I see he was with Golden State last year til they cut him. He really announced himself by dropping 38 on the Lakers last night, Linsanity looks like itâs taking over where Tebowmania let off.
Move over Eli, we have Jeremy Fucking Lin⊠And fuck TebowâŠ
ESPN had this headline up earlier. :o
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/420879_10150582062823500_632163499_9206005_1814312787_n.jpg
Itâs been taken down now.
:lol: brilliant.
Linsanity faces itâs toughest test yet tonight when it heads to Miami to face Lebron James and the Heat. NY are at full strength but are still 5/1 outsiders against the most talented roster in the league. Lebron and co are rumoured to see this as a âmessage gameâ and thatâs reflected in a 10 point spread. Lin is in for a reality check tonight and unless the likes of Anthony and Stoudemire step up it could get ugly for the knicks. Still itâs not all bad for Lin
http://img.ibtimes.com/www/data/images/full/2012/02/19/235432-linsanity.jpg
In tonights other big game before the Allstar break Kobe Bryants Lakers travel to Oklahoma. There is said to be unrest in the Lakers camp but they still managed a big win in Dallas last night. They will be doing well to repeat that result against the youthful Thunder. With Kevin Durant and Russel Westbrook in inspired form OKC have the best record out West and have been pounding teams for fun lately ,including the geriatric Celtics last night. Make no mistake they are real contenders this year.
ps in other Linsanity related news, the Lansdowne Road Irish pub in Hells Kitchen has changed itâs name to⊠yup, youâve guessed it,
LINsdowne Road 
My half term standings for leading contenders
Miami Heat
Literally on fire at the moment. Until he actually goes and wins one, there will always be questions about Lebronâs âbottleâ down the stretch(he even passed up a chance to tie the game with a clutch 3 in last nights all star game). Thing is with Wade and Bosh alongside him that might not matter. Very much the team to beat.
Chicago Bulls
They are pulverising opponents for fun this season. Probably the best all round team in the Championship. Will need Rip Hamilton to be 100% for the playoffs otherwise they will possibly still a bit too reliant on MVP Daryl Rose for a 2nd year running
Oklahoma Thunder
Proving themselves to be more and more like the real thing as the weeks go by and should take the Western Championship. Have my idea of this years MVP Kevin Durant and heâs ably backed up by the wizardry and speed of Russel Westbrook. Will Westbrook curtail his natural selfish tendancies and distribute when the crunch time comes, that is the question. If he does they have what it takes to go all the way.
San Antonio Spurs
While other teams make the headlines, in the background almost,the great Greg Popovitchs Spurs are quietly going about their business and doing what they do best, winning. Tim Duncan and Tony Parker are as dominant as ever and at 18/1 most definitly represent the best value for the Chship imho. They will need Manu Ginobli to be fully fit for the playoffs though.
La Clippers
The addition of Chris Paul, Caron Butler and Chauncrey Billups to last seasons Rookie of the year, Blake Griffen is slowly but surely gelling together a winning combo here for the previously maligned Clippers. The loss of Billups has probably put paid to their chances of winning outright but they are definitly a team going places.
La Lakers
They have mixed the sublime with the complete shite this year. Arguably the have been overtaken by the Clippers as LAâs best team which is bad enough but the fallout from the ongoing Mark Gasol trade rumours has led to public criticism from Kobe Bryant and itâs clear all is not well in Lakerland. They tend to save their best for the 2nd half of the season so perhaps not too clever to write them off just yet. Still an outside chance of signing Dwight Howard from the Magic, which of course would change everything.
Dallas Maverics
Like the Lakers they are an older team and have struggled at times with this years condensed season thanks to the lockout. Dirk Nowitskiâs form hasnât been a patch on last year but he has shown signs lately that heâs coming back to his best. As ever they will be a tough team to beat in the playoffs but the preseason trades of players like Tyson Chandler and JJ Barea might ultimately cost them in their defense of their crown.
New York Knicks
Put it this way, without Jeremy Lin the Knicks wouldnât be anywhere near this list. His breakthrough was as sudden as it was amazing and as well as lighting up the NBA he has also given New York hope. Pre-Linsanity the Knicks were struggling for air well below the .500 average but have gone 10/2 since then. Lin was firmly put back in his box last time out by Miami though and until Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony in particular start turning it on on a regular basis itâs tough to see the Knicks as serious title contenders
Best of the rest
Philly and Portland should both prove tough nuts to crack in the playoffs but neither have realistic chance of being title contender. Orlando will implode when Howard is traded. Boston are finished
Good summary Laz, couldnt argue with much or any of it, especially my beloved Celtcs who have gotten old and the condensed season has just magnified this.
