PJ Back Next Year

Ending a month or so of speculation, Sam Presti announced at a press conference today that PJ Carlesimo will return as the Sonics' head coach next season.

Carlesimo enters the 2008-09 season having posted a winning percentage below .300 in three of his past four seasons, and since leaving the rosy confines of Portland a decade ago has compiled (emphasis on "pile") a record of 66-175.

In other words, if the Sonics go 82-0 next season, Carlesimo would still have a below .500 record in the NBA coaching teams outside of the state of Oregon.

However, were the Sonics to win all 82 games, then continue with a 27-game win streak to start the 2009-10 season, PJ would then be right smack at .500 for his post-Blazer career.

Of course, it's not really fair to PJ to blame him for this past season's roster. It's not as if he benched rookies in favor of veteran retreads like Donyell Marshall or Francisco Elson in an attempt to study the mystical powers of those veterans. And it's not as if he didn't have, oh, I don't know, the starting point guard for the Cleveland Cavaliers collecting DNP-CDs for half the season.

Oh, nevermind.

Trial Delayed?

Hard to say at this point, but the City of Seattle filed a motion in Federal Court yesterday asking for the trial to be delayed by six months should Judge Pechman agree with the Sonics' recent motion requesting the amount of money be decided at the conclusion of the trial.

To give a quick synopsis, the team is asking for Pechman to render a decision on 1) the trial and, should the Sonics emerge victorious, 2) the amount of money the city should be compensated should the team leave prior to the end of their lease.

Keep in mind that this motion to delay only comes into affect if Pechman agrees with the team, which is no surety. Should Pechman decided that the team's request is not merited, then this delay becomes moot. In a way, if Pechman agrees with the team's request, then agrees with the city's request to delay the trial, Clay Bennett is going to be awful ticked at his lawyers for even bringing this issue up, as their idea to speed up the process by including the money with the trial will have had the unintended affect of ruining any chance they had of playing in Oklahoma City this fall.

In other trial-related news, the company which compiled a market study of Seattle v Oklahoma City for the NBA has objected to Seattle's subpoena for said study, citing client confidentiality and a lack of adequate response time. The NBA also objected, in that the study would reveal that moving a team from Seattle to Oklahoma City would, in the words of the study, "be as dumb as putting a team on the moon."

I kid, of course.

And, finally, some people look to swallows returning to Capistrano, or seeing a robin in the front yard as an indication of spring arriving. Me? I look for the "Will George Karl Get Canned?" headline to let me know it's time to break out the shorts and clean up the barbecue.

Stern takes Seattle

Our very own Rafael Calonzo, Jr. (aka Chunkstyle) designed the awesome cover art for this month's Sports Northwest magazine. It features a great article on the Sonics, so go to the newsstand and buy one already.

Durant Named ROY

Percy Allen at the Times is reporting that Kevin Durant will become the first-ever (last-ever?) Sonics Rookie of the Year.

Durant's 20 ppg were apparently enough for people to justify the selection, despite the arguments from others that Al Horford of Atlanta was more deserving. We all know that Durant is the first Rookie of the Year from Seattle, but can you name the last Sonic player to make the first team of an all-rookie team?

Still waiting ...

Okay, now that you're back from looking at basketball-reference.com, you know the answer is:

Derrick McKey

McKey was joined on that squad by Armon Gilliam, Mark Jackson, Greg "Cadillac" Anderson, and Kenny Smith.

Yep, Armon Gilliam. Holy cow, that was a looooooong time ago. Other first-team all-rookie team members include Bob Rule, Al Tucker, Art Harris, Tom Burleson (!), Jack Sikma, and Xavier McDaniel.

SEATTLE SuperSonics highlights on ESPN.com

Ted Bauer, from ESPN the Magazine, has compiled a great big pile of Seattle Supersonics highlight videos. Fantastic, yet bittersweet. (Actually, mostly bitter.)

Also, in case you missed it, we posted the winning LOLSonics pics yesterday. Check it out!

How Ya Like Me Now?

You probably noticed the Magic knocked off the Raptors last night, propelling them to the franchise’s first series victory in more than a decade.

Actually, come to think of it, you probably didn’t notice. With eight simultaneous playoff series it is difficult to focus upon all of them, and such anonymous clashes as Orlando-Toronto always seem to fade away.

The only news emanating from the series involves Dwight Howard, who lived up to his Superman nickname by rattling off three separate 20-20 performances in a command performance worthy of Moses Malone. In addition, Jameer Nelson leapt from mediocrity to acclaim, with one reporter going so far as to dub him the “story of the series.”

