Enjoy It

"Ask, and it shall be given you."
-Matthew 7:7

Playing a team in the second of a back-to-back, and a beat-up, mediocre team at that, this would have been a crusher to lose. Thankfully, Nick Collison and his 18-17 performance didn't let it happen and the Sonics (somewhat) cruised to a 95-88 win at the Key on Wednesday night.

A cynic would point to Earl Watson's -1 performance as indicative of his ineptitude, but in fairness to Watson, the majority of the negative numbers came at the latter stages of the fourth quarter, when the Clippers made a run to make the score respectable. Of note, Luke Ridnour is expected to practice today and return to action - possibly - against the Bucks on Friday night. Which is fortunate, inasmuch as Delonte West may not be available due to plantar fasciitis.

Kevin Durant put up his second consecutive sub-par game, but we should note that KD has yet to go more than three games this season without scoring 20 points. Of course, he has also yet to go three games without putting up at least 15 shots, but that's another story.

Stormy Weather

When Meriwether Lewis and William Clark completed their transcontinental voyage to the Pacific Ocean in 1805, they wintered on the Oregon Coast. Having never spent a winter in the Northwest, the pair and their crew had no idea what was to come.

Days and weeks of rain and the less than balmy weather combined to ruin their spirits – so much so that Lewis was to claim later that that winter was tougher than almost any other part of the expedition.

Northwest winters are uniquely dispiriting, and when your local sports teams offer: 1) a woeful Pac-10 team, 2) a mediocre NFL team which will win its division in spite of itself, and 3) an NBA team bent on fleeing the city, it doesn’t get any easier.

The Sonics’ case is especially tough to endure. As someone who has rooted for this team for more than two decades, through some bad but mostly good times, I don’t think I’m exaggerating to say this year’s squad is the least interesting of them all.

Sonic history is littered with enjoyable teams, both good and bad. But for a team to grab a city’s heart, it must make an emotional attachment, it must have a personality. Even the more recent Sonic vintages, the Allen and Lewis gang, were still able to reach us because of the greatness of those two players.

But this year’s team? I’m not buying it. It is the combination of two factors: the seemingly bright future of the franchise combined with the likeliness that none of us will ever reap the joy. That agonizing irony pervades everything related to this edition of the Sonics.

After all, why should we get emotionally involved with a team which will leave us when it’s ready to become exciting again? Even worse, what if they stay and Clay Bennett claims a massive financial reward (i.e., a new facility) in exchange for his extortion? Can we divorce our disgust at his machinations from our affinity for the team?

Perhaps I’m expecting too much from the Sonics. As a boy, it was easy to transpose my team’s greatness with my own, but I’m old enough now to know better. As adults, we’re able to hide the silliness of rooting for a bunch of strangers behind the pure enjoyment of the rooting. But when the people running the very organization for which we’re rooting blatantly destroy that organization, it becomes difficult to hide the foolishness of the whole situation.

I know people in Oklahoma City will think this to be reflective of Seattle’s overall apathetic attitude for this ongoing saga. Their eagerness for the Sonics is supposed to trump our big city blase, but that’s only because they have yet to experience the pain of watching a team you’ve supported through eight presidential administrations being used as the knot in a game of tug of war.

Make no mistake, this is a terrible team. A 3-15 record does not happen by fluke any more than a 15-3 one does. But there is more to it than that. Even before Mr. Bennett has backed up the moving vans to the KeyArena doors, it seems as though the Sonics – the Sonics we know anyway – may have already left.

Seattle under suicide watch as Sonics lose again.

I'm too depressed to write about it. I'll let Yahoo! fill you in on the gruesome details:

Rookie Kevin Durant had 25 points for Seattle, 12 of them in the final 6:05. But it wasn't enough to overcome a 15-point fourth-quarter deficit.

"They made it closer than I thought they were going to," Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. "I didn't like the way we finished up. We had a 15-point lead, then we were wandering around defensively and started doing some things I didn't like. It's the sign of a young team that's still unbridled and still undisciplined. I'm not happy with that game, but it was a win."

The Sonics are a league-worst 2-13 in their first season under coach P.J. Carlesimo -- matching the poorest start in franchise history. They began their inaugural 1967-68 season 2-14 under Al Bianchi. Seattle has lost 14 consecutive games against Western Conference teams, including five last season.

Read the rest (if you dare) here.

Sonics Drinking Game

Our pals at the Seattle Weekly have come up with the ultimate Sonics Drinking Game. My liver will hate me in the morning. (Thanks to Chunkstyle for the tip!)

