Amazing. Without a single revision, no call for updates and nary a shift in tenses from present to past, the Seattle SuperSonics' 2007-08 media guide was transformed, overnight, into a history book.
What began as a mere franchise relocation turned into a publishing miracle. What was, a few hours before, a living, breathing document for a living, breathing NBA franchise in the Pacific Northwest -- the region's oldest and the flag-planting there for major-league sports -- suddenly was encased in amber. Sealed off after 40 seasons, an artifact, a relic.
The book serves as a reminder, too, of how much of the Sonics' identity and heritage belongs to Seattle, rather than to the ownership group absconding to Oklahoma City with the NBA-sanctioned rights to assemble a team, to sell tickets and to play 82 games next season. And the season after that and the season after that, at which point the OKC crew still will trail the team's true fanbase by 37 years worth of memories.
Consider, for instance, a section smack in the middle of the book entitled "Sonics History, 1967-2007." It takes up 96 pages. The franchise's all-time records and all-time playoff records require another 52 pages. The all-time roster? That's 32 more, a running total of 180 out of 378.
None of that will belong to the Oklahoma City Whatevers when they fish the basketballs out of their carpet bags for the first day of training camp this October.
There is a 56-page section on "Sonics opponents" crammed with stats and scores and series results, all amassed between the rest of the NBA and a team based in Seattle since LBJ was wringing his hands over the Summer of Love.
The team's players, from start to finish, all had the city's name or "Sonics" or both plastered across their chests, done up in variations of green and gold and white. None of those will make the trip to Oklahoma City, either, because by an agreement that hopefully is more binding than its KeyArena lease, the nickname and the team colors still belong to Seattle.
This, admittedly, is like winning a coin flip to keep pop's urn on your mantel rather than snotty sis's after the funeral. But in the moment, it feels good. Might be the Sonics' last victory for a long time, too.
Eleven pages of the media guide are devoted to a review of '06-07, which is plenty given the club's lackluster play (31-51) on the court; the results from the most recent season were even worse, a 20-62 trudge through gloom and doom that foreshadowed Wednesday's dreary decision.
Oklahoma City, frankly, has done better in pro basketball terms in recent years but has done it with an entirely different franchise. From '05-07, it served as the New Orleans Hornets' home away from home, a proud and asterisked stretch during which the city built post-Hurricane Katrina goodwill with the NBA and staked its claim as a big-league wannabe. Still, that had nothing whatsoever to do with the Sonics.
Page 11 in the book is devoted to KeyArena, a reconfiguring of the old Coliseum that, by the time of its opening in November 1995, included $74.5 million from the city of Seattle, another $15 million to $25 million in estimated land and infrastructure values and just $20 million from the Seattle franchise itself. Some tiny type on that page proudly states that "KeyArena is the first publicly financed arena supported by earned income from the building."
That page will be replaced in the Oklahoma City edition by a seating chart, ticket prices and facts and figures about the Ford Center. In time, after a proposed $300 million public investment in refurbishing KeyArena yet again, the NBA might award an expansion team that will devote a page and update Seattle's arena history.
There are several more pages near the front of this Sonics media guide reserved for a staff directory. It features the names and smiling faces of employees who are paid only a tiny fraction of the average NBA player's salary and boast but a sliver of the average NBA owner's net worth; many of these folks own homes, raise children, have roots and thus make their lives in Seattle, so they won't be moving to Oklahoma. Their jobs and their space in the media guide will go to folks who already, or soon will, live there.
The staffers, of course, are largely unknown; the names that really pop are the ones from that all-time roster. Starting with Zaid Abdul-Aziz, an A-to-Z listing all by himself once he changed his name from Don Smith, and ending with former UCLA big man George Zidek, a participant in just 22 career minutes of Sonics history.
In between, you'll find some of the NBA's best (Spencer Haywood, Gary Payton, Dennis Johnson) and some of its baddest (John Brisker, Vernon Maxwell, Quintin Dailey). Players big (James Donaldson) and small (Dana Barros), long (Art Long) and short (Eugene Short) and Smooth (Sam Perkins) all the way to Slick (Donald Watts) played for Seattle. Its alumni boast some of the catchiest nicknames in league history: Downtown (Fred Brown), The Human Eraser (Marvin Webster), The Glove (Payton) and The Reign Man (Shawn Kemp).
