Keeping name & history could pave way for Sonics future

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July 2, 6:16 PM

by Laura Vecsey, Seattle People Examiner

 

 

Seattle might have a few embittered souls licking some wounds today, but we get to keep the best part: The memories and the banners and the name and, yes, the chance to one day resurrect an NBA franchise if and when the timing and ownership and arena needs are suitable.

But we still have memories of DJ and Downtown Freddy Brown and Lenny Wilkens. We still have Jack Sikma and Slick Watts and the NBA Championship banner. We still have George Karl and Gary Payton and Detlef Schrempf and Nate MacMillan and Shawn Kemp taking it to Game 6 of the 1996 NBA Finals.

If there was ennui and loathing and apathy about the Seattle SuperSonics these recent NBA seasons, well, that's the way it goes. Or went. Sorry, Sherman Alexie. We wanted to understand why you, the great writer, a man of integrity, could cry over the prospect of losing this city's NBA team. Somewhere deep inside, maybe the handful of people who still cared about the fate of the Sonics are superior human beings. They kept the blood pumping. They wanted to sustain the energy and mometum of big-time hoops. Good for them. And sorry.

Somewhere along the line -- between Barry Ackerley's sale of the Sonics to Howard Schultz and then Schultz's abandonment of the franchise he thought he could bring the Starbucks touch to -- a lot of us shed the Sonics from our day-to-day consciousness. The Sonics are the oldest pro franchise in the city, but somehow, they slipped through our hands.

The Mariners, in similarly dire straights, were saved by a Japanese billionaire owner of Nintendo: A gift to the city of Seattle and the people of the Pacific Northwest. If it's true that Pat Gillick is coming back to save the Mariners from five years of tom foolery, it's not a moment too soon. With the right moves, with a baseball man like Gillick looking free agents in the eye and asking if they want to be a Mariner before he signs them to deals, it will be a few years but the Mariners will be back. They are here. They will cycle out of the MLB basement.

And the Seahawks were good as gone, too, once. Ken Behring was doing the Mayflower moving van waltz right there in the Kingdome. He was going to move them down the line, but he failed and Paul Allen and his quirky post-Microsoft investment needs drove him to take on the hometown NFL squad.

But the Sonics slipped away and instead of calling this a tragedy, we'll call it here in Seattle not such bad odds. We've kept things interesting here in the meantime. And, with the agreement today that will allow the city to take $75 million and keep the name and history of the franchise, we're not going to rule out a Sonics resurrection somewhere down the road.

Look at the Sounders. The FC of Seattle is bringing MLS soccer to Seattle next season. The ghosts of pro soccer's past will live again. Sometimes we need to take a step back, get a chance to feel a city when it's missing something we came to take for granted, whose time had passed, whose odds we couldn't overcome. Let Oklahoma City try and invent the NBA wheel. We here in the city of the Supes will safeguard the memories and the history, if and when the time is right again.

So long, for now.

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