Another Blowout Loss

The Memphis Grizzlies have three wins this season.

Two of them are against the Sonics.

In their continuing role as a cold and flu remedy for the bug-ridden members of the NBA, the Sonics got pummeled 125-108 in Memphis on Monday night. Delonte West led the Supes with 17 points, but 14 of those came in the 4th quarter when the game was far out of reach. The Grizzlies' guard tandems of Damon Stoudamire, Kyle Lowry, and Juan Carlos Navarro were too fast, too good, and too much for Earl Watson and West, and when you add in the Sonics lack of an interior presence, it was over before it started.

Thankfully, it's only one game. Unfortunately, the Sonics are now 2-10, and the flight home from Memphis must have been a doozy.

On a side note, last night's affair was graced with the presence of 10,863 Grizzly fans. Remind me again why it is the Sonics who are the poster child for the ills of this league?

Rookies

I found this story from TNT's Eric Williams an interesting read.

Williams quotes PJ Carlesimo at length regarding the latitude he is providing Jeff Green and Kevin Durant on offense, not to mention the rest of the team. Carlesimo explains his free-handed reign by referencing the way in which Tony Parker was allowed to run the offense his rookie season in San Antonio in spite of the numerous mistakes he often made.

What made me curious was the complete lack of laissez faire attitude when it comes to one Mo Sene. Sene, now in his second season in Seattle, has failed to take off his warm-up jacket in 9 of the Sonics first 11 games.

Now, I'm not going to say that Sene is a brilliant young player who is being buried on the Sonics' bench. He is, however, 21 years old, 6'11", strong, and with long arms. If PJ is willing to abide the mistakes of Green and Durant, why not Sene?

Inasmuch as the Sonics are writing off this season for rebuilding, would it kill them to play last year's first-round pick, oh, I don't know, maybe once a week? How is benching him for the entirety of the season helping him develop? Is Sam Presti working on a trade proposal with another club desperate to pay someone $1 million a year to sit on the bench? Does Sene have work visa issues with the State of Washington which preclude him from working within the state lines? Because after 11 games this year, he has yet to play at KeyArena.

Hey, this season isn't about the playoffs, we understand. But considering that Sene has the possibility of being a decent back-up center in this league, if for defensive purposes only, why can't we give the kid a chance? Are you telling me that he can't fill an Olden Polynice-type role in the future?

It's all well and good to say you're giving players "their freedom," when the players in question are Kevin Durant and Jeff Green, but how about extending that freedom to some of the other guys on the roster?

Falling, Falling

If you’re looking for a silver lining in a Sonic season covered in mud, here it is.

Last night, my alma mater, the University of Oregon, the #2 ranked team in the nation, a team on the verge of combining a national championship game with a Heisman Trophy in a single, glorious season, lost all of it in the span of 10 seconds.

It’s one thing for Ohio State, USC, LSU, or any of the other perennial powerhouses to blow their shot at a national title. After all, those schools are borderline professional football teams, and their chance at a championship comes annually. Likewise, Heisman Trophies grow like weeds in an untended garden for those lucky universities.

For Oregon, these opportunities come once a century, and Dennis Dixon’s injured knee in the first quarter of a game the Ducks were dominating ended it all. We – as fans – fell from the heights of the Rose or Sugar Bowls to the depths of the Holiday Bowl in moments. It was a dizzying plunge.

So, here’s your silver lining, Sonic fans. As fans of a team with no shot at anything this year, we have nowhere to fall. With an ownership and a league hell-bent on taking our team and with a roster riddled with questions, rehabs, and inadequacies, we have nowhere to go but up.

Remember the pain in your stomach we all felt when the Sonics would annually lose in the first round, the tension you’d get as the Sonics fell behind 1-0, 2-0, 2-1, then the urge to vomit after they lost a series they should have won?

Well, that pain is gone now, and there’s no chance of it this year. As bad as rooting for a 1-8 team is, and it is bad, perhaps it’s not as painful as rooting for a team which disappoints you.

At least, that’s what I’m telling myself this morning.

Ah, Bud

This has nothing to do with the Sonics or the NBA, but, well, it's our blog, so you'll just have to indulge me.

At the precise moment I looked at Sports Illustrated's home page with a massive photo of Barry Bonds and the associated story on his indictment, there was a story with this headline located immediately to the right of the photo:

"Selig: Baseball's revenue tops $6 billion mark"

Folks, if you can't see the arrow joining those two stories together, well, you're just not trying. Say what you want about Bonds, McGwire, and Sosa, but those three gentlemen have one hell of a lot more to do with the present fiscal health of major league baseball than Bud Selig, and everyone in baseball knows it.