Looks to be the Heats to lose but I must admit I did think the exact same when watching highlights of the All Star Game and despite dragging the East back into the tie on his own back, Lebron wasnât the one to make the shots that could have won or tied the game. Of course this is just the All Star Game, but it was obvious in the 3rd that the East (or at least Lebron) had decided enough was enough and made a great run to get back into the tie, but it seemed obvious that Lebron should have been the go to guy in those last moments and strangely wasnât. Made me think of caoimhaoinâs summation of him from last season in fact.
Either way, its hard to look anyway beyond the Heat at the moment who just look phenomenal. Iâd hate to see an alright sort like Howard move to those Laker cunts. :mad:
Knicks could do with a dose of Linsanity 7 down here at Boston in the 4th.
http://www.firstrowsports.eu/watch/111353/1/watch-boston-celtics-vs-new-york-knicks.html
Huge game on after this as Miami Heat take on the Lakers, Dwane Wade bust Kobes nose in the All Star game so good chance of that one boiling over
Take that you Knick cunts :guns: :guns: :guns: :guns:
Paul Pierce, The Truth 
Funny shit here as (soon to be fired)Magics headcoach Stan Van Gundy tells the press he knows his star player Dwight Howard has gone to the franchises owners asking for him to be fired. Howard then comes along in the middle of the interview and Gundy canât get out of there quickly enough. This was before they were due to play the Knicks last night and needless to say they got stuffed with Howard playing particularly shit.
Celtics turn over Miami for the second time in 10 days last night, ah lovely
Great to see Rondo running the show again, and Pierce and KG rolling back the clock over the last while as the forums beloved Celtics make a big push for the play offâs. Celtic Pride baby and thats The Truth.
Itâs playoff time baby
EASTERN CONFERENCE
Chicago Bulls v Philadelphia 76ers
Chicago should come through this with minimum fuss. They have the best record and will have home court advantage all the way to the Finals should they make it that far, and that despite last seasons MVP Derrick Rose being riddled with injuries throughout the course of the regular season. Philly started well but have steadily declined as the season progressed.
Prediction 4-1 Bulls
Boston Celtics v Atlanta Hawks
Should be very tight between these two. The emergence of Avery Bradley combined with a possible case of it being the old dog for the hard road might just give the edge to the Cs here.
Prediction 4-2 Celtics
Indiana Pacers v Orlando Magic
The Magic have imploded somewhat towards the end of the regular season and will be without their star Dwight Howard for the playoffs. The highflying Pacers can take full advantage here
Prediction 4-2 Pacers
Miami Heat v New York Knicks
Great matchup. Jeremy Lin will be absent but Carmelo Anthony has finally started to get it going in a real way for NY. Expect them to knick a game or even 2(ah here :rolleyes: ) but to be put firmly in their place at the same time by Lebron and co.
Prediction 4-1 Heat
WESTERN CONFERENCE
San Antonio Spurs v Utah Jazz.
The Spurs have been like a wrecking ball this season even when resting star players like Tim Duncan and Tony Parker and thatâs likely to be the case again here, especially as they seek to atone for being eliminated in the first round last year. The Jazz are just happy to be here. Possible sweep
Prediction 4-0 Spurs
Memphis Grizzlies v LA Clippers
Hard to call. Grizzlies have been on fire lately as Zack Randolph has slowly re-immersed himself after a lengthy injury. They know how to get it done in the playoffs. Injury to Chancrey Billups has robbed the Clippers of a legitimate shot at making the Finals. Expect fireworks from Blake Griffen and Chris Paul but it could be a year too soon for the Clippers.
Prediction 4-3 Grizzlies
LA Lakers v Denver Nuggets
Should be a routine victory here for Kobe and co. Lakers have mixed the good,bad and the very ugly this season but are a class above the Nuggets
Prediction 4-1 Lakers
Oklahoma Thunder v Dallas Mavericks
OKCs reward for coming 2nd in the Western Conference is a matchup against the defending champions Dallas. Mavs have been eyeing the playoffs from a good bit off but they are quite simlpy a shadow of the team that handed it to the Heat in last years Finals. Thunders tranjectory is most definitly upwards and Kevin Durant and Russell Westbook can have their way with the Mavs here.
Prediction 4-1 Thunder
Bulls/Philly get the ball rolling at 6pm on Saturday. Lets roll baby
Great to have the pre season out of the way, the serious stuff started tonight.