There have been brushes with greatness -- Patrick Ewing, Maurice Lucas, David Thompson, Paul Westphal and, for 12 games in '78-79, a fellow named Jackie Robinson all played briefly for this team -- as well as extended stays from Jack Sikma, Lenny Wilkens, Detlef Schrempf, Tom Chambers, Gus Williams, Ray Allen and, for four seasons in the '70s as head coach, the revered Bill Russell. McDaniel, McKey & McMillan sounds like a dynamite law firm but its partners were even more dynamic on the court.
So often, the Sonics had those "instant offense" guys other clubs coveted, such as Brown, Dale Ellis, Ricky Pierce, Vinnie Johnson and Flip Murray. They also had their share of disappointing big men, such as Webster, Benoit Benjamin, Jerome James, Jim McIlvaine, Calvin Booth and the Ervin Johnson not known for his Magic.
At various times in its colorful history, this franchise has employed a Plummer (Lott), a Cooper (Joe), a Skinner (Talvin), a Mason (Desmond) and a couple of Farmers (Desmon and Jim). It had one guy who was a Boozer (Bob), another who was Sobers (Ricky) and, somewhere in between, Vin Baker. It has had, on its payroll, a Pope (David), three Kings (Chris, Reggie and Rich) and one plain old Person (Chuck). Presidentially, the Sonics have been represented by three Fords (Alphonso, Jake and Sherrell), two Kennedys (Joe and McIntosh), a Pierce, a Grant (Horace), a Wilson (George), a Hayes (Steve), a Garfield (Heard), a Jackson (Wardell) and 11 Johnsons.
Flip back a few pages in the team's guide and squint a little, and you'll swear you can see Sikma's patented reverse-pivot jump shot, Gus Williams racing out for a breakaway, Paul Silas slicing through a box-out or Lonnie Shelton going wide to grab rebounds, Brown rhythmically yo-yoing the ball as his countdown to another deep launch and Dennis Johnson down in a defensive stance, hitching up those already short shorts.
Portland beat them to an NBA title in '77 but the Sonics answered by going to consecutive Finals against Washington, beating the Bullets in '79. They were back again in '96, Payton, Kemp, Hersey Hawkins, coach George Karl and the rest running into the 72-10 Chicago Bulls team in the championship round.
It is part of Sonics lore and legend, along with 25 seasons finishing above .500, six division titles, five retired jersey numbers, the player-coach excellence of Wilkens and the "hardship case" history of Haywood -- all of it sealed off now in Seattle, dormant but at least off-limits to the organization going down like sod in Oklahoma City. That's how it worked in the NFL with Cleveland's before-and-after franchise -- let the Ravens start from scratch -- and how it should have worked with the Rams, the Colts and, in the NBA, the Lakers.
It was bad enough, back in the summer of '60, when team owner Bob Short rolled out of Minneapolis with Elgin Baylor and the newly drafted Jerry West, a two-fer that dwarfs Seattle's loss of Kevin Durant. But it was much worse when the club in sunny California, in a desperate ploy to challenge Boston's trophy case, started claiming the five NBA championships won by George Mikan, Slater Martin, Vern Mikkelsen, coach John Kundla and the others back in frigid Minnesota. Keeping the nickname, the colors, the tradition like Seattle has would have been a small consolation -- it took the NBA 28 years to award a replacement franchise to the Twin Cities, and the Timberwolves have won just two playoff series in 19 seasons -- but it would have been something.
As Will Munny said to The Schofield Kid in Unforgiven -- sort of said, anyway -- it's a hell of a thing, moving a franchise. Takes away all it's got and all it's ever gonna have.
Steve Aschburner covered the Minnesota Timberwolves and the NBA for 13 seasons for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. He has served as president or vice president of the Professional Basketball Writers Association since 2005. His new book, The Good, the Bad & the Ugly: Minnesota Twins, can be ordered here.
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