NEW YORK — Seattle Storm point guard Sue Bird will start in the WNBA All-Star Game in front of her home crowd after she was selected Tuesday as a starter.
Bird, 36, will be making her 10th All-Star appearance, tying her with Tamika Catchings, who retired last year, for the most in league history.
“For many reasons, I’m super excited to have been voted in as a starter,” Bird said. “Of course because the game is being held in Seattle and I’ll get to represent my team and city, but also the fans, the other players in the league and the media were the ones that chose. It’s an incredible honor and I can’t wait to put on a good show in KeyArena.”
The game is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. on July 22.
Bird is averaging 10.5 points and a league-leading 6.7 assists per game this season. She owns a 3.16 assist-to-turnover ratio and is shooting 41.4 percent from beyond the 3-point line. She is 319 points shy of becoming the eighth player in WNBA history to reach the 6,000-point mark.
Bird will be joined in the Western Conference starting lineup by Phoenix’s Diana Taurasi, Minnesota’s Maya Moore and Sylvia Fowles, and Los Angeles’ Candace Parker.
The starters were chosen in voting by fans, players and select media members. For the first time, the fan vote accounted for 50 percent of the selections. Player and media votes each counted for 25 percent. Parker was tied with teammate Nneka Ogwumike but received more fan votes to earn the starting position.
Fans cast 604,680 votes, more than double the number in 2015 (280,670). There was no All-Star Game last year because of the Olympics.
Moore was the leading vote-getter among fans (32,866). She was followed by Washington’s Elena Delle Donne (31,414), who headlines the Eastern Conference team. Delle Donne is joined by Tina Charles of New York, Jonquel Jones and Jasmine Thomas of Connecticut, and Tiffany Hayes of Atlanta. Jones, Thomas and Hayes are all first-time All-Stars.
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