the 2021 season, followers chanted “another yr!” at an emotional Fowl and stored up the marketing campaign with hashtags on social media for months by means of the low season. In January, Fowl nodded to the marketing campaign in an Instagram submit and wrote “OK.”

Her résumé had room for another season, however simply barely. She is a 13-time All-Star and has gained 4 championships. She toppled Ticha Penicheiro’s profession help report of two,599 5 years in the past and now has 3,222 regular-season assists in a league-record 578 video games.

Because the assists have piled up, Fowl has developed as a passer.

“Once in a while, it may be fancy,” Fowl mentioned. “Once in a while, you do should look the protection off, however for me, it’s simply at all times about making an attempt to learn the protection and be one step forward, so you’ll find that particular person.

“As I’ve gotten older, I’ve undoubtedly used the no-look extra, and after I do a no-look these days, I’m not making an attempt to appear to be Magic Johnson did or one thing like that. I’m actually simply making an attempt to look off the protection. I’m simply making an attempt to get them to assume my eyes are wanting some place else, in order that I could make the play.”

No different participant is as synced with the league’s infancy and development, its historical past and current, as Fowl, the consummate flooring normal who excelled by means of consistency by delivering the ball to the appropriate particular person on the proper time in the appropriate spot, yr after yr, decade after decade.

“She is the W.N.B.A,” mentioned Crystal Langhorne, who transformed 161 of Fowl’s passes into buckets, the fourth-most of any teammate behind Jackson (624), Breanna Stewart (345) and Jewell Loyd (217), in accordance with the Elias Sports activities Bureau. “It’s going to be loopy with a league the place she’s not there anymore. Sue is the prototype.”

Listening to these varieties of compliments has been one of many nice and surprising byproducts of saying her retirement, Fowl mentioned.

“You simply at all times knew what to anticipate from me,” Fowl mentioned. “Everybody knew in the event that they turned on a Storm sport, what they have been going to see. So, it’s form of laborious to think about it not being there, as a result of it’s been there for 20 years.”

Fowl entered the W.N.B.A. in its sixth season as the highest total choose within the 2002 draft, carrying heavy expectations into Seattle after two N.C.A.A. girls’s basketball championships at Connecticut.

She made her first professional help to Adia Barnes, now the ladies’s basketball coach at Arizona. Barnes, 45, final performed professionally 12 years in the past and spent a number of years as a broadcaster earlier than teaching, all whereas Fowl continued stacking one help after one other.

“I completely forgot that,” Barnes mentioned of Fowl’s first help, laughing. “I made the shot, in order that was a very good factor. I don’t keep in mind it, however you may act like I do. Make it sound good, please.”

Barnes does recall Fowl’s steadiness from the start. The pair typically roomed on the highway.

“She was only a true level guard, and I believe what separated Sue is, she’s a connector, so that you needed to play along with her.”

Barnes gained a championship in 2004 with Fowl and Jackson, who turned a dynamic pick-and-roll pairing, and Fowl and Jackson gained one other in 2010. They left defenses helpless. If a defender ducked beneath a Jackson display, Fowl might bury a 3. In the event that they doubled Fowl, Jackson might drive to the rim or come out for an open jumper. The ball sometimes arrived on time.

“There was actually no method to assist it,” Barnes mentioned. “It was simply very, very, very laborious to protect they usually made it look seamless.”

Fowl mentioned her consciousness of angles and spacing was at all times on, even when strolling by means of a mall.

“You’re at all times transferring in a method, seeing issues in method that’s much like being on the court docket,” Fowl mentioned. “Clearly, you’re not in a sport, so that you’re not having to maneuver quick or do issues with urgency, however I believe you simply at all times transfer that method when you’ve got that sort of imaginative and prescient. That sounds insane. It’s really not.”

Teammates would spot Fowl carrying binders and notebooks to check the sport. “You don’t really want to ask how she does it,” Howard mentioned. “She simply does it.”

Receiving a go from Fowl impressed confidence, Langhorne mentioned. Right here was one of many sport’s greats, entrusting her with the ball and to make the appropriate play.

