With the threat of a shortened or even cancelled season upon us, there is very little we can do to restore a shred of basketball into our lives. What we can do, though, is reminisce over other “lost†seasons. Seasons which saw players or teams achieve extraordinary things that go beyond titles or awards, only to fade back into the background one year later. Here we will bring the tale of these lost seasons, the ones that touched us on a personal level, the ones we will never forget, though history itself might.
Previously on The Lost Season: Boris Diaw, 05-06 and Bobby Simmons, 04-05. Today we will conjure the 2004-2005 Seattle Supersonics, with a special guest appearance by the venerable Beckley Mason, Sonics fan, of HoopSpeak.com.Â
If you were to ask a million people why they love sports, summed up the answers in a convenient graphic manner, and carefully studied the results, there would be several traits making multiple appearances. The solidarity that unites people from different backgrounds uniting for nothing more than the colors of an arbitrarily painted shirt. The fine line between the emotional highs of victory and lows of defeat. The way Ryan Anderson’s goatee creeps around his unsuspecting mouth, surrounding it like moths worshiping a flame, silently whispering “take this three pointer, Ryan. Take it. It wants it.”
One of the many, many reasons we love sports is unpredictability. Every night, two groups of human beings take to a floor made of some sort of substance, with absolutely no knowledge of what will take place until the final buzzer/whistle/out/whatever ends curling.
This is, of course, hogwash. We can’t deal with sports without the necessary ground rules. Chemistry matters. Selfishness leads to losing. Chemistry matters. Hard work leads to winning. Chemistry matters. I said it 3 times already, you know what we’re going to be focusing on.
Chemistry Matters
As you read this, you’re probably moping around your home, wishing the lockout would end already. Of the many issues that are pitting millionaires against billionaires in a fight designed to hurt the broke – revenue sharing, BRI splits and hard caps – one issue is especially relevant to our nostalgic view. That of the guaranteed contract. Specifically, of what happens one year before it is signed.
The dreaded contract year. Shudder.
The ideal NBA player is one that always gives 110% for the good of the team. But we know better. Caring is easy on paper, but is much harder when you need to do so for 82 games a year, plus the playoffs, through pain in your knees and the back spasms. If you’re an athlete at heart, winning is the only compensation you need. If you’re human, though, you probably want the money. And when the money will be there regardless of effort, effort has a tendency to slip.
Contract years are the opposite. The money isn’t there, so one cares too much. Of course, you’re not playing for your teammates’ money – you’re playing for your own. Which makes every player his own top priority. Teamwork and winning take secondary seats to stats and highlights. In a career that usually manages3 to 5major paychecks, you can’t let your chances slip.
So what happens when you have a team with a coach and 9 – count ‘em, 9 – players with expiring contracts, including your only all-star? NBA law says you shrivel up into a disgusting heap of one-on-one, isolation, stat-grabbing, egotistical Maggetteness.
The 2004-2005 Sonics would have been placed in NBA jail.
9 Expiring Contracts
Back in 2004-2005, contract seasons may have been even a greater epidemic than today. Just a year earlier, Erick Dampier had 12-points-10-rebounds-ed his way into a ridiculous deal with the Dallas Mavericks. Just a year later, Larry Hughes would sign a 72 million deal with the poor unsuspecting Cavs, after his only good NBA season to date – one that saw him miss the entire playoffs with injury, of course – just happened to coincide with the end of his Washington Wizards deal. The league hadn’t stumbled upon the Durant-Rose golden era of stars that always try hard no matter what the circumstances. And the Seattle Supersonics – a 37 win team whose biggest additions were the immortal Danny Fortson for Calvin Booth trade, and the return of second year player Nick Collison, after injuries robbed him of his entire rookie season and much before he became a blogosphere deity – were going to be living proof of just how bad contract years can be.
