Arena Announcement; NHL No Longer Required

KING5 has the story. With a memorandum of understanding agreed to between the investors in a new NBA team, the mayor of Seattle, and King County, it now goes to the City Council and the King County Council for approval. If approved, construction on a new arena in the SoDo area could conceivably begin as soon as an NBA team is stolen from another city  acquired. Previous speculation had focused on any arena proposal requiring both an NBA and an NHL team for success, but today's MOU seems to indicate that only an NBA team would be necessary, although an NHL team would certainly be nice.

BREAKING NEWS: (Another) Arena Press Conference this morning

Invester/Savior Chris Hansen meets Seattle's last three Sonics fans. (Photo: Joshua Trujillo/seattlepi.com)

Only in Seattle could there be this much excitement about a "memorandum of understanding". (And only in Seattle could there BE something called a "memorandum of understanding"--way to commit, guys!)


From the Seattle Times:

Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, County Executive Dow Constantine and hedge-fund manager Chris Hansen are scheduled this morning to announce details on two agreements between Seattle, King County and ArenaCo on financing a new, $490 million sports arena in Sodo.

City and county officials met late Tuesday in McGinn's City Hall office to finalize what Sung Yang, Constantine's chief of staff, characterized as a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that would be sent to the councils.

Hansen and city and county leaders initially proposed a memorandum of understanding to detail how the city and county would issue the construction bonds and how the investment group, led by Hansen, would repay them. A MOU would be less binding than an ordinance and potentially less of a guarantee of taxpayer financial commitment.

 According to KING 5 the press conference will be at 10:30 this morning.

The Enemy of my Enemy is . . . my Enemy?

I hate the Lakers.

Always have, always will. Whenever I see Dyan Cannon and all the other phony-baloney "fans" at the Forum, I get an overwhelming urge to stab them in the sunglasses. And don't get me started on the wanna-be Lakers fans who would show up at Sonics games wearing Kobe jerseys. What kind of sick bastard would do that?!

 But here I am, a man without a team, long divorced from the ups and downs of the NBA, slowly getting pulled back into the heat of PLAYOFF FEVER by, of all things, the Lakers.

You see, those filthy, rotten Lakers are playing the only team in all of sports that are even more filthy and rotten than they are: The Team That Shall Not Be Named. The Oklahoma . . . ghuhhhhhhh. I can't even write it. Let's just call them . . . Those Guys.

It was bad enough to steal our team (and recently, our history). Now these villainous cretins are forcing me to root for a team that I've hated since I was a child.

 There are probably some old-time Sonics fans that think we should cheer for the You Know Who. After all, we drafted a few of them, and, well, they're playing the LAKERS for God's sake! Well, these people are idiots.

Anyone who would ever root for . . . THEM . . . is not a Sonics fan. A true Sonics fan would root for a team of Hitlers over Those Guys.

Which is exactly what I'm doing. I'm rooting for a bully. I'm cheering for Satan. I'm . . . (shudder) . . . a Lakers fan.

 I want the Lakers to win every game by 2000 points. I want . . . that other team . . . to sob openly on the court and then hurl themselves en masse off the nearest bridge which, hopefully, happens to be over a lake of fire. I want them permanently erased from the NBA record books. Then I want the record books to be burned, just to be safe.

I want all of this to happen. And then I want the Lakers to get swept in the next round.

Just When You Thought You Couldn't Hate Howie Any More

Unbelievable article up right now detailing the final despairing days of a Sonic employee. The money quote:

I didn't see how we'd get an arena deal led by men who couldn't conceive of it as anything but a rich man's boondoggle, perpetrated on behalf of other rich people. Average people would shoulder the costs of making sure that the Puget Sound's affluent—suits at Boeing, executives at Microsoft—could be coddled at a sporting event that average people would no longer be able to afford to attend. 

 See the rest at Deadspin. No, really, see the rest at Deadpin, like, right now. Story by Jeremy Repanich.

Deserve? Deserve's Got Nothing To Do With It

"But [the Maloofs] don't deserve [Anthony] Davis. They don't deserve a team."

-Steve Kelley, Seattle Times, May 2

Let's get one thing straight - deserve's got nothing to do with.

You want to talk about deserve? Does Jerry Buss - a Class A philanderer - deserve Kobe Bryant?

Does Donald Sterling - a racist skinflint - deserve Blake Griffin or Chris Paul?

Does Aubrey McClendon - a top-class con artist who has swindled his own company out of hundreds of millions of dollars - deserve Kevin Durant?