“Even after I was engaged on my 3s and I wasn’t as assured, if I knew Sue kicked it again to me, I used to be like: ‘Oh, yeah, shoot it. She’s giving it to you for a cause,’” Langhorne mentioned. “Which I by no means even actually mentioned out loud earlier than.”

Accidents pressured Jackson to depart the W.N.B.A. in 2012. Fowl discovered her subsequent submit companion in Stewart, one other Connecticut product who Seattle took with the primary total choose in 2016. The 2 gained championships in 2018 and 2020.

“She is aware of the place everybody is meant to be earlier than typically we even do,” Stewart mentioned. “She is aware of which block I would favor to get the ball on or which go goes to get by means of and which isn’t. Typically, whenever you’re on the basketball court docket, a participant makes a lower after which the go comes, and typically with Sue, the go comes after which the participant makes the lower as a result of she’s seeing the protection typically faster than us.”

Fowl mentioned Penicheiro, who retired in 2012, and the Chicago Sky’s Courtney Vandersloot are among the many level guards she has most loved watching as a result of “they’re actually enjoyable.” Vandersloot not too long ago handed Lindsay Whalen to change into third on the W.N.B.A.’s profession assists record. She’s the lively participant closest to tying Fowl — and she or he’s nonetheless greater than 800 assists away.

Fowl broke Penicheiro’s report along with her 2,600th help to a reducing Carolyn Swords in 2017.

“It was really a reasonably good go, and she or he deserves it. And information are supposed to be damaged, and if anyone breaks your report, you need it to be a participant like Sue Fowl,” Penicheiro mentioned.

“Everyone loves Sue,” she added. “If she was an ass, it’d be simpler to go in opposition to her and attempt to stick it to her, however she’s too good and I’m, too.”

Even one help from Fowl is a second to recollect. 13 gamers acquired one help from Fowl, in accordance with Elias. The record contains Courtney Paris, who regarded Fowl as one among her favourite gamers rising up and spent most of her W.N.B.A. profession on alert as an opponent who had the unenviable process of making an attempt to play group protection in opposition to her.

“The second you go to assist, she’s going to search out the smallest piece of house to get the ball to whoever must get it,” Paris mentioned.

Paris joined the Storm in 2018 and didn’t play typically in her two seasons in Seattle as her enjoying profession wound down. Paris didn’t keep in mind the kind of go she acquired from Fowl or how she scored, however she recalled being excited over the sequence.

“It was a full circle second from watching her after I was a youthful participant,” Paris mentioned.

Ashley Walker, one other member of the one-assist from Fowl membership, who performed with Seattle in 2009, was equally appreciative.

“She’s one of many pioneers,” Walker mentioned. “She’s somebody that individuals look as much as, and she or he did it with such grace, such confidence. And it’s simply superb to know that I’m part of that have and I really get an opportunity to say: ‘I caught a go from Sue Fowl. What did you do?’”

Fowl has additionally made her mark throughout the postseason along with her assists. She set a playoff report with 14 assists in a 2004 Western Convention finals sport in opposition to Sacramento, then broke it with 16 in Recreation 1 of the 2020 finals in opposition to Las Vegas. Vandersloot broke that postseason report final yr, with 18 assists in opposition to Connecticut.

The chapter is closing on one of many W.N.B.A.’s most memorable careers. Fowl mentioned she completed every thing she needed to within the league, establishing targets within the second.

“The straightforward analogy right here is, who does all people chase within the N.B.A.? Michael Jordan,” Fowl mentioned. “As a result of Michael Jordan performed a full profession. He gained six rings. So, six rings turned the usual. In our league, after I obtained into the league, that didn’t actually exist.”

She continued: “There was no actual path to observe, as a result of no person had that 20-year profession but. So, I actually didn’t know what to dream, and so to sit down right here now with all of the championships I’ve, I simply really feel actually glad.”

Now a younger participant — Fowl named Arike Ogunbowale of the Dallas Wings for example — can mannequin the milestones within the careers of gamers comparable to Maya Moore and Diana Taurasi.

Many, after all, will take a look at Fowl’s illustrious profession.

“I believe there’s something that motivates you in that method, however on the identical time, forging your personal path, I loved that as effectively,” Fowl mentioned. “I’m undecided. Perhaps having one thing to chase is best. Perhaps there’s extra strain.”