Either baseball and the press were derelict in their duties and knew nothing about the steroid situation many years ago, or their hands are now covered with so much blood they're having trouble endorsing their (sizable) checks.

Seen & Heard

I haven't been keeping up with rumors about Sonic players and trades lately, simply because it's hard enough to keep up with all the losses.

But I found a couple of rumors out there that were of passing interest.

1. Mike McGraw of the Daily Herald in Chicago writes: "So this is all a pipe dream, but a player such as Seattle's Wally Szczerbiak would look good atop the Bulls' wish list. Last week, he scored 32 points and hit 12 of 16 shots in a game at Sacramento. But Szczerbiak has little future with the rebuilding Sonics. He played nine minutes in a loss to Utah three days later.
The bad news is Szczerbiak makes $12 million this season and $13 million next season. He'll be an attractive mid-level exception candidate, but not until 2009."

2. John Denton of the Florida Today writes: "Some power forwards or centers who the Magic might have interest in trading for include: Michael Doleac, Mark Madsen, Wayne Simien, Robert Swift, Saer Sene, Calvin Booth, Lorenzen Wright, Earl Barron, Melvin Ely, Johan Petro, Jarron Collins, Aaron Williams and Brian Skinner."

Yikes, that's one scary list, and further reinforces the notion that if you have a young son, you should be strapping his legs to a stretching apparturs every night. Because, quite clearly, no matter how bad you are, if you are 7' tall, there will always be a job for you.

Phew

Finally, the Sonics grabbed a win. I never thought I’d be happy with a 1-8 record, but, well, when the alternative is 0-9, I suppose happy is the way to be.

Unfortunately, it appears Luke Ridnour is out for two to four weeks. In a way, it helps Carlesimo by reducing his options at the point, but the way Earl Watson has shot the ball this year, it really reduces his options to one (Delonte West). Luckily, West offset Watson last night in Miami (Watson: -1, West: +9; seriously, how bad do you have to play to finish at -1 as the starting point guard when your team wins by 9?).

In any event, it’ll be Watson and West for the next month or so, and Gary Washburn muses in the PI that it’s possible the Sonics will look to add a temporary body while Ridnour recovers.

“Paging Mateen Cleaves, Mateen Cleaves please answer the white courtesy phone ...”

But before we get to fat and happy with last night’s win, remember that:

- The Sonics were outscored 54-43 in the second half
- The Sonics had 16 turnovers and 14 fouls in the second half

Those are discouraging signs, and, maybe I’m crazy, but it seems to be that the only reason the Sonics didn’t blow a lead as they had so many times this season was twofold:

1. The lead was too big
2. The Heat are just too lousy

Whatever the case, the credit for last night’s win has to go to Chris Wilcox, who finished at +24 on the night. and Nick Collison, who scored five of Seattle’s 11 in an 11-0 run to start the fourth quarter, throwing in four rebounds and an assist for good measure.

(And kudos to Percy Allen for getting Chris Wilcox to comment on the mystery of being left off the all-star ballot. Somebody at the NBA office has some explaining to do why Wilcox is off and people like Wally Szczerbiak, Luis Scola, and Luke Walton are in).

Sonics Win! Sonics Win!

OMFG! SONICS WIN!

Read the glorious details here.

Clash of the Not So Titans

Tonight's affair in Miami is sure to be one of the ugliest in recent memories. Two teams, one win between them, it's not exactly something that NBA TV is cuing up to record for posterity.

In Miami's lone win, they only managed to score 75 in a 3-point "win" over the hapless Knicks. In that game, the Heat shot 28% from beyond the arc, 55% from the line, and yet still came out of NYC with a victory. It will take that same kind of effort for Miami to knock off the even more hapless Sonics.

How bad are these two teams? So bad that the networks will have to run a parental advisory graphic before the game starts so that young children won't mistakenly view it. So bad that neither team is likely to crack 100 points, this despite the fact the Sonics' defense is indefensible.

Stop me, I'm starting to sound like Steve Kelley.

Really. I am.

In happier news, JA Adande of espn.com has a nice read about why the NBA should consider moving the Hornets to OKC and leave the Sonics the hell alone. It's walking on thin ice to suggest that sort of thing because of Katrina, but his argument has merit.

Pick for tonight: Heat 89-Sonics 83. Eyes gauged from Coral Gables to Puyallup.