No less than 9 players on the Supersonics had expiring contracts that year: face of the franchise, Ray Allen; the starting frontcourt of Reggie Evans and Jerome James (I know, I know); 6th man Antonio Daniels (don’t you miss Antonio Daniels? I miss Antonio Daniels); off-the-bench gunner FlipMurray; sharpshooter Vladimir Radmanovic; bench contributor Damien Wilkins; and the seldom used, yet fondly remembered, Vitaly Potapenko (!!!) and Mateen Cleaves (!!!). Last but not least, coach Nate McMillan was on the last year of his deal as well.
By all accounts, this was not a good roster. Ray Allen, in his pre-Boston days, was still a vicious all around scorer, but a bad defender and was generally believed to be a bit off of his supposed superstar status; Rashard Lewis had somewhat stagnated, and while he was certainly a very good player, placing him as a second option was somewhat of a stretch; Luke Ridnour had shown flashes in his rookie season, but with Brent Barry’s departure to San Antonio, he would now be expected to perform as a full-time starter as opposed to a 16-minutes-a-game hopeful; and I just told you what the starting frontcourt was.
Expectations pessimistically predicted a season of every single player gunning for his own shots, a team falling apart, Ray Allen hanging his head in shame and preferring to use the Cleveland Cavaliers’ ample cap space to team with Lebron James rather than staying, and the entire franchise falling apart. Each player needing to prove how much he deserves that next deal, bickering over touches and minutes, pulling the team apart.
Instead, the Sonics went on their quest for a new contract in a very different manner: they created synergy.
Methodical, Calculated, Deadly
Opening night saw the Sonics obliterated by the Clippers in Los Angeles, 114-84, seemingly a sign of things to come. Nobody but Allen, Lewis and Radmanovic scored 20, 24 and 20, respectively, but nobody else on the team scored more than 6 points, and the entire Clipper lineup scored in double figures, including a ridiculous 30 points for Bobby Simmons, in the first game of his only good season (Danny covered this extensively yesterday). The 03-04 Sonics had finished 27th out of 29 teams in defensive efficiency, and did nothing to re-instill confidence in their defensive abilities against the perennially bad Clippers.
Except that the Sonics rebounded perfectly, countering the humiliating Clipper loss by running off a 9 game winning streak, including an impressive 19 point shellacking of the eventual champion Spurs. Another loss, to the Celtics, was countered with another 4 game rebound winning streak. The pattern repeated itself with a loss to the Blazers, and another 4 game streak, with prestigious victories over the Spurs and Mavs. Suddenly, this was a 17-3 squad, a force to be reckoned with.
The Sonics still weren’t a good defensive team. But they didn’t need to be one. Using what is now commonly recognized as your typical Nate McMillan game plan, the Sonics defied all common logic. Instead of running down the court at each chance, letting Ridnour or Daniels lead the break as two deadly shooters in Allen and Lewis flanked the wings, trying to outscore their opponents, Seattledid the opposite. McMillan knew his team couldn’t guard anybody, so he limited opponent’s chances by making sure the game went by too slowly for them to get the ball. Seattle’s pace was a meager 87.9 possessions per game, perfectly masking their 27th placed defensive efficiency.
Of course, being a terrible defensive team that plays at a slow pace can only take you so far without your offense picking up the slack. And my oh my, was there slack picking in Seattle that year.
Allen was his usual deadly self, clocking in at 23.9 points a night, but you knew that, already. It was the rest of the roster that made the jump. Rashard Lewis took his game to a new level, breaking the 20 points per game barrier for the first time of his career, knocking down 3s, driving to the rim, emerging as an offensive savant and as a first time all-star. Radmanovic actually regressed after a breakout 03-04 campaign, but was still dangerous enough as an offensive combo forward to give some more scoring punch, mainly from the outside, either next to Lewis or instead of him; Ridnour ran the team with resolve rarely seen from a second year player; Daniels fit perfectly as a 3rd guard, alternating between handling the ball and scoring off of it. All seamlessly disguised in a seemingly harmless low-pace bundle, one that perfectly masked the true offensive juggernaut.
