Loss, Break, Change

Unable to convince Jerry Sloan prior to the game of the wisdom of resting his five starters, the Sonics wound up falling to the Jazz last night at the Key, before an announced crowd of about 10,000.

The loss, as you are well aware, leads us into the all-star break, and gives the Sonics a chance to pause alongside the calamity that is the 2007-08 season and take a breath. Percy Allen, at the Times, gives insight into the changes that may be headed our way:

Coach P.J. Carlesimo intends to use the second half of the season to evaluate players such as C Robert Swift, C Johan Petro, G Luke Ridnour, swingman Delonte West and Gelebale at the expense of others, including starters.

So there you go. If you have Earl Watson on your fantasy league, perhaps this might be a good time to sell high. If you're utilizing Kurt Thomas to boost your rebound totals, well, maybe you ought to think about doing the same.

The obvious conclusion to be drawn from the expected changes are this: If the Sonics are one of the worst teams in basketball when they give their best players the most minutes, to what unforeseen levels will they sink when they start playing the guys who aren't as good? Do we need to get James Cameron involved in documenting the second half of the season?

Mystery Team

C: Shaquille O’Neal
PF: Eddy Curry
SF: Luol Deng
SG: LeBron James
PG: Tony Parker
Bench: Brent Barry, Sasha Pavlovic, Anderson Varejao, Stephon Marbury, Ty Thomas, Brad Miller, Beno Udrih

Quite a list, huh? I’ll give you one minute to come up with the association between that mad-cap group of semi-stars and superstars.

Give up? If you’re a Sonic fan, it’s a cinch. It’s the list of opposing players who sat in street clothes (or waved to teammates from suites) in contests with Seattle in the past two weeks.

At this point, I could trot out the whole “See, the Sonics suck, despite their recent spate of wins” article, but, honestly, who am I arguing with, other than 7-year-olds who think Kevin Durant is the NBA MVP? We all know the Sonics are awful, and even four wins in five games isn’t going to change that.

Still, it’s shocking when you add up all the recent missing persons into one unit. Are the Sonics the Typhoid Mary of the NBA now? Perhaps not, but if I’m Jerry Sloan, I’m keeping a close eye on Deron Williams for the next few days.

Gelabale Returning

According to Jayda Evans at the Times, Mickael Gelabale is due to return to the NBA after finishing up with a game for Idaho tonight. Evans writes in her piece that Carlesimo is intent on getting Gelabale into the rotation for the second half of the season.

Barack to rock the Key today

Barack Obama OWNS Sports Illustrated's S.L. Price.

Barack Obama will be holding a rally in Seattle today at 11AM. So why am I writing about this on a Seattle Supersonics blog? For one, it's at Key Arena (where he might, sadly, draw more people than our beloved Supes). And two, the man is a BALLER!

ABC News: When Obama Was 'Barry O'Bomber'

One Place Where Obama Goes Elbow to Elbow - New York Times

SI.com - Photo Gallery - Barack Obama's Basketball Respite

VIDEO FOOTAGE of Barack playing hoops in High School

All I can say is McCain had better work on his game!

Oklahoma just says no to Arena?

It sounds like Oklahoma taxpayers are starting to come around:

On March 4, 2008 Oklahoma City will decide if placing a Sales Tax on the entire population in order to fund arena upgrades for the benefit of the NBA is acceptable.

The upgrade Scope of Work calls for the arena to be remodeled to create more revenue streams so the team may increase profits.

The Sonics are owned by a group of local BILLIONAIRES who can easily afford their own upgrade without burdening the tax payers.

It's a bad deal for the hardworking people of OKC.

Read more about it here.

Watson, Watson, Watson!

Who had Earl Watson with a triple-double in the pool?

Anyone?

Bueller?

Didn't think so. Mad props (do people still say that?) to Watson for a terrific night. (Double props to Gary Washburn for referencing Ice Cube in his opening sentence: "Earl Watson messed around and got a triple double."). The Sonics, thanks to Watson, picked up their first road win since December 14, pounding the Kings 105-92 in Sacto.

And, once again, the injury gods smiled upon Seattle. First, it was the Parker-free Spurs, then the LeBron-less Cavs, then the Non-Curry Knicks, and now the Miller-Lite (!) Kings. On the flip side of that coin, imagine if the Sonics had lost all four of those games. There, makes you feel better, right?

