Valley of the Suns

Managed to catch the 2nd half of the game last night on tv, as the three people in Vancouver not watching the Canucks were able to catch the Suns-Sonics game on Sportsnet (thank you, Steve Nash!)

For those who weren't able to watch the game, the PI's Gary Washburn sums it perfectly:

"The result was more a reflection of the Sonics' lack of depth than Phoenix's
dominance."

Amen, Gary, amen. At one point, the Sonics cut the score to 67-65 if memory serves, but the Suns just slowly edged away after that. A couple reasons why it happened:

-Nick Collison was a total non-factor. Whatever juice he drank in the first two months of the season has disappeared, and nowhere was it more patently evident than last night. As Eddie Johnson (!) pointed out on the Suns' telecast, and be patient, this is a long metaphor, "You know how when you go to a restaurant and have a great meal, then you go back to that restaurant ten more times and that meal never tastes as good? That's how Collison's playing tonight. He keeps thinking he's going to have that same meal that he did a couple of months ago, but it just ain't happening."

-Randy Livingston is a long ways away from being ready to play PG for the Sonics. It's just not fair to expect a guy to come and run the offense when he doesn't even know the plays. Livingston got called for a 5-second violation on an inbounds play; I think the ref had to pull the rule book out of his pocket so he'd use the right hand gesture. When was the last time you saw that happen in the NBA?

-Andre Brown left Shawn Marion open for 3's on two consecutive possesions while he (Brown) got tangled up in the paint.

-I know Rashard scored a bunch of points, but both he and Wilcox didn't look good to me, at least from what I saw in the second half. Wilcox seemed intent on dunking on every play, and I can't begin to count how many times he lost the ball in traffic. Lewis was jacking it up on every touch, and on at least two occasions he held the ball for at least 7-8 seconds waiting for something to happen offensively.

On the positive front, Mike Wilks really looked good, especially on one possession in the second half when he took the ball to the hole a la Steve Nash. The young man is definitely capable of being a backup 2 in this league.

Even more positive, the Sonics edged closer to the 5th spot in the draft. Vive le lotterie!

Outcasts

I got a cold slap in the face this morning upon opening the Vancouver Sun. As most of you are unlikely aware, the Canucks kick off their run for the Stanley Cup tonight in Vancouver with a game against the Dallas Stars.

To commemorate the occasion, the Sun blasted out a special section, chock-full of full page color photos, graphics, and all sorts of other things that give copy editors wet dreams.

I didn't read the section (I've lived in Vancouver for 10 years, and I still don't give a damn about hockey), but it made me nostalgic for the days when the Sonics were honored with sections like that.

You remember them: a graph detailing points per game, free throw percentages, turnovers there; a chart showing the matchups at the various positions here; a list of past playoff performances over in that corner. All in glorious, splendiforous color, to be pored over with eager anticipation by teenagers and middle-agers alike, the entire city giddy with the possibility of victories in spring.

Instead, rather than full color celebrations of glory, we have black and white agate of failure. This, sadly, is the Sonics circa 2007.

There's a line in James Joyce's A Painful Case, one of the dozen or so short stories included in Dubliners. The story is about James Duffy, a woeful man who tries to glide through life without any interest in anyone, to prevent himself from feeling the nick of sadness. When Duffy finally musters the courage to fall - somewhat - in love with a woman, it ends terribly. Joyce's description of Duffy is apt for a certain green and gold basketball team:

"He gnawed the rectitude of his life; he felt that he had been outcast from life's feast...He knew that the prostrate creatures down by the wall were watching him and wished him gone. No one wanted him; he was outcast from life's feast."

That's us, folks. The 2006-07 season has been an abject failure, and the Sonics are now outcast from the marvelous playoff buffet. While other teams have their entire rosters down to the last man on the bench examined and re-examined by a host of experts, no one will examine the Sonics' roster, because to do so would be a waste of ink.

So long, special section, we miss you so.

Sonics to Sign Livingston for Stretch Run

According to Frank Hughes and Gary Washburn, the Sonics will likely sign Randy Livingston to back up Mike Wilks for the rest of the season. In his 10-year career, Livingston's played for 9 teams, including the Sonics.

More importantly, last night the Hornets shocked the Heat and catapulted the Sonics into the 5th-worst record in the league. With a loss to the Suns tonight (keep your fingers crossed!), the Sonics could be firmly entrenched in the #5 hole, with a decent shot at catching the Hawks for #4.

The Sonics close the year at Phoenix (loss), at Portland (even), at the Lakers (loss), and home against the Mavs (win). The Hawks are home against the Wizards (win), at Cleveland (loss), at Milwaukee (even), home against the Pacers (even). The Sonics will likely go 1-3 and the Hawks will likely go 2-2, putting Seattle with one more win than the ATL. It'll all boil down to the Blazer-Sonic game and the Pacer-Hawk game, at least from my vantage-point.

Can the Sonics manage to let Brandon Roy go for 30? Can Mike Wilks puncture his thumb opening up a Super Sip? Can the Hawks enable Jermaine O'Neal to post a quadruple double? Will Josh Smith curse out the entire city of Atlanta and invoke the name of General Sherman in the process?

Ah, the NBA at lottery-time, 's wonderful.

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.