Seattle Sonics: Team of Mystery

70 plus games should tell you everything you need to know about a team, but after another lose one, win one, lose one weekend, we are left with more questions than answers about our beloved SuperSonics.

For starters . . .

After securing a site in Renton, are the Sonics serious about staying in the Northwest?

With Earl Watson probably out for the rest of the season, will Luke Ridnour Mike Wilks step up and show Sonics management that this is his team?

How the hell did Rashard pass Shawn Kemp on the all-time Sonics scoring list?

Sonics, I feel like I don't even know you any more.

Da Fort

You’ve no doubt heard how Danny Fortson got out of traveling with the team to San Antonio and Oklahoma because of a dangerous tooth abcess, which his dentist allegedly said could “explode” on an airplane (let’s pray that the Taliban doesn’t read the Seattle Times).

All of which begs the question: What will Danny use as an excuse for the remaining seven games? At supersonicsoul.com, we’re all about finding the silver lining in the dark cloud that is this season. Here’s one man’s guess at possible excuses conjured up by the Round Mound of Puget Sound.


April 6th vs Lakers – Got stuck at King’s Table Buffet on Thursday/Friday. They closed at 11, but I hadn’t had all I could eat at that point; spent the night curled up under the omelet station and finished up the next day. When it says "All You Can Eat for $11.99," doesn't that mean I get all I can eat? Am I being too philosophical?

April 7th at Utah – Airport security forced me to remove my Mormon temple garments. I got into a theological debate with the security guard and they detained me, and I missed the flight.

April 9th vs Houston – Was at the salon having my pigtails cleaned when some dude called me Pippi Longstocking. Da Fort don’t stand for that mess. A King County sheriff threw me in the back of his car until we got it all straightened out.

April 11th at Phoenix – You know I don’t fool with those Colangelos no more.

April 14th at Portland – “Hey, Bob, I’m here at the Key. Where is everybody?”

April 15th at Lakers – After I missed the Portland game, I thought I’d catch an early flight to LA and catch up with you guys there. My cab driver took me Inglewood, then we found out the Lakers don’t play there no more (you gotta understand, when you only play once every six weeks, it’s easy to forget these kinda things). Right now I’m stuck on the 405 and I don’t think I’ll make it in time. Catch you back in Seattle, dudes.

April 18th vs Dallas – Sorry, King’s Table called about my outstanding bill. They said they’re gonna garnish my wages since I’ve been running up a tab there since that playoff run two years ago and haven’t paid it. Gotta go straighten it out. Don’t worry, though, I’ll be ready to go for summer training drills. You know Da Fort’s gonna catch on with somebody next year.

Blackburn Uber Alles

Apparently, Bob Blackburn has a computer, and he's not afraid to use it.

If you haven't voted already, hop over to supersonics.com to vote for either the 1978-79 NBA Champions or Bob Blackburn (!) as the greatest icon in Seattle Supersonics' history.

It got me to thinking: Where does Blackburn rank in Seattle sports broadcasting history? Blackburn obviously had a head start on everyone, with the Sonics debuting 40 years ago, and he remains the only broadcaster to call a professional sports championship in Seattle history (not including the Seattle Metropolitans, winners of the Stanley Cup in 1917; their broadcasts were done using signal flares, and, hence, do not count).

Every city has its favorites, and Seattle's been blessed with some great announcers. Neihaus, Pete Gross, Blackburn, Calabro, Raible, ... how do you rank the greats?

Well, here's one attempt:

1. Dave Neihaus ("Looooooow and outside")
2. Pete Gross ("Touchdown Seahawks!")
3. Bob Blackburn ("And Williams throws the ball into the air!")
4. Kevin Calabro ("Oh, Shawn, nobody do the voodoo like you do!")
5. Bob Rondeau ("Touchdown Washington!")

Your results may vary.

One Shining Moment

I don’t know about the rest of you, but while I watch the NCAA championship every year, it’s usually with a sour taste in my mouth, because none of the teams in my bracket advanced that far, or if they did, I’m still out of it and have no shot at winning the pool.

Last night, though, was different, for a couple of reasons.

First, it was the first time my 3-year-old daughter actually sat still for an extended period of time and watched a sporting event. Mind you, I’m not complaining about her general state of hyperactivity – the one thing kids need less of in this part of the world is sitting still and watching tv – but it was enjoyable to see her attention span extend beyond 35 seconds.

For some reason, she took a shine to Ohio State (or as she calls them, “the red guys”). Maybe it was Greg Oden, maybe it was Ron Smith, or maybe it was the fact her dad was shouting PG obscenities whenever Florida scored. Regardless, for pretty much the entire second half she sat next to me on the couch and rooted for OSU.

From yelling at Joakim Noah (“I don’t like that ponytailed guy”) to inventing cheers (“Go red guys, go!” “Hey white guys, let the red guys win!”), she had a blast. She even explained to her grandfather that Noah isn’t a nice guy (“He’s always yelling, bapa. Yelling’s not nice, right? That’s why we don’t like that ponytailed guy.”)

