On Saturday, Sue Bird, Sylvia Fowles and Maya Moore were inducted into Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. The three are archetypal Hall of Famers, having succeeded collegiately, professionally and internationally, at both the individual and team levels.
It’s easy to say that there will never be another Sue, Syl or Maya.
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And in terms of their resumes, that’s likely accurate. But, what about how they succeeded? Stylistically, the three illuminate the evolving character of women’s basketball, where the expectations of a point guard, center and forward have, and are still, mutating within the priorities and principles of the modern game.
Will there be another Sue?
Take a look at the current and coming generation of point guards, those who will collect WNBA All-Star honors and appear poised to captain Team USA, just as Bird did. Not many of them, if any, play like Bird.
Whereas Bird perfected the balance between scoring and assisting, never overextending herself as she determined what her team needed, young lead guards inhabit a more aggressive mindset, with getting their own points now a priority. That’s not an indicator of selfishness, rather a reflection of the realization that a primary ball handler who is a scoring threat makes her team’s offense much more dangerous. Examples abound, whether it’s Paige Bueckers finding her middie, Sabrina Ionescu and Caitlin Clark launching from behind the arc or Hannah Hidalgo and MiLaysia Fulwiley winding their way to the hoop.
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Today, a young Sue Bird debuting for the Seattle Storm in the 2026 WNBA season likely would be asked to hunt 3s like Ionescu and Clark, taking them not just when she’s open, but to create potential openings for her teammates. Her nearly 40 percent career 3-point percentage would be weaponized in ways it wasn’t until the latter stages of her 19-season WNBA career. Those more fleeting moments when Bird activated her bucket-getting mode would have been the norm. Instead, Bird will be remembered as one of the last of her breed.
Will there be another Syl?
If point guards are expected to score more than ever in today’s WNBA, traditional bigs are not. At least not most of them. And certainly not in the ways that Sylvia Fowles not only did—but did in dominant fashion.
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Increasingly few 6-foot-6 centers receive the ball on the block with permission to go work. The best centers must be more comfortable away from the basket, capable of possessing the ball, making the right pass and, most especially, hitting an open 3. The best teams in the league, from Fowles’ former Minnesota Lynx to the Las Vegas Aces, feature a traditional big for only limited minutes. The New York Liberty have prioritized bigs with 3-point strokes, while the Atlanta Dream have tried to induce 3s from their bigs. And on the other end, rim protection is only the beginning of bigs’ responsibilities, with the ability to navigate a spaced out floor becoming a near-equal expectation. In a down-sizing WNBA, teams aren’t asking their bigs to leverage their size and strength advantages, but instead expand their skill set.
But, maybe that’s just because so few bigs possess the combination of athleticism and skill to own the inside as Fowles did? While that’s probably true, it’s becoming less likely that the rare young bigs with Fowles-like potential will be encouraged to develop their games in the ways that Fowles did. Instead of refining their skills to show that size still matters, they’ll be shooting 3s. One style is not necessarily superior; they’re just different. And as a result, we’ll remember how Fowles was built different.
Will there be another Maya?
In contrast to her Hall of Fame classmates, Maya Moore’s game is not under threat of modern basketball extinction. Her imprint is everywhere. She is the progenitor of the next generation.
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The do-it-all wing has become the preeminent, desired archetype. Playing multiple position? Yes. Scoring at all three levels? Absolutely. Making plays on both sides of the ball? Please. It’s a multiplicity of winning basketball abilities that Moore was one of the first to author.
At the WNBA level, shades of Moore can be seen in UConn protégés Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier, as well as Rhyne Howard. The next generation has even more of Moore, with the likes JuJu Watkins and Madison Booker possessing that kind of tantalizing talent. This certainly doesn’t mean that any of these players will do it like Moore did. She dominated and destroyed and demoralized opponents at an unprecedented rate, all with unimpeachable grace and eloquence. In those ways, there will never be another Moore. But even as she left the game early, the traces of her excellence will be everlasting.
