Clockwise from upper left: Bob Lanier, Hot Rod Hundley, Bill Walton, Adrian Dantley and Richard Nixon conspired to steal the spotlight from Spencer Haywood in 1974.

Spencer Haywood sat in the corner, sulked and wondered why he should be so unlucky at his own coming-out party.

Thirty-five years ago today, Jan. 15, 1974, Haywood scored 23 points and grabbed 11 rebounds to help the West All-Stars defeat the East, 134-123, before 14,360 at the Seattle Coliseum.

Why was "Woody" so unhappy?

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Spencer Haywood goes against the Cavaliers in 1972, the same team he burned for 48 points on Jan. 7 that year. Haywood made four All-Star teams for the Sonics and was twice named first team All-NBA.

Now that the Thunder has soared to six victories and put plenty of breathing room between itself and the Philadelphia 9-and-73ers, we can turn away from ritual mockery and consider some franchise trivia.

Like, for intance, who owns Oklahoma City's single-season scoring and rebounding records? (Yes, you already know this if you read the previous, wholly unsatisfactory post.)

He's the same fellow who holds the ABA's record for single-season rebounding average with a whopping 19.5: Spencer Haywood of Silver City, Mississippi.

Haywood averaged 29.2 points per game for the team that, way back in the 1972-73 season, called Seattle home and went by the name of the SuperSonics. He averaged 13.4 rebounds per game the following season, which also has a place in the Thunder record book.

Before he arrived in Seattle, Spencer Haywood tore a red, white and blue streak through the American Basketball Association. In his lone ABA season, Haywood averaged 30 points and 19.5 rebounds a game for the Denver Rockets. That was 1969-70, a season that was nearly over by the time Haywood turned 21.

Having ruled the ABA, Haywood looked elsewhere for a challenge and decided to take on the NBA power structure.

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Who owns the Oklahoma City Thunder's record for single-season scoring and rebounding average?

If you guessed Spencer Haywood, you'd be right. Just check Wikipedia.

It's all there.

Haywood averaged 29.2 points per game for the then-Seattle SuperSonics during the 1972-73 season, and 13.4 rebounds a game the following season.

Haywood was in his first full season in Seattle 37 years ago, when he laid 48 points on the Cleveland Cavaliers on Jan. 7. The Sonics won, 125-111, and "Woody" fell a point shy of Bob Rule's then-club record of 49 points.

More to come ...

After dropping a career-best 40 points on the Chicago Bulls two days before Christmas, Detroit's Rodney Stuckey unloaded another 38 on the Sacramento Kings on Friday night.

Either Rodney Stuckey has arrived, or he's getting there in an awful hurry.

"There" in this case would be a place of distinction among the upper echelon of NBA players.

Stuckey, five years removed from leading Kentwood to a Class 4A state hoops title and earning MVP honors in the process, is turning heads and opening eyes with his dynamic play at point guard for the Detroit Pistons in his second NBA season.

Floundering within stumbling distance of .500 for most of the season, the Pistons have improved to 20-11 and are riding a six-game winning streak. Stuckey, who unloaded 38 points and seven assists on the Sacramento Kings in Detroit's 98-92 victory Friday night, has been a catalyst in the Pistons' resurgence.

Folks around the NBA are starting to take notice of Stuckey's evolution, including a chagrined Kenny Natt, the coach who watched the former Eastern Washington University star torch his Kings.

“Stuckey had a monster game, and we weren’t able to contain him," Natt told the Associated Press on Friday.

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First I want to say thanks to our own John Wallingford for doing an excellent job of maintaining the blog the past few months. His contributions have been both informative and entertaining, and hopefully they have quenched a little of your thirst for Sonics-related stuff.

With my new duties on the Seahawks blog I’ll be checking in less frequently here, but I still will attempt to provide regular updates on what’s happening with the City of Seattle’s proposal to obtain funding for the KeyArena remodel.

As of right now, everything that I’m hearing is not good. I talked to state Rep. Ross Hunter for a story I wrote for today, and he seemed uncertain as to how the Sonics project would be received in Olympia this session – or if it would be heard at all. You can read about it here, but the quick version is the task force has not met since the Dec. 1 meeting and does not plan to meet until the Legislative session begins Jan. 12. Because of the budget shortfall of over $5 billion, state lawmakers have other things to focus on, and the KeyArena project will once again be a low priority.

Brian Robinson over at SonicsCentral provides a good rundown of the players involved and what is happening behind the scenes here.

Jan. 1, 1968: While the Sonics were losing to Lenny Wilkens and the St. Louis Hawks, O.J. Simpson was scoring a pair of touchdowns and leading USC to a Rose Bowl victory over Indiana.

The SuperSonics spent their inaugural New Year's Day at the Seattle Coliseum, where they took a beating from the St. Louis Hawks and two guys who were destined to play significant roles in the franchise's greatest moment.

Lenny Wilkens scored 26 points for St. Louis, and Paul Silas added 23 as the Hawks rolled to a 115-94 victory before a sparse holiday crowd of 3,604 on Jan. 1, 1968. It was St. Louis' fourth victory over the expansion Sonics that season.

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