Not surprisingly, Rashard Lewis was the invisible man. Since readers here are Sonics fans, and since Lewis plied his trade here for one of the longest tenures in team history, I thought you’d be interested to see how Rashard did for his new team.

After a slow start in the first three games, Lewis exploded in the final two, posting 27 points and 18 rebounds in a game four win followed by 18 and 13 in the finale.

It was the rebounding which was most surprising; Lewis only made it to double figures twice all year in rebounds, so the fact he equaled that number in consecutive games is impressive.

Equally impressive are his +/- figures. Shown by game:

Game 1: +19
Game 2: +11
Game 3: -17
Game 4: +14
Game 5: +12

In a series Orlando won by a combined margin of 19 points, Lewis finished at plus 39, a difference of 20 points. Considering Lewis averaged 42 minutes a night, that’s a considerable difference.

Admittedly, Rashard’s outside shot was less than impressive, with a 42% success rate from the field, and his 0-for-9 performance from long distance in game two certainly didn’t help the cause.

Still, Lewis’ team prevailed and he played a key role on it. Granted, it’s only one playoff series, and the Magic weren’t exactly matched up against the 1983 Sixers, but a playoff win is a playoff win.

So, to those critics of Rashard, who say he 1) can’t rebound and 2) can’t play in the clutch, consider this: He just did both.

LOLSonics: We has winners!

We has winner: ED MILLER!

If I had known you guys were so talented, I would have outsourced this blog a long time ago.

We received dozens of entries for our LOLSonics Contest, and to my surprise, none of them sucked! They were so good, in fact, that it was almost impossible to choose a winner. In the end, I went with Ed Miller's "LOLCarlesimo" just because it made me literally laugh out loud. There were a lot of other great entries that could have easily won, so I've made some special awards for them as well.

Click below to see the rest of the winning pictures:

BEST USE OF NERD LINGO: Camp Jones

BEST USE OF A MINOR: Aron Bender

BEST USE OF SONICS LEGEND:  Josh Claar



BEST LOL LANGUAGE USAGE: Ed Miller

BEST USE OF FORMER SENATOR: Camp Jones

SADDEST: Camp Jones



Thanks again to everyone who took the time to enter. There are many, many more awesome LOLSonics pics, but I just didn't have time to post them all. I will try to do another edition, so if you still want to do one, send 'em my way (see contact info on upper right column).

Stern to Testify?

Hold on to your hats - the Daily Oklahoman is breaking news, and it's not necessarily pro-Clay Bennett news!

In what the lead lawyer from the City of Seattle called "a success," Federal Judge Loretta Preska ruled Monday that the NBA must turn over relevant financial documents pertaining to the relocation of the Sonics to Oklahoma City, and that David Stern may be called upon to testify in the future, depending upon the answers received from other witnesses.

In other words, if you're David Stern, do not book non-refundable tickets in June, because you could very well be headed for a Seattle court.

LOL Sonics

I thought it might be time to take a break from the drama and have some fun, and what's more fun than a CONTEST?

Make your own wacky LOLCATS picture featuring the Sonics (you can use this great online tool) and send it to us. We'll pick our favorites and post them tomorrow (and maybe send you some Sonics swag if I can drag my ass to the post office).

More Email Fodder

Clay Bennett, writing in response to an email from the NBA’s Maureen Coyle, passed along to him by way of Brent Gooden, Bennett’s PR representative, on April 15, 2007. Coyle had proposed that Bennett make a gesture of allowing the Sonics name and colors to remain in Seattle, while the franchise relocated to Oklahoma City. Bennett’s response:

“[The concept Maureen Coyle] has put forth is excellent, but it does presuppose expansion which I don’t think is in the cards. Thirty is the right number for many reasons and with instability in Memphis, Atlanta, Charlotte, Sacramento and with Las Vegas, Anaheim, San Jose, Nashville and others in play, not to mention the China expansion, there is a lot to work on.”

Obviously, Bennett is not solely responsible for doling out expansion franchises, so his opinion his just that, his opinion.

That said, it is a learned opinion (hey, you in the back, quick guffawing). Learned in that he has talked to David Stern about this subject as much or more often than just about anyone on this planet.

Why do I bring this up? Because Clay Bennett sat in front of a packed news conference a week ago today and completely contradicted everything he said in that email. Bennett stated (and I wish I had the transcript to quote him, but I will be relying upon memory here) that his willingness to leave the colors and name in Seattle was NOT a throwaway gesture on his part at all, despite what the media had argued previously. In fact, of all of his comments from that day, he seemed to increase his indignance level up the highest when asked about the subject.