More good numbers:

-Sonics outrebounded Sacto 54-42
-Sonics outassisted Sacto 27-14
-Sonics outshot Sacto 53%-37%
-Weezy picked up a double-double
-Johan Petro picked up 9 points in only 13 minutes

That's four out of five, folks. How far back of the #8 seed are we now?

Door Number 2

One other bit on the Shaq trade:

Before the season started, the Suns clearly were in a penny-conscious mode, so penny-conscious they traded away Kurt Thomas and two first-round picks in exchange for the trade exception the Sonics had acquired from Orlando in the Rashard Lewis deal.

Why do I bring this up? Because the Suns just acquired Shaquille O'Neal, who is due $20 million a year for three years, when they already had Kurt Thomas, whose $8 million per season deal ends this June. Thomas is the same guy who is a better defensive rebounder than Shaq, who commits fewer turnovers, and who is just as effective on defense.

Really, the only advantages of Shaq over Thomas are 1) Shaq's superior scoring ability in the paint and 2) Shaq's ability to block shots.

But that's it. The Suns are going to be paying $52 million more than they had to just for a few extra blocks and a couple of dunks. Oh, and they had to give up one of the premier talents in the league (Shawn Marion) for the right to overpay Shaq for three seasons.

Obviously, hindsight is 20/20 and if Steve Kerr had known that Thomas would have held up physically, maybe he wouldn't have made the deal. Maybe. But I'm curious: Considering that Thomas' deal expires this summer, isn't it possible that the Suns could have gotten alot more for Thomas and Marion in a deal than Shaquille O'Neal. Like, oh, I don't know, Jermaine O'Neal? Or Kevin Garnett?

Maybe we'll all look foolish when June rolls around and Shaq averages 20/10 in the playoffs, but it seems to me that Steve Kerr could be looking for employment in a year or two when Shaq plays fewer than 40 games, Steve Nash's injuries begin to mount, and the Suns become Amare & The Gang.

Sure makes those two picks the Sonics got look awful attractive, though, huh?

Can't Miss

Kudos to Damon Agnos for his hilarious story on Major League IV: It's Supersonic. The piece is in Seattle Weekly. You absolutely, positively must check it out.

Shaq's Debut Against ... Seattle?

In case you hadn't noticed, Shaquille O'Neal is apparently headed to Phoenix in exchange for Shawn Marion.

What you might not have realized however, is that Phoenix plays tonight (Wednesday) against New Orleans, a game in which O'Neal surely would not particpate.

However, the next game the Suns play is at home, Friday night, against your Seattle SuuuuperSonics. Meaning, of course, that Kurt Thomas will get a chance to audition for any number of playoff teams by showing how he can stand up to the Big Diesel.

As a side note, who the hell am I supposed to root for if/when the Suns plays the Lakers in the playoffs? As hard as it is to say, I've rooted for the Lakers the past couple of years because of my loathing for Steve Nash and the Suns.

But now? When it's Shaq v Kobe? Man, that's a hard call to make. I'll cop out on a decision for the time being by waiting for the trade to be made official, but one thing is certain if this trade goes down and if the Suns meet the Lakers in the playoffs:

David Stern will be very happy.

Crunching Numbers

We’re more than halfway through the season, which means we’re also well on our way to seeing the future for Kevin Durant. His numbers have been more than adequate – bearing in mind that he’s still very young and inconsistent – and as he’s the slam-dunk choice for rookie of the year, I think we can feel that the future is indeed bright.

Thanks to 82games.com, we can see beyond the superficial numbers of 19.6 ppg, 4.2 rpg, 2.8 turnovers, and so on, to look at more interesting results from the first half of his first season.

For example, you could see how Durant worked with specific players on the Sonics roster. You might be interested to know that Durant’s statistics are much more impressive playing alongside Earl Watson (25.5 points, 41.5 FGP, 6.9 FTA) than with Luke Ridnour (19.6 points, 38 FGP, 4.1 FTA), but that the Sonics win their possessions 50% of the time with Ridnour/Durant, and averaged 105 points per game, compared to only 28% with Watson/Durant and an average point production of 95 points. (To be fair, Durant has only played 213 minutes with Ridnour as opposed to 970 with Watson, and those numbers do not figure in quality of opponents).

