Petro v Karl

So Johan Petro is no longer a Thundercat. If you didn’t already know, the Guadalupanian is now a member of the Nuggets, dealt yesterday in exchange for Chucky Atkins (draft picks, cash considerations, t-shirts, and an English muffin were also exchanged).

Two thoughts crossed my mind on hearing the news of Petro’s trade:

Thought #1) Johan Petro’s teams, in his long and storied career as the French version of Caldwell Jones, have posted a won-loss record of 91-191. That’s a .320 winning percentage, which is a nice batting average for your third baseman, but a little less than what you’d hope for on the daily standings page.

Now? Well, now Johan is going to a team currently in first place in the Northwest Division, and in the top three in the entire conference. After spending his past three springs gallivanting in the Caribbean, Petro is going to learn the joys of not screwing up on national television.

And somewhere, Nick Collison is wondering just what in the hell he did in a former life to deserve this crap.

Thought #2) Has there been in NBA history, a player-coach combination more poorly suited for one another than George Karl and Johan Petro? Karl loves hard workers, gritty defenders, playmakers, and poorly designed mock turtlenecks, not necessarily in that order.

Petro, contrarily, is a 7-footer who has never especially enjoyed getting rebounds or blocking shots, and considering his favorite offensive move is a 12-foot jumper, he’s not exactly Moses Malone on offense, either. (Of note: Johan’s 0.5 blocks per 36 clocks in below former teammate Kyle Weaver’s 0.6. And, yes, Weaver is about 7 inches shorter than Petro).

Granted, Petro will be spending the majority of his time on le bench, but let’s ponder for a moment a hypothetical conversation at practice this May between the young center and his new coach:

Karl: Johan, dammit to hell, I told you to box out!
Petro: I was trying, monsieur, but my legs, they have the tiredness.
Karl: Ah, what the f@$!. I can’t believe I’ve got to deal with this s^#%. Johan, for the last time, this is the playoffs, you have to work harder!
Petro: Oui, mon capitan. I will, how do you say, give the 110 percentage from now on.
Karl: Johan, I don’t want the 110 percentage, I want your skinny French ass to plant itself in the key so that we’re not giving the Spurs seven chances to score every time down. Are you understanding this?
Petro: Certainment, monsieur. But le Duncan, he pushes with the strength of a thousand waves, and I am but a poor Caribbean boy trying to withstand it.
Karl: Oh, for the love of Christ! Somebody call Ervin Johnson. His 100-year-old legs would still be better than this crap.

Or something like that, anyways.

Wednesday Attendance Wrap-Up

Here's another resolution I could have thrown on the pile from the other day: Putting a weekly wrap-up of the league's attendance figures on the site.

In keeping with my previous goal of toning down the bitterness, I'll just present the numbers and let you interpret them how you will. First, a side-by-side comparison of last year's game-by-game numbers and this year's. In both graphs the pink indicates the 07-08 season, the blue is 08-09.

And, a look at the same numbers, but with the totals for Oklahoma City and New Orleans removed.

And, on a side note, a look at how the league's attendance played out as the season progressed. There was talk earlier in the year that the low attendance numbers were more indicative of the time of the year than they were of any problems in NBA popularity. There might be some validity to that argument.

Funding Getting Tight

The big story today – well, the big story after the Midwest-style snowstorms we’ve endured for the past two weeks – is Governor Christine Gregoire’s decision to parrot the budget cuts her opponent, Dino Rossi, advocated during the recent election.

Translation to Sonic supporters: No soup for you.

It’s not quite that dire, but when the liberal governor of a left-wing state calls for a quarter-million reduction in health care expenditures and skips pay raises for teachers, even an out-of-shape Danny Fortson could stretch to the conclusion that it will be extremely difficult to get any arena proposals through the legislature this session.

As Chris McGann quotes a Gregoire aide, “That November [economic] forecast kind of changed the game.” Which is to say, the governor was all for spending money on the stuff her constituents wanted, back when she felt she had the dough on hand.

Now that the state’s revenue forecast has dropped by nearly two billion bucks? Not so much.

In fact, it doesn’t take much of an analyst to see just how tough it’s going to be to get any money this year. The governor will tell you herself:

“The state must squeeze every ounce of value out of every taxpayer dollar while maintaining our priorities of protecting families and kids the best we can.”

The argument as to whether funding arenas pay for themselves or whether they are hopeless boondoggles that primarily benefit billionaires is for another day. The primary message you should get from these words is this: Opponents of any KeyArena proposal are going to have very easy sledding this coming year. When times are tough and budgets are being cut, even the most inept politician is savvy enough to realize that taking a stand against arenas and stadiums is an easy political win.

It would appear that the arena’s only hope is to be presented as a work project which would bring jobs in the short-term, and economic benefit in the long-term, which is what Brian Robinson at Save Our Sonics has been saying all along. Whether that message will gain traction in an icy legislative environment remains to be seen.