That was part of it, for sure. Add in the fact I got to watch basketball for a solid 2 hours without her asking me to put on Dora was the cherry on top (sadly, though, she seemed to be riveted by those annoying car insurance ads featuring some cartooned woman trying to dunk over some sort of alien-type creature).

The other part was the talent on the court. I think that 15 years from now, we’ll all look back on this championship game as something special. While Oden was obviously the best player on the court, this wasn’t a case of a giant amongst midgets. Oden’s teammates (Conley, Smith, et al) are also talented, and it’s possible he won’t be the only guy on his team to play in the NBA. And, of course, it seems as though every guy Billy Donovan trotted out onto the court for Florida was NBA-ready.

It all means that 5, 6, 10 years from now, we could be watching an NBA all-star game featuring Oden, Noah, and Horford, and we’ll all look back at last night and remember they were all on the same court together, the way I remember seeing UNLV play at the Kingdome against Seton Hall.

For one night at least, I forgot all about the Sonics’ troubles, and remembered why I watch basketball in the first place: It’s a game that everyone can enjoy, regardless of whether they know nothing about it, or far, far too much.

Oden Watch

When you're watching tonight's NCAA Championship game between Ohio State and Florida, try not to think about how awesome it would be to have Greg Oden on the Seattle Supersonics next year.

Seriously, try not to.

You can't, can you? After another confounding late season win-streak knocked them out of the Oden sweepstakes, Sonics fans are left to painfully ponder "What if?", and pray to Sund that they don't draft someone from Norway.

By the way, if you missed John Moe and I discussing the dreaded "Lose to Win" philosophy on "Weekend America", you can listen to it online here.

Sundcessor

From Ian Thomsen's column on SI:

Sam Presti: The Spurs' young hotshot assistant GM is already being rumored as a candidate to run the Sonics, should new owner Clay Bennett decide to clean house in Seattle.

Here's his bio from the Spurs' web site. I'm not sure if I read it correctly; was he 29 years old when they hired him in 2000 (making him 35 now), or is he 29 now, meaning he was 23 when they hired six years ago?

Either way, he's young, he's been trained by the Spurs, and he's not Rick Sund. Win, win, win.

Player A and Player B

I haven’t read a Rob Neyer column at espn.com in at least two years, simply because I’m too cheap to shell out a monthly fee for ESPN Insider. But regardless, his Player A and Player B technique is one of the best methods of analysis I’ve seen on the internet or elsewhere. So, being a total fraud of a researcher, and with apologies to Mr. Neyer, here’s a Player A and Player B comparison for the Sonics.

Player A: 15.6 ppg, 8.5 rpg, 12.4 FGA, 4.9 FTA, 50% FG, 65% FT

Player B: 12.5 ppg, 4.7 rpg, 9.1 FGA, 4.0 FTA, 54% FG, 68% FT

Here’s the rub: It’s the same guy.

Player A is Chris Wilcox when Ray Allen is out, Player B is Chris Wilcox when Ray Allen suits up.

It’s a significant difference. On one hand, you’ve got a guy who’s underpaid at $6.5 million a year, pulling down close to 16 points and 9 boards. On the other, you have Vlade Radmanovic without the 3’s or funky accent.

The crazy part is the rebounds. It makes sense Wilcox gets more touches when Allen’s out (see Lewis, Rashard). What doesn’t make sense is why Wilcox turns into Mailman-lite when Sugar Ray is in streetclothes. Even if you throw out his crazy 22-rebound game a week ago, he’s still averaging close to 8 boards a game, which is light years ahead of his pace when Allen’s in the lineup.

Some of it can be traced to Nick Collison. The more minutes Collison plays, the fewer boards Wilcox gets, and recently, Collison has been occasionally seeing fewer minutes. This isn’t always true, but in the four most recent games where Nick played fewer than 30 minutes, Wilcox nabbed 22, 12, 9, and 9 boards.

Some of it is minutes. Wilcox is averaging an extra 3 minutes a game when Allen’s out, which helps.

But that doesn’t explain all of it. In spite of all the numbers, I think it boils down to the same reason why the Sonics have run off three wins in four games despite not having their best player in the lineup:

The Sonics are a different team when Ray Allen is out of the lineup. First and foremost, Allen is a jump-shooter, and because he is so good at what he does, the rest of the team has a tendency to stand and wait for Ray to bail them out. It’s not a criticism; it’s a logical way to approach things.

We all do the same thing in our daily lives. My wife’s family is huge; it seems that they have weddings on a monthly basis each summer. With a big family, that means tons of preparation for each wedding. I’ve noticed, though, that it’s the same four or five people who always wind up doing the work, while the rest of the family stands around asking, “How can I help?”

I think the same disease has infected the Sonics. Rather than being assertive, the rest of the roster has become passive, asking Ray, “How can we help?”