Delighted to see the Heat destroy NY tonight in game one. Theyâll play OKC in the finals IMO. Winning it in 5.
In other news, the bulls have bowed out of this years championship after D Rose is out for the rest of the season with a torn ACL suffered tonight.
1 week into the playoffs and all my predictions are well on course. Hereâs how the seriesâ are going
Bulls 1-1 76ers
Heat 2-0 Knicks
Pacers 2-1Magic
Celtics 1-1 Hawks
Spurs 2-0 Jazz
Thunder 2-0 Mavericks
Lakers 2-0 Nuggets
Grizzlies 1-1 Clippers
Heat go to Madison Square Garden tonight to play the Knicks. Knicks are shorthanded with Lin, Shumpert and now Stoudemire, who bust his fist against a fire extinguisgher in frustration after Knicks latest defeat, all out. For Knicks to have any hope Carmelo needs to take flight tonight and the Knicks role players gotta knock down a hell of a lot of 3s. Its not impossible as Anthony seems to save his best for when he doesnât have to share the ball. Even so, that might not be enough as Heat have looked fairly ruthless so far and I expect them to cover the 5 point spread handily enough.
Tonightâs other game seeâs OKC travel to reigning champions Dallas. Mavs have lost the first 2 games by a combined total of 4 points and need a win tonight or their goosed. They should come out with all guns blazing but as the game goes on the Thunders younger legs can make it really tough for Dallas especially if Kevin Durant gets it going. Dallas -1.5 1st Q is the call.
Yeah the Bulls are fucked. Without Rose Philly destroyed them by 17 points in Game 2. Imagine what Lebron/Wade and Bosh would do
An Insiderâs Notes On The Shabby Death Of The Seattle SuperSonics
For those fans who believe that the only acceptable NBA champion is any team thatâs not the Miami Heat, the tempting choice is Oklahoma City. The Thunder have Kevin Durantâs superlative set of skills, Russell Westbrookâs freakish athleticism, and James Hardenâs 1840s prospectorâs beard. They are young and charming, and they seem like the ideal foil for the soulless South Beach superteam.
But where LeBron-loathing folks now see the forces of good on the court in Oklahoma City, I have always looked to the ownersâ box and seen Clay Bennett and his pals, the Oklahomans who stole the Seattle SuperSonics from a city that loved and supported NBA basketball for 41 years. The theft was the final chapter in a grim tale of arrogance, incompetence, and deceit, with the Okies spending more than a year deceiving Seattle fans, city officials, and even the teamâs front office about their ultimate intentions.
As a Sonics employee, I was there on the inside, living throughâand sometimes participating inâthe subterfuge. And I was there for what came before, as the last local owner, spineless Starbucks mogul Howard Schultz, allowed his ego and greed to ruin the teamâs hopes. The demise of the Sonics was a slow implosion, and I watched it up close. Maybe I was too close, because itâs only now dawning on meâfour years after the Sonics became the Thunderâwhat really happened to our team. {C} * * *
I grew up a Sonics fan, in the suburbs of Seattle, enraptured by the Payton-to-Kemp era of the team. But as the millennium closed, that glory waned. The Sonicsâ lone NBA title was receding in civic history, like the Metropolitansâ 1917 Stanley Cup, and the Mariners had taken over the part of the municipal psyche previously occupied by basketball. The 1999 lockout hamstrung the teamâs ownership at a time when the Sonics were still paying off their mid-1990s renovation of the Seattle Center Coliseum. Finances became so tight for owner Barry Ackerleyâthe media mogul whoâd made his fortune through billboards and radio stations across Americaâthat he had to sell the team to a group of investors, led by Starbucksâs Howard Schultz, in 2001.
I first joined the staff as an intern in 2002. With the coffee impresario at the helm, fans had reason to feel optimistic. Schultz spun tales about his hoophead youth in Brooklyn. He vowed to return the team to prominence and embraced the past, going so far as to bring back the clubâs classic green and gold colors. He would hold confabs with local business leaders before games at the arena, sharing his management philosophy from the court to a rapt crowd in the stands. I was the guy scrambling around with a microphone so attendees could petition Schultz for guidance on âbrandingâ and âguest relations.â Schultz would drone on about how the team and his ownership was a âpublic trust.â
He was a man accustomed to walking into a boardroom and bending it to his will, and he began his Sonics reign full of unearned bravado. On the flight home from New York after the NBA confirmed his takeover of the team, he sat with Wally Walker, the former player and Goldman Sachs man who, as the teamâs GM, had just brokered the deal. Schultz turned to Walker and said in all sincerity, âOK, now we need to get Garnettââas if he could decree such a thing and it would simply be so. At the All-Star Game in 2002, he announced to an assembled group of owners that heâd have a ring when they saw him the following year. This was the uninspiring era of the Gary Payton-Vin Baker-Brent Barry Sonics, remember. Philadelphia 76ers president Pat Croce responded that in a year Schultz wouldnât have a ring and heâd be $20 million poorer.
