Growing up just outside of Philadelphia, it’s easy to for me to see what it’s like for a passionate sports city to go through hard times filled with disappointment. In a city that has one championship in the last 30 years, the connection between the teams and the fans has never diminished over time. That said Philadelphia isn’t even close to the bottom when it comes to heartbreak and disappointment.
The final game of an NBA season for a team with one of the worst records in the NBA wouldn’t be a game you would expect to draw a big crowd. But this was exactly what happened for final game for the Seattle Supersonics in the 2007-2008 season. A packed house of 16,272 fans at Key Arena watched their Sonics defeat the Dallas Mavericks 99-95. And that was it.
It’s been more than five years since the Seattle Supersonics left Seattle for Oklahoma City, since Clay Bennett and David Stern ripped the hearts out of the Sonics fans, since cheers of “Save Our Sonics” resonated throughout the city. Fans shouted profanities for the entire final game at Key Arena directed towards the two businessmen. But no one seemed to care enough to do anything about the outrage.
The documentary film Sonicsgate vividly depicts the rise and fall of the Sonics. “We wanted to get the history of the Seattle Supersonics all in one place. But we also wanted to expose all the people who wronged us and provide a place where people could come together about the topic and learn about it” said Jason Reid director and producer of the film.
Most people in Seattle had a bad feeling about the future when the team was sold to Clay Bennett and his Oklahoma City based ownership group. While Bennett lied continually saying he wanted to stay in Seattle, it’s fair to put some of the blame for the Sonics departure on previous owner Howard Schultz for selling the team to Bennett. Schultz had settled down in Seattle as the Chairman, Presdient, and CEO of Starbucks, and Reid said as time has gone by he gets even more angry with Howard Schultz who was working in the area and let the team get away.
When it became evident to Schultz that the team was all but gone, he filed a lawsuit against Bennett for breach of contract as Schultz believed the team was in good hands when he sold the team to Bennett and that they would stay in Seattle despite the need for a Key Arena remodel. This last-ditch effort to prevent the team from leaving was foiled by Stern who quickly intervened, and had been supporting Bennett’s efforts throughout the whole process in getting the team to Oklahoma City. To this day Schultz has remained quiet through it all refusing to accept blame and shying away from questions about allowing the team to be stolen by Clay Bennett.
Reid and the rest of the Sonicsgate crew are all Seattle natives and have continued to support the return of the Sonics since the release of the documentary traveling to NBA games and sitting courtside dressing as zombies, wearing Sonics gear, and holding signs, in an effort to gain attention for their cause.
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| per Reid's twitter acount @reid206 Reid (left) and another Sonicsgate staff member campaign for the Sonics and cheer against the Oklahoma City Thunder at the same time at a 2012 NBA Finals game in Miami. |
Someone who can attest to high-intensity and strong passion for basketball in the city of Seattle is former Sonics star power forward Shawn Kemp. “The fans were so passionate and it’s one of the reasons my career really took off. I had to do a lot of hustle things and kind of get the crowd into it” said Kemp.
Aside from winning the NBA Championship in 1979 one of the better seasons in Sonics history was in 1995-1996 when the team made it all the way to the NBA Finals only to fall to Michael Jordan and the Bulls in six games. Kemp said he never would have imagined playing in that series that in just over a decade the team would no longer play in Seattle. But he remains in touch with point guard Gary Payton and forward Detlef Schrempf, two other key pieces to the run to the finals that year, and they frequently talk about the game today and how it has evolved from when they played together.
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| dannycho.com Michael Jordan watches as Kemp throws one down in the 1996 NBA Finals. |
Though it’s been a long time since relocating, the city of Seattle continues to support the return of the Sonics, which is something Kemp realizes today as he makes his home in Seattle. “One of the reasons I’m still here is because of the close ties with the community” he said. It appears as if the community has transformed Kemp into one of their own and now he continues to fight with the rest of them for the return of basketball in Seattle.
Reid and Kemp both remain optimistic despite unsuccessful efforts from the Seattle based ownership group led by Chris Hansen and Steve Ballmer to relocate the Sacramento Kings to Seattle. “The ownership group put up close to 600 million dollars to bring basketball back. That’s how badly we want basketball back, and we put up a heck of a fight” Kemp said. Both believe that league expansion is the best hope for their city moving forward. “You’re dealing with Chris Hansen and Steve Ballmer and they don’t want to steal a team from a city like what happened to us. I guarantee you they’re telling the NBA they want expansion because they don’t want to be seen as predators” said Reid.
Given recent efforts, it seems to be only a matter of time as to when it will happen and not a question of if the Sonics will ever return and rightfully so. Lack of fan support was never among the reasons the Sonics left Seattle to begin with as a lot of it was beyond the fans control. If the Hansen-Ballmer group can get the job done, expect fans in Seattle to fill the stands like they never left.
Photo:
http://www.dannycho.com/short-shorts-and-balls-part-1/
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