OFFICIAL SEATTLE SONICS THREAD

Man in the 10 years I've had since moving to Seattle, I never got to watch the Sonics live. Got damn it, I really regret it. I could have watched thePayton, Allen, and now Durant era live but I never got the chance to. Thanks a lot, Clay *+#*#@# Bennett, I do hope we get another franchise. I heard thegrizzlies are looking of moving out of memphis? The city gets to retain the rights to the Sonic's name and color, so shiit have the CEO of Microsoftpurchase it for seattle. Then we'll have the sonics featuring rudy gay and oj mayo lol.
 
Well... there's nothing we can do now.


GO BLAZERS!! they're gonna be sick in the upcoming years....
 
sad day man..this will hit me harder once the season starts...i hate Clay Bennett, David Stern and the NBA right now.
 
nickels sold out after all was said and done. as much as i want to root for the blazers, i just can't. i'm done with the nba....
 
I'm devastated. I'm sick to my stomach. Yes, it is that serious. During the whole trial, one of the city's arguements was that you can't put aprice tag on the intangible benefits of having the Sonics in Seattle...well, Nickels and the city did just that yesterday.

I think I'm more heartbroken over the fact that I'll never get to bring my kids to another Sonics game ever again. They'll never get to experiencea championship parade or feel the buzz around the city when the team is in the playoffs/finals. I've lived through the '79 championship (hell, I stillremember like it was yesterday sitting on my dad's shoulders during the parade downtown), the Chambers/X-Man/Dale Ellis years, trading Scottie Pippen forOlden Polynice, the GP to Reign Man years, then the Ray Ray years. And if you think the NBA is coming back to Seattle...guess again. Especially while Stern isstill around. I just want to know how Key Arena was not considered a viable option when Clay bought the team and NOW Stern is saying that Key Arena can be aviable option for a NBA facility. Folks, we just got played. Stern is a shrewd and powerful businessman...and he won. Clay Clay won. OKC won. Nickels and hisspineless cohorts won. We, the true fans, lost. And it hurts.

And how the hell are they allowed to replicate our championship banner & trophy and bring them to OKC??? What the hell is 'shared history'??? THatjust doesn't make sense to me.

I will never ever ever ever ever support Starbucks again. AND I'm voting against every city official in the next election.
 
honestly, Im not even that mad at Clay and his crew...aside from that BS with the cloned championship banner and trophy. THAT is beyond lame.
aside from that though, I place all of this on the city, and the former ownership group. Theyre the ones that really screwed us from jump. Bennett bought aproduct, and can do what he wants with it now. Its just sad cause it didnt have to come to this.
 
Originally Posted by emmanuelabor

honestly, Im not even that mad at Clay and his crew...aside from that BS with the cloned championship banner and trophy. THAT is beyond lame.
aside from that though, I place all of this on the city, and the former ownership group. Theyre the ones that really screwed us from jump. Bennett bought a product, and can do what he wants with it now. Its just sad cause it didnt have to come to this.
i've got plenty of anger to make the rounds. Clay Bennet, David Stern, Aubrey McClendon, Tom Ward, Howard Schultz, Greg Nichols, ChristineGregoire, Margarita Prentice, Tim Ceis, Frank Chopp, Barry Trammel, Barry Ackerly, Wally Walker, Brad Keller, Sam Presti, the whole state of Oklahoma, the restof Byrnes & Keller LLP (a seattle law firm that represented bennett btw), every owner of an NBA team that isn't the Portland Trailblazers or the DallsMavericks (especially you Larry Miller) and my coworkers who keep bothering me with their slow talk and nonsensical gibberish. i probably should have stayedhome today. anybody else i missed that should be named, just add your name to the list above
 
when I really thought about it, I dont get the anger towards the OK folks. Well I get some of it cause they come off as slimy bastards. if htey had been 100%straight up from jump, then no, I would have NO problems with them at all......they BOUGHT the team. Even if they had stayed through the rest of the lease,they coulda left after that free and clear, and I cant really begrudge them for it. I mean, the way its lookin, we may be on the hunt for somebody elses teamin a couple years. The folks in Memphis or New Orleans prolly wouldnt be all that thrilled with the Seattle based group that BOUGHT their team either.
The city had chances to put something together and they chose not to for whatever reason....well before Schultz put the team up for sale. Some of the citypeople were actin like they didnt care if we did or didnt have a team here, and I think they underestimated Shultz and he pulled their card. I dont agree withhim selling to an out of town buyer like that, but if what I read/hear is correct, OK paid a grip, and these days, money talks.
I guess I'd be more upset with the OK and NBA folk if we had funding in place to renovate the Key, but we dont. Seattle's officials have had manychances to keep it from gettin to this point. They even had the lawsuit and punked out with this lame +*% settlement. Its funny now that it may come down to usrelying on the Shultz case as a last ditch effort to keep the team


smh.
 