The team struggled, and Schultz didnât get along so well with its famously mouthy leader, Payton, whom he shipped to Milwaukee in 2003 in exchange for Ray Allen. That drew the ire of many Sonics fans for whom The Glove had become a fixture of the landscape. Schultz would soon have to negotiate the local political economy as well. It was an open secret within the organization that he would eventually need a new, luxury-box-fattened, revenue-rich arena to goose the teamâs bottom line. But Schultz wanted to bide his time. In his mind, the wins would come, the arena would come, and he would be there, sitting courtside with a big ring on his finger.
In 2004-05, the victories arrived. Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis, led by coach Nate âMr. Sonicâ McMillan, led the team to 52 wins and a surprising division title, reigniting Seattleâs passion for basketball. I watched it happen from San Diego, where I was trying to jumpstart a sports-marketing careerâwith little success. The season after the Sonicsâ seeming breakthrough, I used my connections to wangle a position with the team. I was low man on the totem pole, working in Guest Relations. I answered the phones and responded to fan email, but I was excited to be on a career path in big-league sports, working for a franchise seemingly on the upswing. Soon after I joined the club, everything there started to unravel. * * *
A year removed from that improbable division title and playoff run, the Sonics went back in the shitter, but that didnât stop Schultz from launching his quest for an arena in 2006. His timing and tenor left much to be desired. The week of the Super Bowl, he announced in a whiny, entitled interview that the Sonics needed new digs. âItâs very clear to us that the city and state officials are not showing us the kind of respect we feel we deserve,â Schultz said. âItâs ironic with the Seahawks going to the Super Bowl and the community, the state, so galvanized by a sports team, that here we are in a position thatâs so unfortunate.â Angry fans wondered why one teamâs owner would upstage another local team during the most important week in its history.
Schultzâs Super Bowl-week declaration, however, betrayed a civic truth most sports fans fail to acknowledge. If you think your hometown sports teams are all great buddies, youâre wrong. The Celticsâ biggest rivals arenât the Lakers; theyâre the Bruins. Paul Pierce and Kobe Bryant may compete for wins, but the Celtics and Bruins compete for money. There are a finite number of rich people in any given city, with a finite amount of money to spend on sports. When a team can make the same amount of money selling two courtside seats as they can selling an entire section of the upper bowl, theyâll target their sales strategies accordingly. Getting the affluent to your games means pampering them the minute they walk through the doors. At Safeco and CenturyLink fields, the Mariners and Seahawks do just that; theyâre gleaming palaces of conspicuous consumption that ensure that fans paying top dollar are given a premium experience with food, drinks, and seatside service delivered efficiently and comfortably. The Sonics couldnât do that. KeyArena had some low-budget exclusive hangouts, but nothing compared to the cityâs other stadiums. So when Sonics execs saw the Seahawks reaping all the attention and getting fat off a stadium financed in part by public money, they didnât feel happyâthey were jealous.
The timing of the Schultz announcement wasnât the only aspect of the arena push being mismanaged. Itâs one thing for a monarch to declare war; itâs another to organize the troops to carry out the battle. The staff was not ready to advocate for the arena. Annoyed Sonics fans wondered why the team should get a new home a little more than a decade after KeyArena was remodeled on the back of $100 million worth of 20-year municipal bonds. I fielded irate calls from fans all day without a single talking point handed down from above. I could offer only platitudes about the Sonics needing a new arena to be competitive in the league. As to why KeyArena wasnât enough, or how taxpayers could be sure the Sonics wouldnât demand a new arena in another 10 years, I didnât have any good answers. Eventually our pleas for guidance traveled up the chain. What happened next only made things worse.
Soon, my phone rang. It was a member of the operations team: âJeremy, you need to do something for me. You need to grab the championship trophies. Polish them until theyâre spotless.â
Wally Walker, the teamâs president, gathered the minions in the bowels of the nondescript office park that housed the Sonicsâ headquarters. Sure, it was coming a few days late, but at least we were finally getting some clarity and marching orders.