Well, is that true at all? Considering that, first, Bennett and his people seem intent on re-branding the Sonics when they arrive in Oklahoma City, and, second, holding out hope for an expansion is as useful as looking for oceanfront property in Tulsa, is there any inherent value in the promise to keep the Sonics’ name and colors?

Sadly, no. Just like every other promise we have heard from Bennett & Stern Snake Oil Inc. for the past twelve months, it’s not worth a whole lot.

Emailgate

A show of hands, please, for those who have read “All the President’s Men.”

Anyone? Have we already forgotten the seminal work of twentieth century investigative reporting? Richard Nixon ring a bell?

Well, for those of you who either have forgotten that era, are too young, or never paid attention in social studies class, the book can be summed up in one sentence:

What did he know, and when did he know it.

That is to say, what did Richard Nixon know about the break-in at Watergate and when did he know it.

I bring this up, because I believe that chilling sentence can be applied to David Stern, at least in relation to the ongoing saga involving Clay Bennett’s premature attempts at relocation.

What did David Stern know, and when did he know it.

Recent emails demonstrate that Bennett’s partners, Tom Ward and Aubrey McClendon, had more than a passing interest in moving the team to Oklahoma City. That, of course, is news to no one, especially in light of McClendon’s comments last August.

However, what is newsworthy is Bennett’s premature fixation on moving the team, especially in light of the fact that he had purchased the team with a “good faith” clause that obligated him to put forth every effort for the period of 12 months to keep the team here.

This is where Stern enters the picture. On April 23, 2007, Bennett emailed Joel Litvin, President of League and Basketball Operations for the NBA, making the comment that the attempt to deliver a new arena to Seattle had essentially failed and that Oklahoma City was now be the best-case scenario. Bennett took great lengths to assuage any fears Litvin – and, tangentially, the NBA - would have regarding Oklahoma City’s market size, commenting that his hometown could “deliver a viable business operation and commitment to competitive teams.”

That email to Litvin preceded by four months the furor which arose when McClendon commented to an Oklahoma reporter that “we didn't buy the team to keep it in Seattle, we hoped to come here.” McClendon’s comments caused an email exchange between Stern and Bennett, with Bennett slobbering like a cheating wife to her cuckolded husband, explaining ad nauseum that McClendon’s statement was untrue, that his ownership group was committed to getting a solution in Seattle.

Stern responded to Bennett’s email by stating, “I have been acting on the premise that everything you say about aubrey [sic] and your efforts is true—well before you said them.”

Step back from that statement for a moment. Surely, Joel Litvin and David Stern talk on a frequent basis, and surely at some point between April 23 and August 13, the two discussed Bennett’s comments to Litvin, meaning Stern’s supposed naiveté about Bennett’s aborted efforts to get a new arena were just that, supposed.

Read Stern’s email closely – does that sound like the words of a man speaking to an audience of one, or the words of a man speaking to a future audience of thousands, if not millions, of readers? Unlike the infantile Bennett, Stern clearly knew emails reappear like call girls in an election campaign, and his carefully chosen words illustrate this. His “on the premise” utterance attempts to make it clear to his future audience that he believed Bennett was still trying to make every effort to make the Sonics work in Seattle.

But is, or was, that really the case? Did Stern truly believe that? Or is he trying to have it both ways – fidelity to Seattle from side of his mouth, fidelity to Bennett out of the other?

I am beginning to believe that David Stern will not hesitate to throw Clay Bennett under the bus, if and when it comes to that point. Consider that on August 13th Joel Litvin was already investigating whether Bennett and his partners were in violation of the “good faith” aspect of their contract, an investigation Stern would have no doubt been apprised of daily, if not hourly. Therefore, his August 18th email to Bennett, partially quoted above, becomes even more curious, in that he professes to believe Bennett was doing everything he could to keep the team in Seattle. If Stern believed that, why was simultaneously investigating Bennett’s lack of “good faith?”

I am not sure how this saga will finish, nor is anyone else. I am sure, however, that the city’s dogged pursuit of the white whale in this adventure, David Stern, must proceed, despite the NBA’s repeated efforts to keep Stern from the witness stand.

Either today or Monday, an answer will come from the courts determining if Stern will be forced to testify, or if Litvin’s testimony will be sufficient. If the judge should rule in the city’s favor, and Stern is compelled to swear an oath, this case, already riveting, will be become more riveting still.

Because then, and only then, will we know what David Stern knew, and when he knew it.

supersonicsoultoon: Ranger Howie

So maybe Schultz looks more like a Mountie than a forest ranger. I must have been influenced by Pete's Canadian brainwaves. Especially since he came up with the idea for this one! Add "Art Director" to your job title, Pedro.

~chunk

PS: For the background on this cartoon, read this article in the Seattle Times.