I thought JA Adande's article was pretty well written...

Sonics saga sends out a bad message

The NBA should be banned from using the phrase "NBA cares" in any future public service announcement.

That should be a contingency of the settlement that ended the city of Seattle's lawsuit against the SuperSonics and freed the team to move to OklahomaCity, Okla. Because that's the message the sad Sonics saga sends out. The league doesn't care one bit unless you're willing to give up your moneyto enable its profits.

We know the NBA isn't a philanthropic organization, no matter how many times we see pictures of players reading to kids. We understand teams must seekmaximum profits or else they may be sold or cease to exist. But that doesn't mean the public has to guarantee that the team will make money.

The hypocritical Sonics owners argued in court that the team's departure would have no economic impact on Seattle. Wonder how that went over with thevoters in Oklahoma City who approved a $121 million sales tax extension to pay for arena renovations because they were told it would be an economic boon to thecity.

As I write this in a Washington, D.C., hotel room, just a few blocks away is an example that there's no steadfast rule that says arenas must be builtwith taxpayer funds. Washington Wizards owner Abe Pollin financed the $200 million to build the Verizon Center himself. In the process, he provided the impetusthat turned a forgotten part of the city into a bustling area of restaurants, shops and bars.

That's an example of what a franchise can mean to a city. It can provide a community base and, in good times, unify the region.

There's a conversation starter when you see someone wearing the home team's jersey on the subway. There's a downtown parade when the team wins achampionship. Even the sports economists whose numbers can't provide a fiscal justification for keeping pro teams in town say there's an incalculablepsychological benefit.

I was there for the last glorious night of basketball in Seattle. The Sonics didn't even win a championship that night, all they did was win Game 5 ofthe NBA Finals to send the series with the Bulls back to Chicago. Fans rallied for an impromptu celebration at Pioneer Square and drove around the city honkingtheir horns deep into the night.

Those are the types of feelings that were torn away from Seattle on Wednesday. Four decades of support from the fans were tossed aside.

(So far I have discovered only one good thing to come out of this. In the comments section on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Web site Wednesday night,an angry Sonics fan posted a link to a picture I've unsuccessfully tried to find on the Internet for years: the shot of Xavier McDaniel choking WesMatthews.)

So how could this brazen pillaging happen?

The short summary is that the city and state did not pay for a new or renovated arena, so that's all the excuse the SuperSonics' owners need tohijack the franchise to their hometown in Oklahoma. The city tried to sue to force the Sonics to honor the remaining two years on their lease at KeyArena. Theowners argued they would lose some $60 million if they stayed that long. So they wrote a check for $45 million (with the possibility of writing another for $30million if certain conditions are met) and the city took it and sat down.

The team is willing to leave the SuperSonics' name, colors and history behind, as if that were some grand gesture. Owner Clay Bennett said "I wasalways amenable ... to reserving the name for Seattle fans." What a great guy. I'm sure the Oklahoma City fans are deeply saddened that they won'tbe able to look up into the rafters and see the retired jerseys of Gus Williams, Fred Brown and Jack Sikma.

The Seattle fans get to keep their memories. But that's all they have. There's no guarantee of any more games, no chance to watch the development ofKevin Durant.

Oh, there's still the matter of former owner Howard Schultz and his lawsuit, in which he claims the new ownership group that bought the team duped himby not making a good-faith effort to keep the Sonics in Seattle. Don't hold your breath for that result, Seattle.

First of all, Schultz has plenty of other things to worry about now, with the news that Starbucks will close 600 stores.

Second, the team's defense attorneys already showed they were legal hotshots in the city's lawsuit, and this one should be even easier. Just callSchultz to the stand, ask him if he knew what city the proposed owners called home, turn to the jury and wonder aloud how a man who turned a coffee shop into aglobal power could be naïve enough to think people from Oklahoma City would pay $350 million to buy a team and not have it be within driving distance of theirhomes. Then the defense can rest its case.