Alas, Walker didnât have the good sense to lie to us. He went through a litany of minor reasons why the team needed a new arena: higher capacity, bigger arena footprint, more room for high-end concessions, more places for premium seat holders, a.k.a. the super rich, the people who could afford a pair of courtside season tickets for $70,000. These were the justifications he offered us to explain why we were asking for a heaping pile of taxpayer dollars. After Walkerâs spiel, a member of the sales staff asked the fateful question: âWally, what will this arena upgrade do for Joe Sixpackâthe regular fan?â
Dead silence.
After an uncomfortable few seconds, Walker said, âWell, nothing.â The wind went out of me. It was as if heâd punched me in the stomach. Walker tried to backtrack, but the damage had been done. The battle for hearts and minds had ended before itâd even begun. I didnât see how weâd get an arena deal led by men who couldnât conceive of it as anything but a rich manâs boondoggle, perpetrated on behalf of other rich people. Average people would shoulder the costs of making sure that the Puget Soundâs affluentâsuits at Boeing, executives at Microsoftâcould be coddled at a sporting event that average people would no longer be able to afford to attend.
The arena chatter continued, with testimony in front of the state legislature. In February 2006, David Stern swooped in to give a tepid appeal on behalf of the team. Morale slipped at the office, but people held on to the belief that somehow weâd get a new arena and stay. Maybe it was a way to keep his troops in the right frame of mind, but I remember the head of season ticket sales remaining relentlessly positive about getting the deal done. The NBA season mercifully came to an end and we switched gears to the WNBA, with much of the organization now throwing its efforts behind the Stormâs season. On July 18, we prepared for our annual Kids Day at the arena, the highest-attended Storm game each year. By noon that wouldnât be our focus.
I usually arrived at work before most of the staff. On some days, I could wander across the office to get my coffee without seeing anyone. But strangely, that morning, the teamâs communications guru, was already there. He pulled me aside. âBe prepared to have a terrible day,â he said. âI canât tell you any moreâyouâll know soon enough. But Iâm telling you as a friend, this is going to be a really rough day.â
I went back to my desk trying to decipher what he meant. Soon, my phone rang. On the other end was a member of the operations team: âJeremy, you need to do something for me. You need to grab the championship trophies. Polish them until theyâre spotless and bring them to the Furtado Center [the teamâs training facility]. I canât tell you why, you just need to do it now.â
As I hung up an email arrived from Walkerâs secretary, telling us there would be an all-staff meeting later in the morning. I pushed away from my computer and rushed to the lobby, where showcases greeted visitors with the 1979 NBA and 2004 WNBA championship trophies. Two sales staffers stood nearby, speculating about the meeting. Still in the grip of our unwarranted optimism, they guessed that this gathering was to announce theyâd hammered out an arena deal.
âI think we sold the team,â I said. âThatâs what theyâre going to tell us.â They looked at me like I had shit smeared on my shirt.
We kept a polishing cloth in the trophiesâ black carrying cases. I shined them up, packed them away, loaded them in the trunk of my car, and sped to the training facility east of the Space Needle. Outside the gates, media had already started lining up for a press conference that they didnât know much about. As I parked, I realized Iâd left my team credential at my desk. There was no time to run back and get it. I went to the security guards holding the press at bay and told them I worked for the team and I needed to get in. Without the credential, they didnât believe me.
Exasperated, I went back to my car, grabbed the case and, in front of the media, pulled out the 1979 Larry OâBrien Trophy. This got me through the gates and into the gym, where employees were erecting a stage and inflating balloons as if preparing for a celebration instead the death of Seattle basketball.
The communications guru was right. The day was horrible. I sat on the phone, fielding call after call from angry fans, letting me know how pissed they were and generally taking it out on the underlings. I eventually snapped. When one caller started laying into me about losing the team and how it affected them and how awful we were, I cut him off: âGimme a break! You may be losing the team, but Iâm losing it too! And I may be losing my job on top of it! Youâll still have your job!â I slammed the phone down. * * *
In the wake of the sale, Frank Hughes, the outstanding Sonics beat writer for the Tacoma News Tribune, wrote in a column for ESPN that the optimist he saw in Schultz in 2001 was long gone. The coffee mogul âhad become angry, bitter and maddeningly defiant, like a petulant child who decided to take his toy and go home.â At the press conference for the sale, Schultz admitted that he had given up fighting for the arena. He said he thought another group would have more luck in brokering a deal for a new arena with city and state officials, which is why heâd sold the team to out-of-town investors for $350 million, $150 million more than his ownership group had paid Acklerley for the franchise.
