Well, the euphoria has somewhat worn off, replaced with nothing more than a heightened sense of well-being that hopefully won't be disappearing any time soon. For now, I'm willing to table the discussion about whether the team will stay in Seattle or not and merely look at the 2007-2008 Seattle SuperSonics.

Of course, we won't know for sure who will be sitting there at #2 on June 28th, but the most likely scenario is Greg Oden going to Portland and Durant being a Sonic.

The major question that's been raised in Seattle today is how the Sonics will handle Rashard Lewis, who is expected to opt out of the final two years of his contract on July 1 and become a free agent. Lewis has manned the small forward spot here for almost a decade, but Durant projects to play that position at the pro level. Thus, there are two parts to the question of Lewis's future: first, does he want to resign with the Sonics and second, if he does, how can they play him, Durant, and Ray Allen together?

Some folks seem to favor signing and trading Lewis, while a few want to trade the draft pick. However, my belief is that the way you win in the NBA is by creating matchup problems for your opponent, and how on Earth would a team guard Ray Allen, Rashard Lewis, and Kevin Durant on the perimeter?

As we've seen the last few years with Phoenix, Dallas, and Golden State, the conventional 1-5 designations for players mean less and less when you've got seven-footers who can shoot threes. If the Sonics want to, they can team those three players with Luke Ridnour and Chris Wilcox to create a freakishly athletic team that can shoot the lights out and run most other NBA franchises off the court. Plus, they've got a wide array of decent big men (Nick Collison, Robert Swift, Johan Petro) to use against the few teams in the league who feature talented centers.

I can't pretend to know what Rashard Lewis wants to do, and if he's disinterested in coming back to Seattle then there's really nothing left for the Sonics but to try and work a sign-and-trade. But if he does want to come back, then by all means they should be facilitating a contract extension immediately.

The point guard position is another area of concern, as Luke Ridnour has failed to develop and Earl Watson still can't shoot with any degree of accuracy or consistency. While the general sentiment is that the team needs to make a move to secure a better point guard, I disagree. I think that Ridnour can be an effective player on the right type of team, and the Sonics with Durant, Allen, and Lewis are that type of team. Ridnour can focus on facilitating the offense and distributing the ball and not worry about his mediocre jump shot. Additionally, all the defensive focus on those three players should give Luke room to penetrate.

In any case, this team looks like a legitimate playoff team with Kevin Durant (or Greg Oden, I suppose) in tow (plus two early second-round picks). With the simultaneous revival of the Blazers, I'm thrilled for what looks like a solid decade of Pacific Northwest NBA dominance. And to everyone on the East Coast who bemoaned the fact that they'll have to stay up late to watch Oden and Durant, I say: too freaking bad.

So What Now?

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