The legal system couldn't keep the Sonics in Seattle. That should have been up to David Stern. Instead, he was more interested in helping his buddyBennett and maintaining leverage for the other owners than serving the fans who had supported a team and were responsible for millions of dollars of NBArevenue over the years.

Stern put out a statement saying he's encouraged that the city and state are attempting to put together a new financial package to rebuild KeyArena (thesame building the public just paid to renovate 14 years ago). He said if that happens, Seattle would be in line for another team.

That doesn't mean there's a suitable solution to this story. It just means that some other city is next.
 
Originally Posted by SnkrbyNature

This is the old owners fault, why did he have to sell it to clay benett,
starbucks rots the mind, he's had 1 too many of his own product. boycott if you know what's good for you
 
I can't believe how many people I know keep telling me "so what, they sucked anyway. The mariners and Seahawks are better anyway" No, sucking isnot going to a World Series in more than 30 years of existence. Sucking is not winning a Super Bowl in that same span either. Here's what sucking is not:making it to three NBA finals, being very close a couple other times, and actually winning a championship.

Don't tell me I at least have the Mariners and Seahawks. I don't have the Sonics anymore, which is my team. The only team that's ever meantanything to me. I remember the moment I became a fan for life: Feb. 13th, 1993 against Phoenix. The Suns had Barkley and the best record in the league, and hadbeaten Seattle twice earlier in the year, one being a very close game. I read in the paper the game would be on KJR so I borrowed my dad's radio and tunedin (I had no TV). I spent the entire game playing nerf basketball, trying to imitate what I was listening to. The game came down to the wire and the Sonicsscored a basket with a few seconds left but were still down one. All the Suns had to do was inbound the ball and get fouled, and it'd be a wrap. Sunsinbound the ball and Derrick McKey comes out of nowhere to stel the inbounds pass and lays it in to put the Sonics up one and they go on to win 95-94. KevinCalabro went nuts on the call and I listened to the entire postgame show.

I was in 3rd grade and the Sonics were on their way to an incredible mid '90s run after that. They were the best thing in Seattle. Nobody cared about anyother teams. The Mariners sucked, the Seahawks sucked, Husky football was coming off probation, Husky basketball was bad. Everything was bad except for theSonics. Then the Mariners got a stadium based on one good month of baseball in 20 years. The Seahawks got a good owner and helped fund a stadium. And theSonics went through the perfect storm of poor ownership, mismanagement, bad product, etc. and even as the most successful franchise in Seattle history(somebody tried arguing against this fact with me the other day), they couldn't get a frickin' bone from the city, the sports fans, the legislature,etc.

The "what have you done for me lately" attitude in this city is disgusting. And these terrible arguments such as "we could use that $75 millionto fund schools" make ZERO sense when the money would come from a tax that is ALREADY IN PLACE TO FUND SPORTS ARENAS AND ONLY AFFECTS TOURISTS AND ANYONEWHO EATS AT RESTAURANTS! It's not like there was going to be $75 million magical dollars that would appear and we could decide what to do with it. Maybe ifthe coward voters in this area actually voted for taxes that would increase funding for area improvements (education, roads, etc.) then I'd buy theargument, but we can't even get people to vote in favor of those taxes. So when our tax payer dollars aren't going to a new sports arena, who's tosay the same tax payers would even approve $100 million for schools. This city/county is a damn joke. A bunch of fake liberals who hide behind their convenientarguments to never get anything done. I hear a lot of complaining about transportation, but as soon as the word "tax" and vote" gets thrownaround, it turns into a lot of "well, I don't want to pay for it!" The city needs to man up and throw some tolls onto the roads here and then letpeople cry about that while they keep throwing quarters into a bucket. That's how you solve these issues.

Sorry, I guess that rant took an odd turn, but the Sonics issue is so deep in so many ways. It shows everything that is wrong with the mentality of people inthis city.
 
i feel the same way you do man. i'm pretty bitter towards mariner and seahawks fans because lots of them keep saying exactly what you said. "theysucked anyway" or being content because they kept the "more successful" franchises. then as you said, people are misinformed about therestaraunt, hotel, car rental tax. they don't understand that it doesn't affect you if you live in seattle and now because of that i'm stuckwithout a team.
 
Originally Posted by AirJordanSeattle23

will gp still be going to the hof in a sonics jersey?

he damn well better..
mad.gif

anyone know what's up with schultz'slawsuit?? (the bastard..)
 
Back
Top Bottom