But he didnât want the team shipped out immediately. In a side letter accompanying the deal, Schultz demanded that Bennett and his partners make a good-faith effort for at least a year to get a new arena and keep the team in the Pacific Northwest. At the press conference and for some time after, Bennett maintained that he was committed to doing just that. And he would make a show of immersing himself in the Sonics.
Soon after the sale, Bennett decided he needed a souvenir bounty to take back to his sports-thirsty brethren in OKC. My ears were still ringing with the invective of enraged Sonics fans. Yet I was an impressionable kid in the Guest Relations department and prone to awe, so when an exec asked me to escort Bennett through the Sonics team shop, where the new owner planned to gather souvenirs, I couldnât say no.
Whoever picked me must have smelled the naivetĂ©, because I was dumb enough to be surprised when the press started showing up. âOh, gosh, how did these TV news cameras get here?â I thought. I shied away from the lenses, thinking they wouldnât want me seen near Bennett, that the press was here to capture Clay. But a PR person, in a clever bit of Nixonian stagecraft, motioned for me to get back into the shot. I was there for the cameras: New Owner Relates to Young Seattleite. He might as well have tousled my hair, too.
Clay and I walked through the shop, making small talk. At the time I was still in my customer-service job, but Iâd lobbied for additional responsibilities, which included helping create the teamâs new magazine, Soniczone. For a multi-part feature, I had extensively researched the history of the Sonics, so thatâs what Clay and I talked about. I pointed him toward some yellow shirts that I knew were reproductions of the tees some of the players wore during the 1979 championship parade. I told him I had a picture of Sonics great Jack Sikma in his yellow shirt, riding through the streets of Seattle in a convertible. He grinned at this. What was he thinking, I wonder now. Was he picturing a parade through Oklahoma City?
The cameras left, and I wasnât needed anymore. Clay crawled into his car with a lackey, leaving me alone outside the team shop in the drizzle. I watched them pull away without offering me a ride to the office. I walked down the hill and went back to work. * * *
On the last day of Schultzâs reign as owner, we reassembled in the same conference room where Walker had addressed us months earlier. The guru who had made an empire out of overpriced caffeine stood before us. A quiet settled over the room in deference. No one was quite sure what Schultz would say; hell, no one figured heâd even want to speak to the employees he had abandoned. It seemed he had long ago lost interest in the team, in the NBA, in dealing with the players.
At Starbucks, the bulk of Schultzâs employees were a commodity on the level of the coffee he sold. His automatons didnât make lattes and cappuccinos in the way of old Italian artisans; they were interchangeable cogs who pressed the buttons of machines on a drink assembly line. But NBA players arenât baristas, and NBA teams arenât cafĂ©s.
Schultz had deluded himself with the romantic ideal of the artisan. He preached that his shops were loci of community amid the American sprawl. Go into a Starbucks and youâll know thatâs not true. In the same way, he believed he could bend the economics and efficiencies of the NBA in his favor. For all the talk about caring, community, and investing in the team, things looked different on the inside. He nickel-and-dimed the club. He slashed bonuses to the sales staff. He made the team carry fewer players, paying to fill 12 roster spots instead of 13. He even raised prices in the office soda machine.
One story of Schultzâs cheapness is famous among his former staff. The Sonicsâ previous owner, Barry Ackerley, had bought holiday gifts each year for the folks in the front office. When Schultzâs group took over, the custom died. Rightly or wrongly, some of the employees groused that no gesture had been made to them. According to an employee at the time, another of the teamâs new owners, Richard Tait, the co-creator of Cranium, heard about the complaints and subsequently gave out copies of his popular board game. Not to be outdone, Schultz followed suit. He gave each employee a Starbucks gift card. One member of the staffâwho wasnât a Starbucks regularâdecided to use his card to get some snacks. When he went to pay for his roughly five dollarsâ worth of food, he asked how much money remained on the card.
âWell, you owe me money,â the cashier said.
The Sonics employee asked how much had been on the card to being with.
â$3.50,â the barista replied.
At the time, we would later learn, ordinary customers couldnât buy a Starbucks card with a value of less than $5. These were custom $3.50 gift cards.
(It would happen again. It became something of franchise lore that when the Storm won the WNBA title in 2004, the playersâthe first team to win any sort of championship for Seattle since the 1978-79 Sonicsâalso got cards that could barely cover a Starbucks coffee.)