It’s not that the Sonics completely abandoned the fast break ordeal – defensive rebounds being converted into full court passes to a leaking Allen or Lewis, or even a big who recognized a chance for cherry picking, were commonly spotted – but it was an opportunistic brand of transition play, not a strategic one. Unlike the Seven Seconds or Less Suns, which broke onto the scene the same year, the idea was to kill your victim with slow, dictated, measured blows, not with rapid attacks of sheer force. It was still basketball poetry, just a different kind. One more carefully crafted, its beauty laying in the system that created it more than just the mind-blowing final results.
Frontcourt By Committee
Of course, the problem with lowering the amount of possessions in a game is that you limit not only how much your opponents touches the ball, but also how many chances your top-notch offense has. This is where a previously unmentioned entity enters the game – the frontcourt.
Seattle’s frontcourt was something of a wasteland for basketball players. No player who was designated exclusively as a big man played more than half a game. Often Radmanovic and Lewis would play at the 4, either next to the other, or alongside the occasionally effective Wilkins. Jerome James started at center in all 80 games he played, but clocked in at only 16 minutes a night, and while this was before he became an Isiah-made punchline, his skill set still included very little beyond being tall and blocking shots. Reggie Evans was a liability everywhere except on the boards, which combined with his career-long issues with stamina to limit him to 23.6 minutes a night. Danny Fortson had always been a per minute monster – he has career averages of 14.7 and 13 per 36 minutes, right in line with the 15.9 and 12 he had in 04-05 – but he’s also one of the most frequent foulers in NBA history, and managed to register an astonishing 4.3 fouls in 16.9 minutes every game. Nick Collison was a de facto rookie coming off major injuries, with no proof whatsoever that he can be effective in the NBA. Concerns outweighed the advantages by a considerable ratio.
But whenever a single offensive possession happened to go awry? That was the frontcourt’s moment to shine. Fortson and Evans would grab absolutely everything, from offensive rebounds to loose balls to opponent’s limbs to Chris Kaman’s private parts. James and Collison, limited as they were, could make the garbage baskets that never made highlight reels but counted for the same amount of points. Seattle ranked as the second best offensive rebounding team in the league, and that surely wasn’t on Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis. With a style that was designed to lower the number of possessions for both teams, every one of those boards was yet another 24 seconds during which opponents couldn’t exploit Seattle’s horrible defense.
With the exception of Fortson’s hair, there was nothing great about Seattle’s frontcourt. There was probably nothing that was even good. But Seattle didn’t need good. It needed grit. It needed the creation of fear. It needed hustle and heart and all those things that you see on Tony Allen T-shirts. Seattle was a team based mainly on its backcourt’s ability to control the tempo and put the ball in the basket, and the frontcourt’s ability to get out of the way, and help where it can. Despite the many limitations, they got the job done more often than not.
One More Jerome James Up Their Sleeves
Seattle ranked 2nd in offensive efficiency and 27th in defensive efficiency, to the naked eye a minor improvement from the 3rd and 27th place ranks of 03-04. But that offensive efficiency mark of 112.2 was a full 5 points higher than the year before, and would have led the league if not for Steve Nash’s arrival in Phoenix. Behind the newfound firepower, Seattle won their division, and finished with a shocking 52-30 record and a 3rd seed in in the playoffs.
Still, against the Sacramento Kings in the first round of the playoffs, it wasn’t clear if the charade could go on. True, the Kings were employing very little of a frontcourt themselves, with the Webber/Divac tandem gone and with Brad Miller barely returning from a fractured fibula, but the Kings still had a certain glow around them, that unwillingness to let go of the glory days even though we all should know better.
Jerome James knew better. Against the likes of Brian Skinner and an old Greg Ostertag, James drew a shocking 17-15-5 performance out of nowhere, giving the Sonics just enough beyond Allen’s mandatory 28 and 10 to grab the win. Game 2 saw a similar scenario – Allen 26, Rashard Lewis nonexistent (12 points, 3 for 12 shooting), and Jerome James with 19 and 9, only missing 2 of his 11 shot attempts.
