Top 3

Top 3 Sonics, Various Categories:

Roland Rating
1. Szczerbiak
2. Wilcox
3. Ridnour

Minutes Played
1. Durant
2. Watson
3. Collison

ORB/Min
1. Collison
2. Thomas
3. Petro

True Shooting %
1. Szczerbiak
2. Wilcox
3. Collison

PER
1. Wilcox
2. Thomas
3. Szczerbiak

French SAT Score, Math
1. Petro
2. Gelabale
3. Sene

Block %
1. Petro
2. Thomas
3. Durant

ORtg
1. Thomas
2. Szczerbiak
3. Wilcox

Tattoos:Skin Ratio
1. Swift
2. West
3. Watson


Defensive Win Shares
1. Thomas
2. Collison
3. Wilcox

FTA/min
1. Durant
2. Wilcox
3. Szczerbiak

PT Complaints/Week
1. Wilkins
2. West
3. Szczerbiak

Steals/Min
1. West
2. Wilkins
3. Thomas

FT%
1. Ridnour
2. Durant
3. Szczerbiak

Trade Likelihood
1. Wilkins
2. Szczerbiak
3. Thomas

Best Adjusted +/-
1. Thomas
2. Wilcox
3. Szczerbiak

Worst Adjusted +/-
1. West
2. Durant
3. Green

Number of Players in Top 3 of Adjust +/- Who are In Top 3 Minutes Played: 0

Wally & Watson Show

"I think tonight was one of those games where I got an opportunity to show what I can do down the stretch," Wally Szczerbiak said. (from the Times)

Everyone's talking about it - how Szczerbiak and Earl Watson (who added 26 points in the win over the grisly Grizzlies last night in Seattle) are moments away from being dealt, and good ol' Wally put the proper spin on his efforts.

Alot of subplots involving the game, including:

- No Kevin Durant, because of flu-like symptoms
- A seemingly easy win against an opponent that is on the ropes
- A lousy first half that saw the Sonics outscored 62-48
- A great third quarter, where the Sonics made up the entire deficit

Jeff Green had a nice effort as well, and Chris Wilcox proved - once again - that anyone who thinks he is ready to become an above-average power forward is sorely mistaken. Big Weezy showed he was still in all-star break mode by contributing 6 (!) points and 4 (!) rebounds in 30+ minutes, while his counterpart, Hakim Warrick, finished with 22 points on 18 shots.

In the end, it's a 108-101 Sonic win. Nice start to the second half of the season, fellas.

Supersonicsoultoon: Vertical Stripes are Thinning

I'm sure Clay is just giving his buddy Dave a hearty pat on the back.

Will Oklahoma be OK with more taxes?

It sounds like the people of Oklahoma may be tired of giving tax breaks to millionaires too:

Sonics owner Clay Bennett wants to move the team to Oklahoma City soon and is pleading with the Oklahoma City mayor and taxpayers to pass a penny sales tax to pay for renovation of the Ford Center.

According to Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett, the Ford Center needs a $150 million renovation to put in more restaurants and seats.

“Well, we will not get a team if we don’t pass this election. I think that’s pretty clear,” Cornett said.
The new tax would take one penny from every dollar Oklahoma residents spend.

A recent survey of Oklahoma City voters reveals that voters are split down the middle on the new tax option.
The survey conducted by SurveyUSA found that 47 percent of voters are leaning toward funding the Ford Center, and 48 percent are leaning against it and 5 percent are undecided.

“I think a lot of people look at the Hornets experience and they say, ‘Well, if the Ford Center was good enough for the Hornets, why is it suddenly not good enough?’” Cornett said.

Wando Jo Peltier, with MapsForMillionares.org, is against the penny sales tax and recommends the Sonics owners pay for the renovations.

“I am not willing to pay an additional $6 every time I buy $600 worth of groceries to pad the pockets of the rich who are financially able to pay every dime of the upgrades on the Ford Center,” Peltier said.

from KIRO.com

I highly recommend everyone check out the "Maps for Millionaires" site--I wonder if they've met the folks at "Save our Sonics"?

Stern

With this medal, I thee wed. You may now kiss my ass.

What can you say about this man?

'His Royal Smugness,' Steve Kelley at the Times calls him, and it's not an inappropriate moniker. David Stern, the man who seemingly revels in every ounce of good publicity for his league, has once again stomped his foot and tried to belittle the efforts of those who are working to keep the Sonics in Seattle.

"There's not going to be a new arena," Stern says. "There's not going to be a public contribution, and that's everyone's right. I mean that sincerely."

Stern went on to comment that he had read "in the newspaper" that Speaker of the House Frank Chopp had offered his support to the University of Washington's plans for a new athletic facility, but that Chopp had denied such support to the Sonics, further illustrating Seattle's ambivalence about losing their NBA team.

Which would make for a great soundbite, if it contained any kernel of truth, which, like most things out of Stern's mouth, it does not.