This nickel-and-diming of the team permeated Schultzâs arena efforts. While the Seahawks and Mariners spent money to lobby the legislature aggressively behind the scenes, Schultz tried to make his push on the cheap, and it cost Seattle the team.
So here he was. The man whom Fortune magazine now calls the sixth-greatest entrepreneur of our time had shown up to tell us something we already knew but never expected to come out of his mouth. With shoulders sagging and with the same querulous tone he used when he complained that city officials had given the Mariners and Seahawks new stadiums but not the Sonics, he told us he was a failure as an owner; he didnât change the NBAâs economic system as he had hoped.
The way he said it didnât sit right. Immediately after the speech, a member of the PR staff told me he was glad to have Schultz gone, even though the Okies might move the Sonics out. I felt much the same. The outward humility and self-effacement didnât change the underlying arrogance of the corporate titan. I wasnât the only one rolling my eyes in the speechâs aftermath. Schultz spoke as if he wanted us to disagree, as if he wanted us to say, âNo, no, Howard,â and comfort him and let him know he was being too hard on himself. He wanted absolution for being the guy who sold the Sonics away. We werenât having any of it. He was the woman asking, âDoes this outfit make me look fat?â and instead of offering reassurance, I could only think: âYou? You look like a fucking whale.â * * *
Bennett and crew floated the idea of leaving Seattle early on in his ownership. No, not for Oklahoma, but for a proposed $500 million palace in a low-rent suburb south of the city. He had sketches made, lobbied the state legislature, and even opened a satellite sales office in Renton to support the pretense that he cared about staying in the area. As part of the agreement with Schultz to buy the team, Bennett had to âmake a good-faith effortâ for a year to keep the team in the Pacific Northwest.
On the inside, though, you could find subtle clues that the Sonicsâ days in Seattle were numbered. Chief among them was that when employees quit, as they began to do with greater frequency, there wasnât much effort made to replace them. My colleagues and I grew frustrated with the dissonance between what the new ownership group said publicly and what we saw internally as a series of half-hearted efforts to stay. Further complicating matters were the executives of the team, holdovers from the prior regime, who began angling for favor with their new masters. This occasioned several idiotic and unproductive moves to impress Bennett, such as a ban on casual Fridays. Wearing jeans fostered an unprofessional atmosphere, argued the execs. No, Iâm serious, they did that.
My response was appropriately petty: I went out and bought a black dress shirt and black slacks and wore them every Friday. And I didnât stop there. I persuaded other people to wear black on Fridays with me. I won over enough people that, one Friday, someone not wearing all black said to me, âThere are a lot of people wearing black.â To which I responded, âWeâre mourning the death of morale.â
While fans werenât privy to the internal tumult, they could sense Clay inching out the door all the same. They stopped coming to the arena as Sonics attendance sagged to 27th in the league. And thatâs even with us actively trying to fill up the Key with deeply discounted tickets. On more than one occasion, I had friends turn down free great seats because they had something better to do. That didnât mean we didnât try to boost attendance any way we could. If I entered the building using my credential, I would make sure to go to an usher to get a ticket scanned anyway, to pad the numbers. I wasnât the only one doing this.
I felt beaten down. Whatever faith Iâd had in the clubâs leadership was gone. They ran the team almost as if they wanted us to quit, a guy mistreating his girlfriend in the hopes that sheâll break up with him so he doesnât have to go through the messy business of doing it himself. An apparent hiring freeze precluded upward mobility, and the future of the team magazine I worked on seemed tenuous at best. The malaise extended across the staff. Employees talked openly in the halls about successful job interviews theyâd had the day before. I began to look toward the exit myself and landed a new job at Microsoft. I wasnât going down with the ship.
Leaving the Sonics was difficult. It remains my favorite place Iâve ever worked, not because of the pay (it was meager at best), not because of the day-to-day tasks (I was a glorified call-center worker for most of my tenure), and certainly not for the leadership there, but because my fellow peons were some of the best people Iâve ever met. In truth, many of them were overqualified for their jobs, and theyâve since gone on to greater things. Iâve remained friends with many of them to this day. On my last day, my boss, Pete, whom Iâd known since I was 20, called me over to his office. When I arrived, there was a bunch of the staff, a cake, and a present waiting for me. * * *
I could have gone to that last game, the one where fans chanted to âSave Our Sonics.â That came a year after Iâd left. Friends with the team offered me tickets, but I declined because I believed it would only be the last game of the season, not the last of the Seattle SuperSonics. Like the Mariners and Seahawks, which had threatened to leave before, the Sonics would find a way to stay.
