Oden Odyssey

Much like Homer's Odysseus, the Sonics have wandered for an eternity this year. Will it pay off? Will the Sonics, like Odysseus, be able to shoot their arrow through the target and win the biggest prize in team history?

Well, this weekend will go a long ways towards helping or hindering the Sonics' odds. Here are the key games on tap for the next three days.

Wizards at Atlanta (W)
Milwaukee (L) at Boston (W)
Knicks (L) at Nets
Spurs at Minny (L)
Charlotte (L) at Bulls
G St. at Sacto (L)
Portland (L) at Clips
Atlanta (L) at LeBron
Charlotte (L) at Milwaukee (W)
Seattle (L) at Portland (W)
Sacto (L) at Clips
Minny (L) at G St.
Knicks (L) at Toronto
Seattle (L) at Lakers

Here's how it would shake down if it goes according to plan:

Seattle: 0-2, 31-50
Portland: 1-1, 32-48
TWolves: 0-2, 32-48
Knicks: 0-2, 32-48
Sacto: 0-2, 32-48
Charlotte: 0-2, 32-49
Bucks: 1-1, 27-53
Atlanta: 1-1, 30-50

That's a crapload of teams sitting at either 30, 31, or 32 wins heading into the final three days of the season. As the past drafts have shown, there is a HUGE difference between being #4 and being #8.

What does it all mean? I think we may see a major illustration of tanking in the next six days. It also sets up some interesting matchups, like, for example, Milwaukee at Cleveland on the last day of the season. Let's say the Cavs are locked into their playoff slot and play their bench guys to make sure Z and LBJ are ready to go for the playoff push. Well, the Bucks sure as hell aren't running Junior Bridgeman and Sidney Moncrief out there these days, now are they? If I was a NBADL player, I might just hang around the lockerrooms before game time, because there's a pretty good chance yet another Buck pulls up lame before that contest.

Or how about Mavs-Sonics to close out the year? The Sonics have no reason whatsoever to play hard, and neither do the Mavs. Does it turn into a video game horror show, where both teams start chucking up 28-footers out of sheer boredom?

It's certainly not something Homer - or David Stern - would ever write about, but it's the reality of the lottery era. All I can say is, Go Blazers Go!

Valley of the Suns

Managed to catch the 2nd half of the game last night on tv, as the three people in Vancouver not watching the Canucks were able to catch the Suns-Sonics game on Sportsnet (thank you, Steve Nash!)

For those who weren't able to watch the game, the PI's Gary Washburn sums it perfectly:

"The result was more a reflection of the Sonics' lack of depth than Phoenix's
dominance."

Amen, Gary, amen. At one point, the Sonics cut the score to 67-65 if memory serves, but the Suns just slowly edged away after that. A couple reasons why it happened:

-Nick Collison was a total non-factor. Whatever juice he drank in the first two months of the season has disappeared, and nowhere was it more patently evident than last night. As Eddie Johnson (!) pointed out on the Suns' telecast, and be patient, this is a long metaphor, "You know how when you go to a restaurant and have a great meal, then you go back to that restaurant ten more times and that meal never tastes as good? That's how Collison's playing tonight. He keeps thinking he's going to have that same meal that he did a couple of months ago, but it just ain't happening."

-Randy Livingston is a long ways away from being ready to play PG for the Sonics. It's just not fair to expect a guy to come and run the offense when he doesn't even know the plays. Livingston got called for a 5-second violation on an inbounds play; I think the ref had to pull the rule book out of his pocket so he'd use the right hand gesture. When was the last time you saw that happen in the NBA?

-Andre Brown left Shawn Marion open for 3's on two consecutive possesions while he (Brown) got tangled up in the paint.

-I know Rashard scored a bunch of points, but both he and Wilcox didn't look good to me, at least from what I saw in the second half. Wilcox seemed intent on dunking on every play, and I can't begin to count how many times he lost the ball in traffic. Lewis was jacking it up on every touch, and on at least two occasions he held the ball for at least 7-8 seconds waiting for something to happen offensively.

On the positive front, Mike Wilks really looked good, especially on one possession in the second half when he took the ball to the hole a la Steve Nash. The young man is definitely capable of being a backup 2 in this league.

Even more positive, the Sonics edged closer to the 5th spot in the draft. Vive le lotterie!

Outcasts

I got a cold slap in the face this morning upon opening the Vancouver Sun. As most of you are unlikely aware, the Canucks kick off their run for the Stanley Cup tonight in Vancouver with a game against the Dallas Stars.

To commemorate the occasion, the Sun blasted out a special section, chock-full of full page color photos, graphics, and all sorts of other things that give copy editors wet dreams.

I didn't read the section (I've lived in Vancouver for 10 years, and I still don't give a damn about hockey), but it made me nostalgic for the days when the Sonics were honored with sections like that.

You remember them: a graph detailing points per game, free throw percentages, turnovers there; a chart showing the matchups at the various positions here; a list of past playoff performances over in that corner. All in glorious, splendiforous color, to be pored over with eager anticipation by teenagers and middle-agers alike, the entire city giddy with the possibility of victories in spring.

Instead, rather than full color celebrations of glory, we have black and white agate of failure. This, sadly, is the Sonics circa 2007.

There's a line in James Joyce's A Painful Case, one of the dozen or so short stories included in Dubliners. The story is about James Duffy, a woeful man who tries to glide through life without any interest in anyone, to prevent himself from feeling the nick of sadness. When Duffy finally musters the courage to fall - somewhat - in love with a woman, it ends terribly. Joyce's description of Duffy is apt for a certain green and gold basketball team:

"He gnawed the rectitude of his life; he felt that he had been outcast from life's feast...He knew that the prostrate creatures down by the wall were watching him and wished him gone. No one wanted him; he was outcast from life's feast."

That's us, folks. The 2006-07 season has been an abject failure, and the Sonics are now outcast from the marvelous playoff buffet. While other teams have their entire rosters down to the last man on the bench examined and re-examined by a host of experts, no one will examine the Sonics' roster, because to do so would be a waste of ink.

So long, special section, we miss you so.