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Sue Bird in Israel, but not in Ramla
Safsal
,12/01/2006 |
Yoel Lavi, Ramla's mayor, announced that Sue Bird will be landing in Israel this morning (Friday). Lavi claimed that Bird, star of the Seattle Storm and member of the WNBA's All Decade team, will receive an Israeli citizenship since her father is Jewish and play for Ramla. The part about the citizenship is true, the part about playing for Ramla is total fiction.
Sue Bird arrived this morning for a visit in Israel in order to finalize the process of getting an Israeli citizenship. Ramla's mayor claimed that she is going to play for Ramla, while in fact she had already signed to play for Spartak Moscow and will do so as a bosamn (European passport) once she gets her citizenship, and Ramla can keep dreaming.
Bird told WNBA.COM about her plans: "I will spend several days in Israel to finalize a process that has been ongoing for some time. I have applied for Israeli citizenship, which makes playing overseas a bit easier," said Bird. She also spoke about going to play for Spartak Moscow: "Yes, I will be playing with Spartak. We are going to be loaded with players that WNBA.com readers are certainly familiar with. How we will all be on the court together at the same time is another question since there are some crazy rules about number of Russians that have to be on the court together at the same time, but it should be a lot of fun."
Sue Bird (5'9, 26) is one of the biggest stars of the WNBA today, and she was the #1 draft pick in 2002 by the Seattle Storm following a decorated career at Connecticut where she won two NCAA championships. Bird finished her 5th WNBA season this summer and averaged 11.4 points and 4.8 assists per game – good for 3rd in the league in assists.
In 2004 Bird led Seattle to its first WNBA Championship. She is a 4 time All WNBA first team selection and 4 time All Star, and this season she was named to the WNBA's All Decade team.
This summer Bird played with Team USA in the world championship, and led the tournament in assists per game with 4.6 as the Americans won the bronze. Bird was also a member of the gold winning Olympic team in Athenes 2004.
In the last two years Bird played in Russia for Dynamo Moscow.
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