Reading Stern's comments, it is easy to become riled up and toss out invectives like a drunken fan, but, honestly, he's not worth the effort.

Remember, Stern is the man who publicly admonished Tim Hardaway for his disrespectful comments about homosexuality last year, because, don't you know, the NBA is all about cultural inclusiveness. David Stern, it seemed, would not stand for homophobes, not in his NBA, dammit.

Well, as we all know, that level of understanding doesn't have to extend to the owners. And that should tell you everything need to know about the Commish, a man who never met an idea he couldn't spin, a city he couldn't blackmail, or an emotion he couldn't twist.

You can keep talking, David, but we're done listening.

Supersonicsoul on the Radio today

My son and I will be talking about the Supersonics with our pal John Moe today on "Weekend America", locally on KUOW 94.9 FM, from noon to 2pm. If you miss the show, you can catch us on the archives here.

They're All Stars to Me

I’ve been pondering writing this for a couple of weeks now, not because it’s a gut wrenching topic or anything, but because I’m not sure whether it’s even worth discussing.

For the past little while, I’ve heard more and more about how the best way to fix the NBA All-Star Game is to switch from an East v West concept to a US v The World concept.

In principle, it’s not a bad idea, but it blows me away that I have yet to read anywhere that the NHL tried the exact same idea and abandoned it.

It blows me away that no one brings this up. Here we have an exact same scenario – a league with a mid-season all-star game no one cares about – and the same solution – using international players versus domestic players – and it failed.

Doesn’t that tell anyone anything? Am I the only one who thinks that after two or three years of seeing Steve Nash team up with Dirk Nowitzki, we’re going to be just as bored as we are now?

So, with that in mind, here is one man’s list of ways to improve this weekend.

KEEP IT LOCAL
To me, this is almost paramount. I can’t speak to the history of New Orleans basketball, so let’s make this hypothetical and say the game was being played in Seattle.

First, abandon the idea of having the coaches with the best records lead their respective conferences, and give that honor to local coaches or players. For example, at the mythical Seattle game, the East could be coached by Lenny Wilkens and the West by Paul Silas.

Second, the host team must have at least one player on the roster. This could be accomplished in one of two ways. One, the leading vote getter for the host team would make the roster regardless of if he’s a starter, or, two, have a separate vote on the team’s web site where local fans would vote for their favorite player.

Third, abandon the Rookies vs Sophomores game, which no one cares about anyway, and replace it with a legends game, with one Legends team made up of people like Dr. J, Scottie Pippen, and Karl Malone, and the one team made up of local stars, in this case people such as Gus Williams, Fred Brown, and Detlef Schrempf. Would the ratings be through the roof? Of course not, but I can’t imagine they’d be any worse than they are now for the Rookies game.

ALL STAR SATURDAY
The dunk contest and three point contest stay. The Skills Challenge goes, replaced by HORSE, and include a couple of local celebrities in the HORSE game just to give it some more fun. No, Kenny G is not a local celebrity, so shut up. Sir Mix-A-Lot is more than welcome, though.

GAME DAY
Baseball’s idea of awarding home court to the conference which wins the all-star game has merit. At the very least, it wouldn’t hurt the “competitiveness” of the all-star game, right?

In the end, the all-star game is never going to completely satisfy everyone. If you look at all four major sports, they’re all in the same bind – nobody cares about these games anymore. This is not a unique problem for the NBA, and it’s a result of years of endless hyping of every event, and one other problem – television.

You see, when we were kids, it wasn’t easy to see Dr. J on television – perhaps in the playoffs, and once or twice a year when he played the Sonics. There were no national sports channels back then, and the NBA certainly wasn’t on every night like it is now. So the All-Star game was a solitary opportunity to see all these great players we read about in the newspaper.

Now? It’s not so unique, and it’s no wonder people don’t care about the game any more.

Sonics Halftime Report

I was at last night's game, and I think it summed up the first half of the season pretty well: brief moments of brilliance completely negated by the final score. Here are some random thoughts I had while sitting in a half-full (or half-empty?) Key Arena last night:

• Kurt Thomas is the worst finisher in the NBA.
• Luke Ridnour and Kevin Durant should really spend more time together.
• Do you think a few of the Jazz have been using Karl Malone's "muscle cream"?
• There have been some pretty ugly guys in the NBA. Andrei Kirilenko is the ugliest. For the sake of the human race, let's hope this AK-47 is shooting blanks.
• I would rather see Delonte West on the court than Earl Watson. 
• Were the "Dunking Ushers" really the best halftime show the Sonics could come up with? Especially since they already used them between quarters? And about 4000 TIMES THIS SEASON? Is this organization even trying to entertain us anymore? I hate you, Sonics Halftime Coordinator. 
• The Sonics played great defense for almost the entire second quarter.
• Was Nick Collison really the best choice to talk about Black History Month?
• Anyone cheering for the Utah Jazz at a Sonics game in Seattle should be beaten to death. Even if they're children.
• The Sonics would have a much better record if games were only three quarters.

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!