The Beginning of the End
Listed in: BasketballTonight is the first night of what might very well be the final season in Seattle SuperSonics history. In the three and a half months since the sale of the team to a group of Oklahoma City-based businessmen was announced, I’ve been both dreading and anticipating this night. On the one hand, a part of me wanted to ignore the team and this season, to dump them before they had the chance to dump me. On the other, I didn’t want to look back after they’ve left and realize that I missed out on my last chance to see my favorite team.
I’d love to believe that this season will have a storybook ending: the team will shock the league the way it did in 2004-05, the city will rally around the cause, and the new ownership will realize that it makes a hell of a lot more sense to have an NBA franchise in Seattle then in Oklahoma City. But more likely, the team will be the definition of mediocrity, winning 35-45 games, maybe getting a late playoff berth, and then in April sometime it will all be over. Next summer, or maybe even next fall, the official announcement will be made, and before you know it they’ll be gone.
Life will, of course, go on, even for people like me who love the Sonics and love basketball. The pain will be eased a bit by the fact that Lorenzo Romar is building a powerhouse at the University of Washington, but it will never really go away. Gary Payton will go into the Hall of Fame as a representative of a defunct franchise, and Nate McMillan will be Mr. Franchise That Doesn’t Technically Exist. I might stumble across Game 7 of the 1996 Western Conference Finals on ESPN Classic and feel a sharp pain in my stomach. The awe-inspiring nature of a Shawn Kemp dunk will remain underappreciated by NBA fans as a whole.
Most of the pain, however, comes from losing something special that my dad and I shared. I can imagine that this is something (one of the few things) that I share with Bill Simmons. While my father and I share a rooting interest in the Mariners and Seahawks, it’s over the Sonics (and more recently the Husky basketball team) that our levels of passion dovetail. When the Sonics leave, I suppose we can still talk about the NBA, but without a horse in the race there’s not really much sense in getting too invested.
So he and I will be there tonight. The league, and the team, may have done just about everything they can to turn people like us off to the league: overexpand, lower the level of play, allow teams to play music while the game is going on, raise ticket prices to ridiculous levels, not forcibly remove Wally Walker from the front office sooner, but for one more night, at least, we’ll be there.
Being stuck in the upper left corner of the country has given me a healthy inferiority complex when it comes to the local franchises. Ray Allen doesn’t get enough credit for the kind of career he’s had: he’ll end up with a far superior resume then, say, Reggie Miller, but try and argue that he was a better player and you’ll mostly just get incredulous looks from people. Gary Payton was the best point guard of his generation, but because of where he spent the bulk of his career he’ll go unmentioned when the topic comes up. It takes a spectacular season (2001 Mariners, 2005 Seahawks) or a spectacular player (Ken Griffey, Jr.) to break through that barrier, even in today’s sports landscape where every game is available to the serious fan.
Most of all, though, the plight of the Seattle sports fan has gone relatively unmentioned. No other city has had all three of its major franchises practically out the door in less than a dozen years. We’ve suffered through devastating losses both self-inflicted and perhaps official-aided. No team has won a championship in 27 years, a longer drought then, say, Philadelphia. In fact, the only city with a legitimate counterargument is Cleveland, and they just happen to have the best player in the NBA (as well as two of the best players in baseball).
I’ve been down this road before. In fact, I’ve been down it twice. Seattle has a fairly checkered past when it comes to keeping sports franchises around. The original MLB franchise, the Pilots, decamped after just one season in the Pacific Northwest. Their successors, the Mariners, nearly left several times in the early 1990s. The Seahawks went so far as to load up moving trucks in 1996 in anticipation of a move to Los Angeles. But that doesn’t mean it gets any easier.
So when the ball is tipped for what is most likely the final Opening Night in Seattle, I’ll be there. I’m not sure what to expect, both from the Sonics and from myself. But I do know that I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
