Despair

Anyone else beginning to feel a little queasy whenever the Sonics appear in the newspaper, or on the radio, or on television?

I lived through the Grizzlies’ departure from Vancouver, and I can tell you from first-hand experience that this situation is beginning to smell an awful lot like the stench that emanated from that one.

As Art Thiel points out today in the PI, Benikens is making it look as though Britney Spears is running the PR department. From the firing-by-telex, to Lenny Wilkens’ apparent screw up on anointing himself Team President, to Clay Bennett’s musings about Las Vegas, the Sonics are slowly descending into Clipperland, circa 1996, when a team routinely screws up everything it touches.

In fact, I think if you checked the “Robert Irsay Guide to Moving a Franchise,” you’d see that Bennett and Co. have gone according to plan:

STEP ONE - Check
Find team to purchase. This is important.

STEP TWO – Check
Attempt to put positive spin on non-local ownership taking over a beloved local institution. Make not-so-funny jokes about the differences between your hometown and your new team’s location.

STEP THREE – Check
Find some local types to put in “important” positions.

STEP FOUR – Check
Make obligatory efforts to keep team in town, keeping Commissioner and League happy, as well as intimating that you don’t want to move. Be sure that the requests you make would never be accepted by local government, though; you don’t want to screw up and not be able to move the team!

STEP FIVE – Check
Gut front office.

STEP SIX – Check
Start stonewalling media. Remember, no news is good news for your plan. The more you get people to hate you and your team, the easier it will be to move!

STEP SEVEN – TBD
Call Bekins.

Stay tuned.

Glory Days

I'm guessing the rest of you are, like myself, going through Sonics playoff withdrawals.

With that in mind, here's a blast from the past, 1978 to be specific. Ah, Brent Musberger, you're such a cunning linguist.

Perfect Storm

It's not often that a cheap fellow like myself finds himself with a bevy of options on television. I've straightjacketed myself into 20 channels (even worse: 20 Canadian channels), so on most nights my choices are limited, to say the very least.

And, yet, there I was last night, assaulted by not 1, not 2, but 3 fantastic options.

1) Golden State v Dallas
2) Bill Moyers on PBS, talking about the media's complicity in bringing about the Iraq War
3)Lost

And, thankfully, they all came through. Since this is a basketball website, I'll focus on #1 (but it should be mentioned: Judith Miller of the NY Times did not come off looking too swell in Moyers' show, and why in the hell did Desmond let that one-eyed jackoff walk away?).

Back to hoops. I only caught the second half of the Mavs-Warriors game, but even that snippet made me wonder the following:

1. If Dirk Nowitzki is the best player in the NBA this year, then the NBA must really stink. The Tall German was probably the 5th- or 6th-best player on the court when I was watching.

2. Even with the loss, G St. has to be feeling pretty good about themselves. I never felt at any point that the Mavs were clearly a better team. As long as the Warriors keep going strong to the hoop and throwing those 3/4-court length passes off Dallas makes, the Mavs are going to be one tired group of Texans.

3. I am amped to watch Bay Area fans bring the pain this weekend.

4. Baron Davis' beard deserves its own blog.

5. It kills me that the Sonics were on a par with the Warriors only a year or so ago. At this moment, they're not even in the same universe.