First things first: it is fantastic to be back in the blogging game under the friendly confines at the Barnes Road Tavern.
You know what's not fantastic? Kevin Durant's move to the Golden State Warriors.
The NBA is already a league where the first two rounds of the playoffs are more or less irrelevant -- really the entire Eastern Conference playoffs, which might as well just be named the LeBron James invitational -- and now, the entire NBA postseason is set to have less intrigue than men's basketball at the Olympics or the NCAA women's basketball tournament combined: just hand the trophy to the U.S. and UConn, respectively.
At the very least, you can see a scenario where Bronny and the Cavs could win a game vs. GS, but nothing more. Asking LeBron to be clutch two postseasons in a row is like asking me to make honor roll two semesters in a row (never happened). Yes I'm aware the Heat won back-to-back 'ships in 2012-13, but the second one can be 100 percent credited to a former SuperSonics great by the name of Ray Allen.
Speaking of former SuperSonics, Kevin Durant used to play his home games in Seattle. Only 41 of them, to be exact, because the SuperSonics were stolen from Seattle and re-routed to Oklahoma City following his rookie season in 2008.
Which is why for as boring/lackluster/lame it is that Durant decided to sign with the Warriors, I feel absolutely zero pity for the Thunder franchise.
Us here in New England became well-versed in shady doings over the last 500 or so days thanks to a little phenomenon called #DeflateGate. Well if you think that was bad, the end result was a player being suspended for four games -- with a Super Bowl title mixed in for good measure. The end result of the shady doings in Seattle resulted in the loss of the whole dang francishe.
Our friends at Wikipedia have the full version of what happened, but here's the cliff notes:
Howard Schultz, owner of a mediocre coffee chain, owned the SuperSonics from 2001-2006. Wanting a new arena for the team to play in, even though Key Arena had just been renovated in 1995, he threatened to sell to out-of-town owners if his demands were not met. Sure enough, he took his ball and went home by means of selling to a group headed by Oklahoma-based Clay Bennett. Oklahoma City had just played partial host to the New Orleans Hornets due to Hurricane Katrina's ravaging of their home, so OKC was clearly looking to get in the NBA game.
Bennett promised a good-faith effort to keep the Sonics in Seattle...by proposing a $500 million arena in the suburb of Renton using taxpayer money. That clearly went nowhere and so, less than two years after buying the team, Bennett, Aubrey McLendon and the rest of the ownership group siphoned the Sonics to the sprawling metropolis of Oklahoma City.
With Durant already on board, and the ensuing draft picks of Russell Westbrook, Serge Ibaka and James Harden, the Thunder quickly morphed into one of the elite teams in the NBA.
But how quickly people forgot that that team belonged to Seattle. In recent years, Seattle sports fans have been exposed as somewhat fraudulent, but you know what? I can't blame them. They needed something to latch on to a little extra without the Sonics in town, and if it meant being extra obnoxious about the Seahawks, I get that.
The scary thing about what happened with the Sonics is that it could happen to any team. Just as the Dodgers left Brooklyn and the Browns left Cleveland, no team is safe. Money grubbing owners like Clay Bennett are out to be Mr. Steal Yo Team.
It took eight years, but karma finally blossomed for Seattle fans at the expense of Bennett. This is a guy, who as a member of the NBA's relocation committee, voted against the Sacramento Kings' proposed move to Seattle in 2012.
Seattle has turned into the Los Angeles of the NFL: any team disenfranchised with their arena situation will just twiddle their thumbs at taxpayers and say "well, we could move to Seattle." It happened in Sac-Town, it happened in Caleb's adopted home city of Milwaukee, and it'll surely keep on keeping on until the NBA expands -- which could be tomorrow, it could be in 2050.
But the little OKC experiment is about to really be tested. Durant is gone, Harden is gone, Ibaka is gone, and Westbrook will be gone if not this off-season, certainly next summer. There's no guarantee's in life, but there's karma, Kramer.
Clay Bennett got exactly what he deserved. When I say I have more sympathy for the devil, I'm actually referring to the fire flames jam by the Rolling Stones, but I guess it might sound like I'm referring to Bennett.
That is not the case. It's a shame the NBA as a whole has to pay the price for Bennett, but the very real possibility now exists Seattle could win a championship before the Thunder.
And now it's time to stop feeling sorry for a fan base than almost beat the Patriots on a David Tyree-esque catch.
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