“We would have loved to shut up and dribble.”
That’s what Sue Bird said on a recent episode of her podcast.
Yes, Sue Bird. The same woman who was engaged to Megan Rapinoe for more than five years before they announced their split earlier this year now claims that she wanted to “shut up and dribble” instead of diving headfirst into progressive politics in 2020.
Bird said the players “would have loved to shut up and dribble because that meant we were talking about basketball.” But the “intersectionality of it all,” she argued, meant they “kind of had to speak on these things.”
My goodness. I’m not sure a more ridiculous piece of revisionist history has ever been uttered into a microphone.
WNBA SUDDENLY WANTS TO STICK TO BASKETBALL AFTER YEARS OF MAKING POLITICS PART OF THE PRODUCT
Bird was a WNBPA vice president in 2020. That was the season that the WNBA put Black Lives Matter on its courts, launched the Justice Movement and created a Social Justice Council.
The league and its players repeatedly spoke out on progressive political topics like voting rights, LGBTQ advocacy and gun control.
This wasn’t just a handful of players sounding off online, either. The league and union built it into the fabric of the season.
Players even went so far as to openly support a Democrat candidate for U.S. Senate by wearing shirts that said “Vote Warnock” prior to games.
Bird now wants people to believe they were forced to do all those things.
Here’s the problem: Bird’s new stance is openly contradicted by… Bird’s old stance.
“Our season was going to have to be played with social justice messages, on our jerseys, on the floor, forefront.”
That’s what Sue Bird said in an October 2020 interview with NPR.
Quite a bit different than “we would have loved to shut up and dribble,” huh?
Bird didn’t just say she wanted social justice at the forefront of the WNBA’s 2020 season. She called it nonnegotiable for the players.
And Bird said the league was on board “right from the jump.”
THE LEFT WANTS CAITLIN CLARK, SOPHIE CUNNINGHAM TO SHUT UP AND DRIBBLE WHEN IT COMES TO TRANS SPORTS
Then the WNBA got even more explicit. Players wore “Vote Warnock” shirts in support of Democrat Raphael Warnock during his Senate race against then-Atlanta Dream co-owner Kelly Loeffler.
Loeffler had criticized the WNBA for dedicating its season to Black Lives Matter, and the players’ union had already called for her ouster. Bird had a different idea: go after her Senate seat.
Axios reported the idea to publicly support Warnock came directly from Bird. “What a great way for us to get the word out about this man, and hopefully put him in the Senate,” Bird said at the time.
In 2020, Bird was openly thinking about how WNBA players could help put a Democrat in the U.S. Senate.
In 2026, though, Bird says the WNBA has become a “lightning rod” for political fights the league office cannot be expected to solve. She brought up Donald Trump and wondered whether anyone, including Democrats, had figured out how not to be manipulated by the way he operates.
How, Bird asked, was the WNBA supposed to figure that out “overnight”? She said the league office might be getting too much flak for failing to handle things that even politicians paid to handle them cannot figure out.
STEPHEN A. SMITH BLAMES ‘THE RIGHT’ FOR WNBA FIRESTORM, SAYS LEAGUE ‘LEFT THE DOOR OPEN’
The through-line for all of Bird’s commentary was remarkably consistent, although misguided. Her central claim was that the WNBA and its players were innocent victims and unwilling players in a political game in 2020 and they are, once again, going through the same problem.
But Bird’s guest on that episode, ESPN reporter Ramona Shelburne, correctly noted that’s not exactly true. Shelburne called the WNBA “a more willing participant” in political conversations because its players are willing to weigh in on hot-button issues.
She said the WNBA sits in the middle of the culture wars, but players, coaches, front offices and the league all have a choice about whether to engage.
“Right now the choice seems to have been that you are engaging,” Shelburne said.
Exactly.
In 2020, Bird called social-justice messaging nonnegotiable. And when players fought with Kelly Loeffler, she helped turn it into a campaign for Raphael Warnock.
Bird clearly knows the difference.
She’s choosing revisionist history anyway.