Does James Dolan - a top-notch jerk who seems to flounder from one disaster to the next - deserve Jeremy Lin?


For crying out loud, who does deserve Anthony Davis? As it stands now, Michael Jordan and the Bobcats will get Davis, even though they forced their customers to pay first-class prices for third-class service the entire 2011-12 season. Do they deserve Davis?

The answer, of course, is no. As much as Steve Kelley would like to get free tickets to NBA games again, and as scandalous as the NBA's departure from Seattle was, we don't deserve an NBA team any more than anyone else. And the notion that David Stern will now - after 30 years of being a condescending and selfish twit- suddenly morph into a benevolent dictator and hand us the keys to the Sacramento Kings, well, I'm sorry, but I'm not holding my breath about that happening anytime soon.

David Stern is going to do what David Stern always does: Get the best deal he can for his owners and let the chips fall where they may. If he can keep the Maloofs in Sacramento and get a new arena he will, but if not, it will be up to the Maloofs - not David Stern, not Steve Kelley, not anyone else - where the team will go next.

Because deserve's got nothing to do with it.

Richie Rich Hates Aubrey

Aubrey McClendon Must Be Stopped
Shareholders must demand accountability and vote to throw out McClendon. If any pocket of justice exists in our ambivalent world Aubrey McClendon will be forced to exit Chesapeake and walk the long plank of disgrace.

Did I crib this from Mother Jones? Or perhaps Utne Reader? Or Supersonicsoul?

Nope. It's from Forbes, and it's written by an investor from Houston whose most recent piece in the magazine was titled “Some Tips For The Simpletons of Occupy Wall Street.”  Worth a read, if only to revel in the coming financial apocalypse headed Aubrey's way.

Good ol' AM, still an a**hole after all these years.

(via Forbes)

Updated Sonicsgate on CNBC; Chunkstyle’s Stern Cameo

As Seen on TV! By Friday, 10pm EDT anyway.

Like every diehard Supes fan, I watched the original Sonicsgate doc with a mixture of pride and heartbreak. I could only watch it in 20-minute segments, if only to keep myself from punching my monitor or sending Tourette’s-like streams of expletives to Howard Schultz’s corporate email account.

It’s been at least two years since I watched the whole thing, so it is easy to recommend, nay, DEMAND a fresh viewing of the documentary in its slim-and-trim-for-2012, 1-hour form on CNBC, Friday April 27 and Sunday April 29, 7pm PDT. What’s new? Oh, just a couple things:

• new interviews with Sonics legend Shawn Kemp and Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament
• new archival footage, photos and evidence
• stunning new graphics and visual effects

Unless they meant some sweet Video Toaster transitions, I should probably mention that the STUNNING! NEW! GRAPHICS! will include my STERNZILLA painting. Which means I will soon be having this conversation on the phone:

"Yes, Mom, the painting will be on TV. No, no, I won't be on TV. Just the painting I did. No, they're not going to talk to me. Because nobody cares what I have to say, I'm an artist. Sigh, yes, I will come over and help you set your VHS."

Anyway, said painting is conveniently now (soon?) available in the all-new SUPERSONICSOULSTORE on the Zazzle. Also, some of my other SSS “Hall of Fame” images are included in the Sonicsgate DVD Bonus Features.

Dammit, did I bury the lede? That’s what I get for being a journalism school dropout.


http://www.sonicsgate.com/

Doesn't Get Old

The Kings are scheduled to play at Power Balance Pavilion next season. Stern wouldn't speculate where they would play beyond that, and said if they sought to relocate, approval would be left to the relocation committee that is headed by Oklahoma City owner Clay Bennett.

via AP

I could read those last seven words every day for the rest of my life and it'll still get a laugh. God bless you, David Stern, and your horrible, ridiculous league.

Hyperbole, Meet Graph

"While the Mariners successfully co-exist with the Seahawks and Sounders in the adjacent CenturyLink Field, Lincoln notes that an NBA arena will need to host 200 or more events a year to be financially viable and would thus dramatically change the road and parking situation in an already-congested area."

(via Pravda)

Graph below shows scheduling of hypothetical NBA, NHL, and MLB teams in Seattle. Dates used for NHL are from the Vancouver Canucks in 2010-11, the OKC Ahem in 2010-11, the Seattle Mariners for April 2012 and the Texas Rangers for October 2011 (playoff data for Mariner games is slightly outdated).


