High Draft Pick Brings Hope

Posted by Phil Partington May 24, 2007

Just to give some context, I've lived in Washington state my entire life and grew up around the Seattle area. Needless to say, I'm a huge Seattle Sonics fan. I shouldn't have to tell you that being a Sonics fan has been rather difficult in recent years. In a state notorious for its bandwagon fans, sticking by your team through thick and thin isn't exactly the popular thing to do. Yet, I'm a die hard and that's exactly what die hard fans do.

The Sonics are treading dangerous grounds these days. After forty successful years in Seattle, a new owner has come in and threatened to move the team to Oklahoma City if a new arena isn't built. Understand that I don't think this scenerio is entirely his fault. There are many things going on at once with that story, but that's not what this blog is about. Frankly, I'm tired of discussing the arena situation in Seattle, so I'm going to talk about some good news for the Sonics. We've needed good news. It's been a while since we've had any.

"Earning" the second pick in the upcoming NBA Draft is huge for this franchise. We don't get a lot of national media support. In fact, many national media analysts seem to hate us. Take Stephen Smith, TNT analyst. First, I must say, I've always thought Smith to be unprofessional and somewhat lacking in basketball knowledge - at least for a professional analyst. He interviews well in that he asks the right questions, but he's pompous and quite frankly not that NBA savvy in my opinion. He expressed discontent that northwest teams won the first two picks in the upcoming draft, explaining that no one cares to watch these teams and their production will get loss among the masses.

What an embarrassing thing for him to say. In terms of the league earning money, it might be better for a market like Chicago or Boston to get Oden and Durant. But, what happened to the purity of the game? What happened to level the playing field for ultimate competition? Perhaps the best part of professional sports (ideally) is that you never know what's going to happen and teams can turn things around. It's sad that the media has such a bias to high market teams, almost as though they're driven to the dollars and cents of things more than the game itself. The fact is, the league is in danger of losing its last two remaining draws in the northwest. Losing the northwest could really hurt the league. It's an entire region of people after all. Moreover, it could be argued that the rest of the nation might care more about northwest teams if the national media didn't sabotage the great teams and players that have come out of the northwest. When the Supersonics made great playoff runs in the 1990s, Bill Walton, Peter Vescey and company consistently spoke ill of the team and cheapened its success, while exhibiting a blatant bias toward teams like the Lakers, Bulls and Knicks. When the Blazers had success in the early nineties, the same thing happened. Some players don't always want to come play for teams like the Sonics or Blazers because of the stigma that the national media doesn't give a rip about it. Yet, the northwest has a good record for being able to keep its NBA stars because once they come here, they realize it's one of the most liveable and gorgeous places in the country. Gary Payton, Shawn Kemp, Clyde Drexler, Ray Allen, Rashard Lewis...all players who have played in the northwest in recent years who have wanted to stay playing in the northwest. Rashard Lewis didn't even want to play in Seattle when they drafted him. Yet, now he's said he doesn't want to leave.

So, I'm excited about Kevin Durant coming to Seattle. It brings hope and that's a big thing for us these days. Hopefully Durant finds a home here.