Eric Williams covered the Sonics' last season in Seattle. A Tacoma native, Eric graduated from Mount Tahoma High and the University of Puget Sound.
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In case you hadn’t heard, David Stern made some pretty strong comments regarding the Sonics. It looks like the Sonics are pretty much headed out of here and all that’s left is for the city and the Sonics to negotiate a price, although the city remains adamant they want the team to play out the final two years of the contract.
Folks in the press row have been sending along their condolences to myself and Seattle P-I reporter Gary Washburn, as the grim reality approaches that this could very well be the team’s last year in Seattle.
Hopefully you watched more than I did, but the dunk contest was one of the most entertaining in years, with Orlando’s Dwight Howard winning it all.
Howard was the most creative, donning a superman cape and taking off from just in front of the free throw line on two feet and basically throwing the ball through the hoop. He also bounced the ball off the back side of the
backboard from out-of-bounds and jumped from underneath the backboard to throw one down. Howard’s other creative dunk included tapping the ball off the backboard with one hand while in the air and then reaching back with his other hand and dunking it.
Sonics Fans United’s airplane banner flew overhead today, starting about 12:30, but I don’t know if too many folks noticed.
Lenny Wilkins also was in town, serving as an honorary captain of one of the teams in the D-League All-Star game. Wilkins says he does some speaking engagements for NBA, along with a couple coaching clinics. He declined to comment about the Sonics situation in Seattle. If you remember Wilkins was removed from his post as Sonics vice president after only a few months on the job.
COMMENTS:
Stop buying Starbucks. That may help as well. That clown sold the team to bubba gump. He's the true devil if you want to get right down to it. Things got tough in negotiating and he just flat out sold them to the first hick that came a long with enough money.
Stop buying Starbucks. That may help as well. That clown sold the team to bubba gump. He's the true devil if you want to get right down to it. Things got tough in negotiating and he just flat out sold them to the first hick that came a long with enough money.
If any attorneys are reading this, I'm wondering if Stern or the NBA have opened themselves up to a successful tampering lawsuit in anyway with this?
The only justification I can see from the NBA's point of view is they're terrified to lose the 100% success rate that the 3 major sports have had with bullying cities into unnecessary new arenas in the last 20 years. OKC, New Orleans, & even Portland are very shaky markets compared to Seattle. I'm still hoping that by some miracle Bennett will buy the NO/OKC Hornets from George Shinn & sell the Sups to local ownership; or even better: a 3 team swap with Bennett, Shinn & Paul Allen. I'd love to see Allen as owner of both the Hawks & Sups.
Over on the Seahawks blog, an off season post about signing a left guard has over 200 replies.
Methinks CB has already won, no one cares. I don't bother to turn the tv on when the Sonics play anymore. Truth is the team is god awful with one of the worst coaches in basketball.
I'd be glad to place a bet as to whether PJ ever coaches in OKC (he won't).
Another bit of evidence that this was the plan all along is the fact that they have traded off most of their talent, except Durant whom they obviously hope to build around in OKC, and seem to be trying to play their way into a lottery pick. The worse the team does, the less people will howl as they load the moving vans. They'll start over in OKC with two lottery picks to build around.
I don't think they ever planned to stay, and if our leadership had expressed any willingness to pony up taxpayer money to fund a PRIVATELY-OWNED basketball franchise, said franchise would have found a way to raise its demands. Maybe if they could have extorted enough money from us, they would have stayed, but should we pay to keep a team in town, AND pay for tickets? (Not to mention the facilities tax they would have added on).
First of all, it's a direct violation of the State Constitution (Art. 8, Sections 5 and 7 - the language is not tricky. No lending or gifting of public funds or credit to private enterprises). Granted, this has been completely ignored by our courts, but there it is. Also, is it really such a good idea to put Bennett, et al on the dole? If you encourage them, won't they ask for even more? The same principles that apply to regular welfare apply to corporate welfare too. Let Bennett take some responsibility for his own life.
I guess I've been assuming that somehow new local ownership would step up. I didn't expect Stern to be such a jerk, & I didn't exxpect the strategy of making sure the team was awful to work so well. And now there's talk of trading Wally, who's the best player on the team & is already on the bench.
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