Note that in the entire calendar year, there was one date (April 13) where a regular season Mariner game overlapped a regular season NBA game and no cases where a regular season MLB game overlapped a regular season NHL game. Note that there were six instances - in total - where a regular season/post-season MLB game overlapped a regular season/post-season NBA/NHL game.

In other words, in a typical season where the Mariners miss the playoffs and the NBA/NHL teams leave by the second round, we're talking about three or four days a year where a scheduling snafu might arise.

Not exactly 200, but, then, why let the truth get in the way?

SoDo NoMo?

As someone who proudly wore a Seattle Mariner starter jacket and cap to the 1985 World Series, I think it’s safe to say I have some credibility when it comes to Mariner history.

Which is why I do not make this comment lightly about the M’s thwarting of the proposed Seattle basketball arena: Incredible.

No, it’s not because the Mariners are hypocrites who have no problem sucking from the public teat while simultaneously blocking their brothers from doing the same. And, no, it’s not because they continue to say that their interference has everything to do with traffic concerns and nothing do with keeping a lid on competition for Seattle’s pocketbooks.

No, the reason I say that this whole affair is incredible is because if 1985 me had flown in via time machine to 2012 and heard that the Mariners were the kingpins of the Seattle sports scene … well, 1985 me would have dropped his Mariner painter’s cap and Alvin Davis rookie cards in utter astonishment.

Regardless of your opinion of the nonsense arising from the professional sports teams in this region, you have to be amazed at how times have completely changed in the span of 25 years. Two decades ago, the Mariners played before crowds that resembled a Ringo Starr tour, were routinely booted to odd AM or FM stations whenever the Seahawks happened to be playing at the same time, and were generally thought of as the stepchild of Seattle sports, below (in order) the Seahawks, the Huskies, and the Sonics.

Now? Well, now it’s different. As Geoff Baker pointed out in the Seattle Times today, the Mariners’ decision to stand in the way of the proposed new arena is such a horribly pad PR move that it can only mean the team’s owners are close to selling, and could care less about the long-term ramifications of their decision.

Will their position hurt the team? Honestly, I have to believe that whatever tomatoes get thrown their way will have a minimal impact on the team’s attendance, and whatever money they forfeit from a hypothetical TV network involving the M’s, Sonics, and NHL would be more than made up for by not having to share King County’s disposable income with two other competitors.

Bottom line? The M’s decision is bad PR-wise, but not so bad that it’s going to kill them. After all, every Sonic fan already knows the true moral of this story, and every story regarding pro sports:

It’s a business.

The Sonic Dance

If you haven't already figured it out, we've replaced the competitors in this year's NCAA tournament with Sonic players and coaches who were either alums or former coaches or ... well, sometimes I had to fudge a bit. For example:

1) Lamar: Dale Ellis clearly didn't attend Lamar University, but his middle name is Lamar, so, there you go.

2) Murray State: Flip Murray/Murray State. Yes, I know.

3) Kentucky: Real Sonic (or Kentucky) fans will know why.

4) Lehigh: Bob Weiss has no affiliation with the school, but he did grow up in the same area.

5) LIU, BYU: Ditto #4

6) Harvard: He doesn't have an official relationship (yet), but thousands of Sonic fans wish Steve Ballmer's name would appear in a Sonic media guide in some future time.

7) Florida State: Rashard Lewis obviously never played for the Seminoles, but was heavily recruited by them.

Sadly, even my loose rules couldn't enable me to find a Sonic for UNC Asheville, New Mexico, Belmont, or Southern Miss. If any readers can provide some tips, we'll be glad to amend the bracket.

The Midwest bracket (Haywood/Meschery! Perkins/Ellis! Silas/McKey! Cage/McMillan!) has got it all over the West (Snow/Bianchi? Sundvold/Pope?).

50th Anniversary of Wilt's 100

Today marks the 50th anniversary of, as Ed Sullivan called it, "The greatest thing that's ever happened in indoor sports."

I'd argue it's the "greatest thing" that's ever happened in any sport. Unless the NBA lowers the rims or bans teams from playing defense, Wilt's 100 is one of the few records in all of sports that is virtually untouchable.

If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend picking up Wilt, 1962: The Night of 100 Points and the Dawn of a New Era by Gary M. Pomerantz. It's one the best (and quickest!) basketball books I've read in quite a while, breaking down this epic feat quarter by quarter, player by player.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go pay respects to Wilt's other greatest performance.