Sonic Memories
“Five years, it turns out, is a long time. The two painful years the Sonics spent in purgatory as we hoped in vain for a miracle felt like a decade. Now it seems like they’ve been gone for far longer than three years. If not a different lifetime, July 18, 2006 feels like an entirely different chapter in my life. Yet the day’s events still remain vivid.”
Via The Sonics Sold, Five Years Later SSSBDA.com
A haunting recount by Kevin Pelton of the day that the SuperSonics were sold off to Oklahoman oil baron Clay Bennet. This event barely registered on my radar at the time, but two years after it I was genuinely distraught and angry with the NBA as the Sonics moved to Oklahoma City. A good friend of mine was a diehard Sonics fan and in a show of solidarity, I tried my best to ignore the NBA for this dirty deed. Despite my initial vitriol, time passed and I accepted the (sometimes-dirty) business aspect of professional basketball as a necessary evil. I learned team’s can be relocated at a whim, but memories die hard and the Seattle SuperSonics were a team that always fascinated and terrified me.
The Terror: from the misty, forested outer reaches of the continent, the Sonics swept down and inflicted beating after beating upon my beloved Houston Rockets. In 1987, when Hakeem had a monstrous 49 points and 25 rebounds in Game 6 of the Western semis, the Rockets were eliminated. In ‘93, Olajuwon had 23 points, 17 rebounds, 9 assists, 3 blocks and two steals in Game 7, but of course Seattle won in OT. In ’96 when the Rockets were searching for a three-peat, they instead found a buzz saw from Cascadia and were swept in humiliating fashion. Seattle was our always dependable executioner.
The Fascination: despite the beatings, I couldn’t hate the Sonics. Getting beat by the Stockton-Malone Jazz was like getting whopped with a belt, thoroughly utilitarian and no-nonsense. But a Sonics whooping? That had style like getting beat with a Hot Wheels track. Dangerous, exciting and you could enjoy it afterwards too, racing your cars around the loops. Sure Kemp’s thunderous dunks were no fun when it was on Hakeem, but on Alton Lister? More please!
Kemp, however, was just continuing the Sonic tradition of wondrous characters: Slick Watts wearing a headband with a shaved head. Freddie Brown chucking it up from downtown. Jack Sikma’s permed golden afro. The X-Man, Tom Chambers and Dale Ellis scoring 75 points between them every night. Payton jawing and tossing oops to Kemp. Ervin “Not So Magic” Johnson. Jerome James playing an inspired brand of average basketball for two weeks in the 2005 playoffs. The SuperSonics never failed to entertain.
I hope we never fail to remember that.
