The Supersonics were one of the best teams in the NBA throughout the 90s, powered by their star talent in Gary "The Glove" Payton, Shawn Kemp, Detlef Schrempf and coach George Karl. Since that era, they had one great year in 04/05, led by Ray Allen. The subsequent years of losing led to the Durant/Westbrook era in Oklahoma City. Although Russ and Ibaka were drafted by Seattle in 2008, the Sonics were no more a month later, and the Thunder was born.
The debate for bringing back the Supersonics has been going on for years. There's been attempts from Chris Hansen, a hedge fund manager, who had even bought land just south of MLB's Seattle Mariners. His efforts almost lost the Sacramento Kings their franchise (if we could have only been so lucky).
The Sonics were booted out of the league because of pressures to improve their home arena. They had suffered serious losses in their final years, and failed to get funding and city approval to upgrade the KeyArena.
But that all seems to be coming to an end...
As SB Nation reports, there's now both the private funding and city approval needed to improve the KeyArena to standard by 2020, which could house both an NBA and NHL team. The icing on the cake came at the beginning of the month, when the Warriors and Kings played a preseason game in Seattle. This was the first time in a decade that the city had seen NBA ball.
As part of his pregame entry, Durant wore a retro Shawn Kemp jersey as his name was called, before sending a heartfelt message to the Seattle natives he dazzled for in his rookie season. You can check this, and his 26 point performance out below:
The money's there, the city's backed it, but that's not the main reason why we need the Supersonics back now more than ever. The reason why is the growing acceptance of player mobility.
Half of the All-Stars from 2017 have since moved team, including the likes of LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. With Jimmy Butler wanting out of Minnesota, Kevin Durant's future undecided and DeMarcus Cousins still searching for a max deal, they'll be even more player movement in 2019.
And it's becoming more and more clear that the biggest stars are trying to get to the major cities, and the biggest markets. Jimmy Butler has been set on going to either the LA Clippers, one of the New York teams, Miami or Houston. Now Anthony Davis is next up in the superstar move saga, with reports coming out that he prefers New York, LA, Philly and Boston as preferred trade destinations.
The stars are moving to the cities, and the smaller markets are going to suffer. More teams may have to try and pull off a "Paul George to OKC" move and take a risk on a star player with an expiring deal, pitch to him for a year, and then hope they resign him when they test free agency.
But replacing a small market franchise with the Seattle Supersonics could also open up a new avenue for superstar talent.
Seattle is a huge sports city, home to the SuperBowl 48 champion Seahawks, the 2016 MLS Cup winning Sounders, and the current WNBA champion Storm. The city needs NBA basketball back in the building. Gary Payton finally needs his jersey retired, but most importantly, the league needs another city that stars player will want to go to.
Who should the Sonics replace? Well, that's obviously subjective. All I say is this: outside of the city of Memphis, will anyone really care if the Grizzlies are no more? They have no history, no culture of winning, aging stars who aren't marketable, and they began in Vancouver anyway and that's pretty close to Seattle!
The city of Seattle was able to get a taste of NBA basketball once again this month. All we do is hope that they won't have to wait again for much longer.
Which team would you disband to restart the Sonics? Leave a comment!
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