And then they were gone. I still have friends, much bigger basketball fans than I am, who have totally abandoned the NBA. In that first season with no basketball in Seattle, I simply couldnât bring myself to watch the league, though I did delight in catching stories about the Thunderâs ineptitude in OKC. Iâve slowly come back to the NBA as a basketball nomad in search of a team, and for the most part Iâve tried to ignore the Thunder. But now that theyâre on the verge of joining the leagueâs elite, some old resentments have been rekindled. This should be our team, my heart tells me, not Clayâs, not Oklahoma Cityâs.
I wish I could really believe that. But the Thunder, the runaway Northwest Division champions, are not the Sonics. Had Howard Schultz not sold this team to Clay Bennett, the Thunder as we know themâthe title contender Seattle fans so desperately wish theyâd hadâwouldnât exist. Under Howard Schultz and Wally Walker, the Sonics were a team and organization that aspired to adequacy. Maybe they would be good, but they would never be great. Fans could see it on the court and during the draft (Robert Swift and Mouhamed Sene?!); employees could see it in the shabby, penny-pinching way the front office was run.
In Seattle, we wanted to denigrate the Okies so much that we couldnât even keep our prejudices straight. We heard Bennett and Co.âs accents and saw their regressive politics, and we labeled them rubes and idiots. At the same time, we painted them as sinister geniuses whoâd cynically orchestrated the theft of our team, with David Stern as their co-conspirator. Resentful Seattleites are like those 9/11 Truthers who simultaneously believe that the government is both totally inept and guilty of perpetrating and covering up an immense terror plot. You canât have it both ways. Either Bennett is an idiot who married into his fortune and lucked into the team, or heâs a canny businessman who played the game shrewdly and won.
I have to think heâs the latter. I need only look at the organization heâs put together to know heâs running the club better than Schultzâthe media-ordained geniusâever did. It was Bennett who brought in the architect of the club, Sam Presti, based on their mutual connections with the San Antonio Spurs. It was Bennett who allowed Presti to build slowly around Durant instead of demanding wins immediately. Sure, there was plenty of bad faith on Bennettâs part during the sale, but at this point itâs silly to expect anything else from a sports owner. Caveat emptor applies to us as much as it does to owners. They are running revenue-maximizing operations, and a fanbase is of use to them only to the extent that it makes them money. All we can hope for is that an owner cares enough about his product to give us something worth watching every year. By all evidence Clay Bennett cares about his product. Howard Schultz never did. Maybe thatâs the ultimate deception in the Sonicsâ story: A lot of us had the wrong villain all along. * * *
Iâve always remembered something Brent Barry told me. It was in a Q&A, conducted in the wake of the trade that sent Gary Payton and Desmond Mason to Milwaukee. Iâd asked Barry how Mason was doing. âHeâs taking it hard, but this is the first time heâs been traded,â he told me. âListen, the first time I was traded, I felt it right here.â Barry put his finger on his heart. âThe next time, I felt it right here.â He pointed to the sole of his shoe. âThis is a business.â
Good piece. Clearly Bennett did nothing wrong, in fact heâs practically a hero bringing an NBA franchise to his hometown and slowly but surely building them into real contenders, and more or less from scratch too, practically the complete opposite of Miami Heat who are shamelessly and loudly buying success. Seattle has no one to blame but themselves.
Itâs though on the locals no doubt but otherwise its best not to get overly sentimental about US sports franchises, thereâs very few of them that are sacrosanct. Maybe the Celtics, Lakers, Knicks and Bulls but thatâs about it in basketball. For example next year the New Jersey Nets will become the Brooklyn Nets, the Sacramento Kings will be the Anheim Kings and the New Orleans Hornets will most probably move too, no ones quite sure yet where.
Iâd say itâs a similar story in football and baseball although now that I think about it I vaguely remember reading somewhere that the LA Dodgers are looking for a new home or something, could be wrong about that though. Baseball as a popular sport has been dying a slow painful death since the TV age at any rate.
Thanks for posting that. As an old Sonics fan Iâve barely been able to watch the NBA since the team was stolen from the city. It would be fucking terrible if the Thunder won it this year. The whole relocation of franchises is the most unpalatable aspect of American sports and it looks like the Minnesota Vikings could be next.
[quote=âLazarus, post: 640474â] the New Orleans Hornets will most probably move too,
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They have been linked a lot with a move to Seattle, but I thought the guy who owns the Saints bought them and is planning on keeping them in NO?