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Bittersweet Symphony
For a
brief moment,
Seattle was the center of the music world the way
Liverpool was when a certain Fab Four taught the world
to twist and shout. The grunge music scene that was
spawned in the Emerald City is now gone like its late
tragic icon Kurt Cobain.
And now
the Supersonics, a fixture in
Seattle
for four decades, are leaving the Pacific Northwest for
honky-tonk Oklahoma. In their wake, they leave behind
one NBA championship, countless memorable games, and
those personalities in green, gold and white. There was
Walt Hazzard, Freddie Brown, Lenny Wilkins, Jack Sikma,
Marvin Webster, Gus Williams, Dennis Johnson, Dale
Ellis, Tom Chambers, Gary Payton, Shawn Kemp and Xavier
McDaniel, who, aside from being one of the team’s more
famous players, made a just as memorable cameo in
Cameron Crowe’s Singles (there’s your connection
between grunge and basketball).
Linda
(to Steve while having sex): What are you thinking right
now?
Xavier
McDaniel: I just go out and just play basketball. Good
hard-nosed basketball. Things happen throughout the
course of the game; there’s nothing you can do. I’ll go
out and look for something I’ll beat this guy up. I’ll
beat that guy up
Reporter: Anything else, X?
McDaniel: Yes. Steve, don’t cum yet.
The
X-Man. He formed one of the great scoring trios of the
1980s alongside Dale Ellis and Tom Chambers, who
competed against the LA Express of Kareem, Magic and Big
Game James, the run-and-gun Dallas Mavericks of Mark
Aguirre, Rolando Blackman and Detlef Schrempf, and the
original Big Three of LarryKevinRobert.
With his
bald head and piercing eyes, McDaniel was the heir to
Maurice Lucas’s throne as league’s most fearsome
enforcer. But X wasn’t all intimidation. He definitely
got game and he didn’t lead America in scoring and
rebounding (the first player to do so) while in college
at Wichita State for nothing.
As
McDaniel departed the northwest for the East (with a
brief stopover at Phoenix), he gave way for the last two
icons in a Supersonics jersey. If
Stockton
to Malone is the staple for the pick and roll, the Glove
to the Reign Man is to the alley-oop. GP would throw it
up somewhere in the stratosphere utterly confident that
Shawn Kemp with his massive hands and insane hops would
find the ball and let gravity do the rest.
And
perhaps as one final cruel tease to Seattleites, they’ve
got arguably their latest star in Kevin Durant since Ray
Allen, Rashard Lewis and Desmond Mason departed for
other teams.
I really
thought that the NBA should have helped make the
franchise stay in Seattle because they are an
institution in the city. Ronnie, a friend of mine who
has lived in Seattle for the last decade, says the mood
of Seattleites is one anger and dismay. And his is an
impassioned plea: “Every team has its ups and downs. Do
you think that David Stern would allow the Knicks to
leave for
Connecticut?
The Sonics are a part of Seattle the way Starbucks,
Seattle’s Best and Tully’s are. They are nicknamed “the
Sonics” because of Boeing. That doesn’t cut it in
Oklahoma. Key Arena is a landmark the way Pike Market,
the Space Needle and
Puget Sound are. This is where Microsoft and Amazon.com have their
corporate headquarters. For heaven’s sake, this is the
setting for Grey’s Anatomy, iCarly and
Sleepless in Seattle! And this is the fictional
hometown of DC Comics’ Green Arrow!”
“This is
bigger than the Celtics closing down the original Boston
Garden—at least they still have a team. We’ll now be
known as Sonic-less in Seattle!” Now if that last line
doesn’t make current owner Clay Bennett have a change of
heart, nothing else will.
But the
nostalgia and history aside, it really is time to
renovate the decrepit Key Arena, the bone of contention
for the departure. But it isn’t that simple. There have
been talks about moving the new arena to the Puget Sound
area or even in suburban Renton, all of which will come
from taxpayers’ pockets. The Sonics are also said to
have no economic impact in the city and despite Durant’s
Rookie-of-the-Year play, attendance has been on the
decline. Some critics of the team say that the
basketball team’s pullout will hardly be felt.
It’s a
confluence of things that have contributed to this, and
it looks like it’s an end of an era in
Seattle.
The rain in the end will mask any tears shed for this
glorious franchise.
Setting
Suns
Could
life in the fast lane for the Phoenix Suns be over? It’s
been four years since Steve Nash rejoined his first NBA
team and, in my honest opinion, I think their window of
opportunity has closed. Last year was the biggest chance
to make it back to the NBA Finals, but they were
derailed by the suspensions of Amare Stoudemire and
Boris Diaw in Game Four of last year’s Western
semifinals. I felt that the NBA should have shown better
judgment in handling those suspensions because it
affected the outcome of the series. Yes, a rule is a
rule, but they should be interpreted in the interest of
fairness.
But I do
understand why the NBA takes a hard-line stance against
such fights, even incidents where players get off the
bench.
Stern’s
former deputy, Russ Granik, who served in that capacity
for 22 years before retiring in 2006, said, “Most of the
rules that we have governing fights and violence grew
out of the Washington-Tomjanovich incident in December
of 1977. That incident made it clear of the potential
dangers of letting men this size take full swings at one
another. There are times when we get criticized for
being too hard on those who are on the periphery of the
fight, but you have to remember that Rudy [Tomjanovich]
wasn’t in the fight when it broke out. The more people
who get involved, the more dangerous a fight becomes. We
had to take steps to keep this sort of things from
happening again.”
Not long
after Granik was quoted on this, a fight broke out when
Shaquille O’Neal snapped from the Hack-A-Shaq strategy
employed by teams when he went after the Chicago Bulls’
Brad Miller. “He lands one of those [punches—O’Neal’s
most ferocious punch missed but he landed the second],
and I feel sorry for the guy he connects with,” said
then-Bulls rookie Tyson Chandler.
But for
all intents and purposes, the sun began to set on
Phoenix after that game. They were clearly never the
same as they would later send long-time stud Shawn
Marion to Miami and disenfranchise coach Mike D’Antoni,
who claimed that he felt he never had the support of the
front office (general manager Steve Kerr and owner
Robert Sarver).
The
Suns, who have been eliminated from postseason play by
the San Antonio Spurs in four of the last five years,
have countered the triumvirate of Tim Duncan, Manu
Ginobili and Tony Parker with Nash, Stoudemire and
Marion. Aside from the obvious play in the clutch, I
always thought that it was the Spurs’ bench and Bruce
Bowen that made the difference. The Spurs’ Big Three
could all hit the outside shot; something that
Stoudemire isn’t that all proficient with and that is
one huge difference. I’ve always maintained that one’s
value in any professional hoops league is significantly
higher if you could hit the outside shot.
The
Suns, with all their trades this season—Grant Hill and
Shaq, in particular—have gotten older. I wonder if
they’ll run despite the presence of Nash, Stoudemire and
Leandro Barbosa, who was a little quiet this year.
The
window of opportunity for an NBA team is open for only a
short time then it closes shut, then it’s time once more
to rebuild. And in the Valley of the Sun, the hottest
topic is what’s next? |
