How do you lose a game to the worst team in the NBA, at home no less? Hey, no job's too lax for the Men of Bennett!
The Heat rode Dwyane Wade's coattails to their - wait for it - first win on the road since December. The Sonics have now dropped four straight and are about to begin a seven-game road trip. Can you say 10-game losing streak?
Chris Wilcox keyed the Sonics' success for the first three quarters, finishing with a season-high 30 points, and Nick Collison registered yet another double-double. Yet despite all that, the Sonics were unable to beat a Miami team led by a gimpy D Wade and minus their third-best player, Udonis Haslem.
Johan Petro followed up his strong performance against Denver with 0 points in about 15 minutes of play, while Mickael Gelabale hit 1 of 8 shots to finish with two points.
On a side note, here's some homework for the weekend: In his column on espn.com, writer Bill Simmons floated the idea of Sonic fans staging a protest by walking onto the court en masse at some point during the rest of the season. The thought being that such a move would garner national attention and drawing some much-needed publicity to the plight of Sonic fans.
Your homework is to come up with some alternatives to this idea. For example, noting the half-a**ed way Clay Bennett has tried to keep the Sonics in Seattle, perhaps we could leave a game at halftime and not return. We're open to other suggestions, so feel free to shoot us a note with your ideas in the comments section. Please try to use something other than anonymous so that if your idea gains some traction you can receive the adulation you deserve.
16 comments:
A "walk on the court" protest would be awesome. It would let them know that we wont take any bullshit from Bennett. Your idea of leaving at half time would just give them what they want: another reason for them to leave Seattle. nobody at the games means no reason to stay in Seattle
Unfortunately, since I am from Germany, the only thing I could do in order to support was that mail to Bill Simmons. Just trying to give it a somewhat international voice.
However, the suggestions sound very good to me and I'd love to see it happen. That "walk on the court" sounds great to me. Anything expressing our dander at Clay Bennett.
I'm heading to the Jazz-Sonics game in SLC on the 22nd and I would love to help out, but I don't think one Sonics fan walking onto the court at a Jazz game would be very effective... you guys up north should seriously go for it though. Too bad there isn't another home game for a while.
I live in Spokane and would drive over to participate if this happens. Somebody needs to do something serious to get the attention of the league and media. We hardly even hear about the sonics on espn. If this was a larger market like the lakers or knicks they would never stop talking about it. LETS GIVE THEM A REASON TO TALK ABOUT OUR SONICS! It would also help if they played Sonics games on FSN and didn't black them out!
I think either the walk-in late, leave early, or storm the court idea NEEDS to happen soon because of Bill Simmons and ESPN (thank God for him), and NEEDS to be organized enough that those that do participate wouldn’t look like total idiots. Because the leave-early idea won’t appeal to people who want to pay to see the end of the game, and the storm-the-court idea won’t appeal to people who are pansies and fear punishment, why don’t said organizers station people at all the entrances with fliers detailing the effort, and beg those entering to wait until the second quarter starts? Flyer people at each entrance could have radios so that people can still hear the game, maybe even refreshments, and the fans in attendance would never forget staging the first quarter lock out that made national news, trying to save the team. The walk-in late scenario makes more sense to me.
Then the date is the other thing up for debate, and I feel like the 24th against Portland makes the most sense. People will come out to see the local rivalry anyway, it is broadcast on NBATV nationally, and it would get more attention nationally at the start of a work week than it would on the weekend. It’s also before the first week of the baseball season, and ESPN would still be interested and looking for stories.
I bet if you could get the story in the PI or the Times, you could even sell out a Sonics-Blazers game with the Save the Sonics rally in the first quarter. I’d go, and I’d bring friends. Tout it in the stores, on the streets, billboards even? SOS has money, I see their signs everywhere. Come on folks, we gotta make something happen.
People, listen to what johnnydub has to say! *thumbsup*
It would be so great if we Sonics fans managed to somehow organize something of this kind. Maybe youtube or other internet means would be suitable in order to inform and organize.