The Kings managed to salvage Game 3, but the damage was done. Jerome James may have not been the most talented basketball player, but characters his size employ copious amounts of inertia. James finished the series with averages of 17.2 points, 9.4 boards, and 2.2 blocks a night, averages which landed him a 5 year, 30 million deal from Isiah Thomas that we will collectively make fun for all of eternity. Combined with the Kings’ last fumes proving futile, and with Ray Allen refusing to take his foot off their throats (with a ridiculous 45 point night in Game 4 providing the cherry to the sundae that was his series), Seattle was poised to meet the mighty Spurs.
San Antonio manhandled the Sonics in the first two games, winning by a combined 39 points as James turned back into a pumpkin, Allen struggled with Bruce Bowen and the defensive scheme behind him, and Duncan, Parker and Ginobili proved unguardable for the defensively questionable squad. But after scraping out a 92-91 win in Game 3, one which saw James’ short lived return to competence (15 points without a miss) and Vitaly Potapenko somehow successfully guarding Tim Duncan on the final shot of the game, and a heroic Game 4 win without Lewis, in which Luke Ridnour went bananas and Ray Allen finally broke free, it seemed like this would be a series.
Unfortunately for Seattle, this happened:
[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VV6ibmaUFc]
As has happened many times before, and as would happen many times again, Manu Ginobili – still with long hair, bald spot barely visible – just wouldn’t let San Antonio lose. Seattle hung until the very end in Game 6, game tied with seconds to go, but Ginobili found Duncanfor a 4 footer that Timmy made thousands of times throughout his career, and Ray’s desperation attempt at the buzzer was no good.
Epilogue – By Beckley Mason
As everyone knows now, this was the last time the Sonics would have anything resembling a quality team. But even in this last, unpredictably successful year, the team didn’t really connect withSeattlelike it did in the mid 90s. Maybe that’s just how it felt from the other side of the country, where I was a freshman in college, and for the first time couldn’t watch the local broadcasts. I think I saw the Sonics on TV only once or twice before the playoffs.
When I realized not only was this relatively untalented bunch in the playoffs, but a 3 Seed, I almost couldn’t believe it. Even against the Kings it felt like we were playing with found money. As Noam notes above, our frontline basically had no skills other than possession retention. Our offense revolved around Allen in a way not unlike Dallas’s Dirk-centric sets. For some reason, after years of the fiery and excitable Gary Payton as the face of the franchise, it was hard to completely embrace Allen in the same way, even though he was unarguably the superior player at the time.
When I came home from college I got to attend game 4 of the Spurs series, in which the Sonics tied the eventual champs 2-2. What I remember most from their performance in the playoffs is that Ray Allen was incredibly good and just smoked Bruce Bowen, who was then regarded as the games best perimeter defender. He was really all there was to appreciate from an aesthetic standpoint that season. When he has a bust in the Hall of Fame, we’ll remember him as a deadly shooter, but back in 2004-5 he could do everything.Â
Even with the series tied 2-2, no one really believed we could beat the mighty Spurs. We screamed, the decibel level spiked to “jet engine,†and the Key Arena once again gave me goosebumps. ButSeattlefans new better than to expect greatness from Danny Fortson. After the systematic destruction of games 5 and 6, it confirmed what we already knew: this wasn’t a 50 win team.
In 2005-6 the magic evaporated (along with Lewis and Radmanovic’s game) and Chris Wilcox and Earl Watson became our third and fourth highest scorers. Then Allen got hurt and the wheels came off. The wheels were then reaffixed to the trucks that moved everything, our records, the jerseys in the rafters, the championship banner, to Oklahoma.
Looking back, I wonder if I downplay the excitement and hope that surrounded the 2004-5 season. After all, we won 52 games and a playoff series. But today it just seems like a fateful step to the team leaving. I look at Danny Fortson and Ronald Murray and instead of plucky bench players, I see the erosion of quality players that was punctuated when future Hall of Famer Ray Allen was traded for Jeff Green. But that’s not really how it felt then. Then it was a reemergence of a proud franchise and a basketball crazy city. We had no idea this imperfect, contract year-fueled team that masterfully combined brutish boarding with elegant offense would be the city’s last good team.
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