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2020-11-05
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The Seattle Supersonics: Green and Gold Forever

Summary:

This is sort of a combination Essay and History Lesson on the NBA franchise known as the Seattle Supersonics. Even though the team currently does not play in the NBA, there are many folks(including me) who want the team to return.

It's also designed for those who remember the team(either as fans or those who watched the team play against other franchises) in order to create a sense of nostalgia amongst those in the aforementioned categories and to keep the team's memory alive.

Work Text:

During the Summer of 2008, while most of the country was enjoying summertime activities such as watching baseball games, attending picnics, fishing and taking vacations, in the section of the United States known as the Pacific Northwest, the National Basketball Association's Seattle Supersonics moved to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

The franchise's new nickname was the Thunder, and the franchise officially was rechristened as the Oklahoma City Thunder.

However, this not only was the beginning of a dark era for Seattle sports, but it was also a microcosm of what professional sports(and the NBA specifically) have become in the last five or six years since the Sonics were moved from the green and beautiful Pacific Northwest... to the land of oil wells and Sooners.

To fully understand my feelings on the subject of the Sonics leaving, and the thoughts of many a Seattle resident and former Seattle resident who rooted for the SuperSonics from afar, we need to start at the beginning of the Sonics existence: 1966.

At the time, Seattle(and surrounding areas) was a very different city from the metropolis that has become home to Starbucks, Amazon.com and other Fortune 500 companies. For example, when the Sonics debuted, the city was only 4 years removed from the Century 21 World's Fair, which captured not only the city's imagination, but the entire globe's as well.

One remnant from the World's Fair, a building then known as the Washington Coliseum(but would later be known as the Seattle Coliseum and the Seattle Center Coliseum) was used for many a rock concert, convention or small festival and other high school and minor league sports prior to the Sonics arrival in the Jet City.

Thanks to the efforts of an enterprising businessman by the name of Sam Schulman, the city of Seattle was granted an NBA expansion franchise to begin play in the 1966-1967 league season after the city had attempted to build a domed stadium(as well as several other stadium efforts) in order to attract a National Football League franchise, an American Football League franchise(the other major pro football league at the time) or a Major League Baseball franchise.

The city's efforts would eventually pay off as the Kingdome was constructed from 1974 to 1976 and was opened during the summer of that bicentennial year. But we'll return to the Kingdome a little bit later; first, we have to continue with the early years of the Supersonics.

At the beginning of the franchise's existence, attendance was on the low end, and the team struggled in the standings for a few years. However, thanks to future Basketball Hall of Famers like Lenny Wilkins, and stars like Dennis Johnson and Jack Sikma, by the mid 1970s the Supersonics were starting to capture the Seattle area's attention and imagination.

This fact was cemented in the late 1970s as the Supersonics made the 1978 and 1979 NBA Finals, playing against the then Washington Bullets in both years, losing the first series but winning the second series, which for many years was Seattle's only modern major professional sports championship.

After a stint in the Kingdome in the late 70s and for most of the 80s, the team moved back to the Seattle Center Coliseum, their original home court. In the 1980s, stars like Xavier McDaniel, Dale Ellis and perhaps the franchise's two biggest stars Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp came into the limelight and brought Seattle numerous exciting playoff series, and Western Conference championship in the 1995-1996 season.

However, by the early 1990s storm clouds were gathering for the Sonics. Barry Ackerley, whose company owned several radio stations in the area at the time, as well as a Bellingham, Washington television station and a very lucrative billboard company, bought the franchise. It seemed like a natural match as one of the Ackerley Group's radio stations(KJR AM) had the rights to the team's games on radio.

While the team's tenure under the Ackerley's ownership was quite lucrative as far as attendance and merchandising went, off the court problems were surfacing quite often. Gary Payton, one of the team's stars was traded in the early 2000s to Milwaukee, and Shawn Kemp who was becoming a less effective player on the court was dealt in the late 1990s to Cleveland.

Add to that, George Karl(the team's head coach during their peak in the 1990s) having constant issues with local media members and the team needing a new arena in the mid 1990s and you have yourself quite a hailstorm of problems.

By the mid 1990s, the Seattle Center Coliseum was starting to show its age, and with new arenas opening in cities like Cleveland, Chicago, Los Angeles, Anaheim, Phoenix and other areas, Seattle needed a new arena to keep the franchise and to stay among the elite teams in the NBA. The result was the Coliseum undergoing a massive renovation in the 1994-95 season(during which the Sonics played at the Tacoma Dome, about 40 miles to the south) and reopening in the 1995-1996 season as the Key Arena(Key Bank, a Seattle based company having naming rights to the venue).

Things seemed to be going rather smoothly at the time, with David Stern(then the NBA's commissioner) raving about the venue and the team doing boffo box office as it were, including several playoff appearances in the late 1990s/early 2000s and acquiring players like Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis, who led a new cast of Sonics to success at the turn of the 21st Century.

But once again problems reared their ugly head for the team when Howard Schultz bought the team from the Ackerleys in the early 2000s. Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks Coffee seemed to know a lot about coffee, but to use a bad cliche: he didn't know beans about running a basketball team, and by the mid 2000s sold the franchise to a group based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma led by Clay Bennett and Aubrey McClendon.

After a long and arduous process, which started when Schultz along with David Stern went to the state capital of Olympia to attempt to get funds for a new arena, the team began their downward spiral. Bad free agent signings, bad trades, bad draft picks, behind the scenes problems(including the team's games on radio being moved from KJR to the less powerful signal of KTTH AM, the team's ownership refusing to allow the media to interview players, and the aforementioned ownership change) resulted in one of the team's worst seasons ever, which resulted in a top five draft pick.

By then however the die was cast, and despite pleas from local businessmen and fans and media, the announcement was made in the Spring of 2008 that the team would move to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma where they reside now.

What has happened since then is a mixture of glee, despair and nostalgia. Businessman Steve Balmer and Hedge Fund Operator Chris Hansen started the drumbeat several years ago for a new downtown arena, which was designed to bring the franchise back and possibly an NHL franchise to the Seattle area.

However, due to changes in the political game in Seattle, and delays in the behind the scenes work to get the arena built as well as the Sacramento Kings and Milwaukee Bucks being up for sale, but being purchased by local ownership groups in those areas have seriously hindered the Seattle area's hopes for a Sonics return.

Then this year, Steve Balmer purchased the Los Angeles Clippers, which resulted in a major ally for Seattle being in the group of NBA's owners. But a major player in Seattle's hopes for a Sonics return went by the wayside, and Seattle was denied yet again for an NBA franchise.

Despite it all though, Seattle Supersonics fans have remained resilient. Through rallies, grass roots groups that want the team back, and most of all: the fans themselves, have kept hope alive that someday the Seattle Supersonics will return to the court, and a new generation of fans can experience the same kind of magic and thrills that I experienced by watching players like Kemp, Payton, McMillan, Lewis and Allen.

Or the same kind of excitement that older fans experienced by watching Sikma, Dennis Johnson, Lenny Wilkins and others win game after game, and an NBA Championship in 1979. Someday the Seattle Supersonics will return to their rightful home, and I will be sitting in front of my television, decked out in my Sonics colors watching the team I grew up rooting for, and rooting for that team one more time to bring home another NBA championship.

So when others say Seattle should get over losing our Sonics, I say no way... because just as Baltimore always had a place in their hearts for the Colts when they left, or Brooklyn fans had a place in their hearts forever for the Dodgers, or Montreal fans kept the Expos in their hearts, or even Hartford fans kept the Whalers in their hearts, Seattle fans will always remember our SuperSonics... the first major pro sports franchise in the Emerald City.