Perhaps you should tell SOS about the idea of the walk-in late, so they could help organize it and spread the word. Would certainly be an obvious choice.
At this point, we're just looking for ideas. Use this comment section as the bulletin board for possibilities, and we can try to whittle it down to the best one within the next week. The more ideas we get, the better.
Does Oklahoma have a color? Is it red??
What if everyone wears red t shirts to the game (I suppose someone could even sell cheap ones with a catchy slogan - OK IS NOT OK as you have on this site for example - outside the game for $10 donation. Proceeds to benefit SOS, whatever.)
Then at some designated point in the game (after the national anthem, or after the intros, or right after the halftime buzzer) everyone could take their red tshirts off and launch them onto the court, revealing of course, the green sonics tshirt underneath that everyone is wearing.
Nonviolent, generates a bit of revenue, creates a stir (and a mess to clean up that would take time to clear off the court), and everyone gets to see the whole game.
I think you're overestimating the strength of the average Seattlites arm. The problem is that the people without a lot of money are more likely to support this idea, and they're sitting the farthest away.
Still, even if the shirts didn't make it to the court, it would make for a nice visual. Got to imagine that a picture of the court covered in red shirts would be up first on sportscenter that night as well as a bunch of newspapers.
As far as I can tell, the only nationally televised Sonic game is the Golden State game to wrap up the regular season on April 16th. Anybody else have any other info?
Also, here are my suggestions for the protest:
1. Make up some sort of sign that everyone can hold up; maybe the Clay Bennett face mask?
2. Walk out, but not at halftime because the cameras would be cutting away and ou wouldn't get the impact. Instead, walk out one minute into the third quarter during live action. That way, the cameras couldn't help but catch it.
3. Start the Save our Sonics! chant, and make it a tradition for the start of the second quarter starting next week. That way, every game that goes by it will get bigger and bigger.
Now that I think about it, it's probably better if we can do the protest before the last game of the year, because all the momentum will disappear after that.
whatever everyone comes up with, we've got to make our voices heard! Keep up the good work, guys, and keep up the ideas, people!
why not pair the walk on the court idea with the red shirt idea. Everyone could walk on the court in red shirts and then peel them off and leave them on the floor. Just adds more clean up time that the game would be stopped and more publicity for our cause. A nationally televised game would be ideal but with todays media I think we would be ok just doing in during any game. Should be against a contender because they will for sure show highlights on sportscenter at least. The last game of the season would not be a good idea becuase as you said before the momentum would be lost pretty much immediately. What about possibly just doing a sit in at Key Arena? We could just go to a game and then not leave afterwards until some progress is made. We could bring a bunch of food and basketballs and just take over the Key
I support the "entering late" idea. It would take a major effort with a lot of people passing out flyers at every entrance. Of course, It'll only work if we can get a huge crowd (almost everyone) to picket outside during the first quarter.
After the one-quarter fan-strike, I think it is important (imperative, really) for everyone to stay for the entire game, and not leave their seats until the final horn sounds. We want to prove that we are good fans.
We could easily add creative signs/shirts to the above process.
I think we should avoid anything that could get any individuals kicked out or arrested. "walking on the court" sounds cool, but I can think of many ways it could end badly. I think we should concentrate on a protest method that EVERYONE (men, women, boys, girls) can participate in, without fear of punishment.
Here is an idea:
Once we figure out what we are going to do...whether it is walking on the court, wearing red, walking in late, etc., we need to get national awareness BEFORE it happens.
What if we e-mailed the regulars on ESPN's Around The Horn, and told them about the plan? And the game date? Maybe Woody Paige would say something about he Sonics in his final 30 seconds.
Thoughts?
I agree, we need to come up with a solid plan and spread the word. Something big has to be done soon and it's going to take a lot of time and effort to organize
True that.
Whatever will be realized, we should get the other people's and spectators' attention (who would otherwise not know of the protest and hence not participate)before the game and outside the arena. Whether that would be through chanting, flyers, banners or whatever...
The guys over at SonicsCentral have quite some ideas, too, of course.
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