The jersey retirement ceremony for former Seattle Storm guard Sue Bird sent Storm fans into a frenzy on Sunday.

Bird, the former first-overall pick in the 2002 WNBA Draft, built a 19-season career with the Storm since she first suited up for a roster featuring 21-year-old Lauren Jackson in 2002. Bird would earn 13 All-Star selections and win four WNBA championships. She most recently hoisted the championship trophy in 2020 as the Storm took a triumphant victory over the Las Vegas Aces in a three-game sweep.

Sue Bird played in her final game during a playoff matchup against Las Vegas in 2022, a game that saw the Aces earn a 97-92 win at Climate Pledge Arena. Forward Breanna Stewart, now a member of the New York Liberty, would pour on 42 points in an effort to keep the Storm's playoff hopes alive on their home court, to no avail.

“I didn't really want to leave the court,” Bird said in 2022, via ESPN Staff Writer Kevin Pelton. “It felt like that's where everybody was going, so I just followed at first. But I also wanted to kind of have one last moment to say thank you, to soak it all in, because in some ways it is a happy thing.

“I'm proud of everything we've accomplished here. Of course I'm sad, but there's happiness too, to be able to have a moment like that with the fans, to have them chant the way they did. I know the tears don't look like happy tears, but there's a lot of happiness.”

The Storm announced they would retire Sue Bird's jersey when they took on the Washington Mystics in Seattle on Sunday. Jackson had her jersey raised to the Climate Pledge Arena rafters in 2016 after a Hall-of-Fame career in Seattle. She earned three WNBA MVPs, seven All-Star selections and two WNBA championships.