Well, with Allen no longer around, they’re forced to do it themselves and, so far, it looks like they’re doing just fine without him. Perhaps I’m treading in sacrilegious territory here, but maybe the Sonics ought to consider parting ways with their superstar shooting guard. Considering he’s on the downside of his career and needs to win immediately, is it possible the needs of Ray Allen (go for broke in the next two years) are opposite to the needs of the Seattle Supersonics (build around a nucleus of Swift/Petro and Lewis)? Isn’t it just a tiny bit curious that everyone on the team seems to play better when he’s not around?

It’s a bit sad, because Allen has been nothing but a pro in his time in Seattle, someone who has given his all on the court, and who has given his time in the community. But I hope whoever inherits Rick Sund’s chair this summer gives serious consideration to moving Jesus Shuttlesworth somewhere else this offseason.

The Seattle Supersonics on Public Radio?

Sports on public radio? What's this world coming to?

As hard as it is to believe, I will be on KUOW this weekend taking about the Seattle Supersonics &mdash and it won't be about the stadium!

The always funny John Moe from "Weekend America" is doing a story on fans who root for their teams to lose, and we talk about the conflicted emotions of watching the Sonics come back from 25 down to win a meaningless game.

The piece will air during "Weekend America", this Saturday at noon locally on KUOW, or you can download the podcast. And, no, I don't know what a podcast is.

Sonics Win Back-to-Back on Road; Hill Wants More

Got to take issue with this from an otherwise fine article from Jayda Evans at the Times:

Hill and his staff have drastically improved five players — Chris Wilcox, Nick Collison, Earl Watson, Johan Petro and Damien Wilkins, and Allen was averaging a career-best 26.4 points on two bum ankles.

I don't know that any of those guys - other than Collison and possibly Petro have "drastically improved." Watson's play has been erratic, Wilkins seems to have flatlined, and Wilcox has put up inferior numbers to the ones he had during his spring fling with the Sonics last year. And, if you think about it, shouldn't Petro be improving regardless? Wouldn't he get better just standing in a gym by himself taking free throws, considering his relatively sparse experience in competitive basketball?

I also enjoyed this bit from Hill, culled from Frank Hughes' piece at the TNT:

I am not the kind of person who runs in his office and starts pointing fingers at other people.

Oh, please, Bob. Hey, I wanted you to get the job and I thought you got unfairly tossed in San Antonio, but if you're going to stand there and say that you haven't thrown players under the bus this year, well, you're flat out lying.

Enough of that. The more pressing news is the Sonics' second consecutive win on the road, a 3-point triumph over the Answer, Melo, Nene, and the Ball-grabber. Once again, the story was Rashard Lewis, who dominated the end of the fourth quarter and carried the Sonics to the win. Once again, Luke Ridnour proved he and Bob Hill are not even in the same book, let alone on the same page.

It's puzzling, you know, how Hill is able to get these guys to play so hard when they have so little for which to play. In fact, it's given me an idea: Maybe the Sonics ought to try an innovative strategy next year: Hire Rick Adelman to coach the team from November until March, fire Adelman, and let Hill guide them the rest of the way. This way, the Sonics get Adelman's regular season brilliance, none of his craptacular playoff failures, and they get Hill's obvious ability to win in spring-time with none of the fall weather doldrums.

Sonics to fire Bob Hill, hire Lenny Wilkens?

From the Chicago Tribune (via Yahoo!):

Seattle SuperSonics coach Bob Hill continues to throw players under the bus, which would seem to eliminate him from future NBA coaching consideration. In recent losses, he blamed Earl Watson and Chris Wilcox for costing games by blowing plays and said the Sonics should give up if they lose Rashard Lewis in free agency. The word around the NBA is Lenny Wilkens will return to coach in a transition season as the team considers a move next season.

Read the rest here.

Sonics Dominate in 4th Quarter; Pope Announces Conversion to Judaism

Yes, you read that box score correctly. The Sonics dominated a 4th quarter and THEY were the team that rallied from behind.

Earl Watson and Rashard Lewis were the keys to victory, especially EW's 24 points off the bench. And who would have guessed that Mike Wilks would get nearly as many minutes (17) as Luke Ridnour (24)?

Add it all up, and the Sonics seem bound and determined to get the 7th pick in the draft this year. For one night, though, it all seems oddly worthwhile.

Do Your Part

Supersonics.com has been running a bracket for the past month or so, with various aspects of Sonic history involved in the "games." At the moment, the battle is between Bob Blackburn and Squatch.

Now, I'm not going to tell you how to vote, that would be, well, Republican. Instead, I'm going to tell you that if someone were to vote for Squatch, I would be severely disappointed in them.

Severely.

So, do your part, honor the past, and go to supersonics.com and vote for Bob Blackburn. Remember, a vote for Bob is a vote for greatness. A vote for Squatch is a vote for a Halloween costume.