On the same vein, Durant’s win percentages with Nick Collison and Chris Wilcox are 28 and 31%, respectively, while Durant/Thomas check in at 41%. On the whole, Durant’s best +/- numbers came with Ridnour, Szczerbiak, Wilcox, Thomas, and Petro, while his worst numbers were with Green, Wilkins, West, and Watson. In fact, the Durant/Green tandem’s +/- of -264 is the worst pairing on the team, and a stark reminder of the mistakes young players make in their rookie seasons.

Looking further at Durant’s numbers this year, we see that the Sonics allow 112.7 points when he is on the court, as opposed to 101.3 when he’s sitting on the bench, further illustrated by the 51% opponents shoot with Durant on-court compared to 45% when he’s sitting.

On a more promising note, while most of the five-man groups Durant is paired with have lost their battles, the Watson-Durant-Szczerbiak trio seems to be effective, whether they are paired with any combination of Wilcox, Thomas, or Collison (so long as Jeff Green isn’t involved, anyways).

There are plenty more numbers to look at, but that gives a quick insight into what has transpired so far. Let’s just hope that Green continues to improve his play, and that the struggles the two rookies have experienced are nothing more than growing pains.

Allen vs Allen

A long time ago, August of 2004 to be exact, a hot topic surrounding the Sonics' franchise was the possibility of Ray Allen being traded and the Sonics acquiring Allen Iverson.

At the time, I wrote that it was exactly what this franchise needed to do, but that in the safe mode that Seattle always seems to operate it would never happen. Quite a few folks wrote in to say that I was an idiot, that Iverson's contract was untenable, that Allen's career would proceed much more smoothly, and that the Sonics would be foolish to do what I suggested.

Well, here we sit, almost four years later. I was thinking about that piece last night as the Blazers and Nuggets went to war in Portland. It was a great game, and I envied the Blazer fans for the playoff atmosphere in a February game. Iverson, Melo, Roy, Martin, heck, even Martell Webster in the third quarter - it was just a tremendous display of what makes the NBA great.

But back to AI. In the fourth quarter, and with his team trailing by two, Iverson drove left, received a pass from Melo out of the post, and promptly nailed a three to give Denver a one-point lead with 39 seconds remaining. It was just an unbelievably clutch shot, and Iverson's demeanor before and after it just made me smile. It was as if he had no doubt the shot would fall, despite the fact he was leaning left as he took it.

But he wasn't finished. With the game knotted at 103 in overtime, and the Nuggets with the ball coming out of a timeout, everyone in the arena knew AI was coming for the win. Heck, a three year old girl from Abu Dabi would have known what was coming. Sure enough, Iverson was up to the task, draining a 14-footer to give Denver the lead with .9 seconds remaining. Again, he had no doubt the shot would fall.

But what's your point, Pete, you ask, or are you just being an NBA voyeur who abandons his team's miserable Monday showing for more titillating sights south down I-5?

Here's the point: Four years ago virtually anyone in the NBA would have argued that it was smarter to sign Ray Allen to a long-term contract than to pick up Allen Iverson and his bloated deal. Iverson's attitude, his unpredictability, and, of course, the economics of it dictated the safe choice.

But how about now? Would anyone argue that it would be smarter to have Ray Allen's 2 1/2 years of contract or AI's 1 1/2? Considering that Iverson is still one of the best scorers in the game and Ray Allen is averaging less than 20 ppg, would anyone still take Sugar Ray's side?

I don't think so. Which leads to my point - nothing is for certain in this league, and sometimes you have to take chances. When the chances come, I'll take mine with a guy like Iverson.

Streak Is Struck

As I predicted, the Bulls played well in the first half last night. Unfortunately, my expectation that the Sonics would recover to win in the second half proved to be sorely wrong.

In the good news department, Robert Swift returned from injury, and managed to can two baskets in limited action. In the bad news, Jeff Green continues to sit out, nursing his sore left ankle.

In an interesting twist, Earl Watson was benched for the entire fourth quarter in favor of Luke Ridnour, and that turned out to be the only quarter the Sonics didn't lose. Their combined stats of 21 points and 12 assists certainly looked good in the boxscore, though.

But the key to the game was twofold, really. 1) the Bulls killed the Sonics on the boards and 2) the Sonics did not come ready to play defense. When you give up 118 points to this Chicago team, you're not working as hard as you can, and that was plainly evident last night.