tha supes

Un-****ing-believable. Bennett better be scared for his life, I know there's probably many fans like me who are pissed off to no end. This trade actually WOULD have made sense had we drafted Yi. He would have brought enough popularity/money to maybe bring a new arena given we are a pretty big asian market. But no, we picked Jeff Green. We are gone. Screw Bennett and all his lies. And so much for Presti being a good GM. **** man this is one bad dream.

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Looking for the end of the Championship drought: Seattle Seahawks (Never,Formed 1976), Seattle Mariners (Never,Formed 1977) -- 63 composite seasons since last championship.]

Marcus13

Horrible decision making. Unbelievable

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eymang

Yeah not taking Yi at 5 seems like a big signal that the Sonics are going elsewhere

Chan

What the hell? This is a developing situation, right?

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Hold on a sec, sweetie.

McGEEZEY

We can only hope and pray.

soonerterp

I know you guys don't want to hear this, but I live in Oklahoma and don't want the Sonics here. I implore you to know that not all of us in the Sooner State look at Clay Bennett as some kind of hero. In fact the way Bennett's coming off, he's damn near making Dick Cheney look like a saint.

I was afraid that when he bought the franchise, he bought it with designs of poisoning the market and moving the team to Oklahoma City. And I sincerely apologize because I don't believe that's the right way to do things, even if it is "business," and that's certainly not the way some of us want a permanent NBA team here ... because believe me, we'd LOVE to have a team. Just not yours. The Sonics have a fanbase that gives a damn, unlike *some* franchises, and I wish he had bought one of those instead of yours if he just *had* to go and buy an NBA team.

If Oklahoma City cannot have an NBA team that is truly its own with the opportunity to write its own history and have its own identity (as opposed to ripping it from another city), then I'd rather not have a team at all. Expand the league to accommodate Oklahoma City the way the league accommodated Charlotte after George Shinn screwed them out there? Forget it. Some could even argue that as it is, the NBA might be diluted because there are too many teams.

I also find it more than a little offputting that Bennett and his fellows in the Sonics ownership group donate to political/social causes that I (and an increasing number of Oklahomans) do NOT approve of ... and of course because Bennett talks with his wallet on such things (and the newspaper on which his wife is a member of the Board of Directors has the same slant), it's assumed we all feel this way. That's not true either, and that bothers me a little bit more because attitudes like that have helped keep Oklahoma an unattractive destination for individuals who don't buy into the Bible-belt mentality, let alone a difficult place to live for those of us like that who are already there, and try to work to change it. OK is actually a pretty nice place to live, but there's always room for improvement and that can be interpreted in many ways.

That's my piece. You can have your thread back now.

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Blog be here

Zuca

If Sonics don't move to OK, I think that Kansas City would love to have them.

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Thrilled to reach the 2900th post! Coming with a lot more of great trade ideas (the most beloved ones in this board), you can expect that!
Thanks to all members of this site, you guys are great.

hogey11

As a long time Grizzlies fan, I can definately relate to what is going on.

What sucks is that although the earlier poster is correct, the fact that the fans have bought into the team means very little when an owner wants to move it. Memphis has still yet to beat Vancouver's attendance and season ticket numbers in any season that they've had, and yet our team was taken away due to "fan and corporate disinterest". Well guess what? Vancouver had over 100 corporate sponsors lined up to work with Mr. Heisley but he never called them back. "They didn't need corporate sponsorship", they said. ARGH!

Anyways, we here in Vancouver put a lot into that terrible team. We loved them, even in spite of the endless losses and incompetant front office. Yet, they were still taken away from us, and now we can only relish their delivery back into the cellar of the league.

I hate Michael Heisley.

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Suddenly, Hogey's own creation, a hideous creature nine feet tall and bearing the heads of the Brady Bunch, turns against him.

Chan

I see your point, soonerterp. It's one thing to move a relatively new franchise, or a franchise without a spectauclar history (such as the Minneapolis Lakers, NO Jazz). But once you have 40 years worth of history in a team, neither sides would want it.

I could see the OK population accepting a team like the Bobcats, but any other team with a rich history will kina alienate the locals. It's like "we have a lot of history, and you guys all missed out on it, but now we starting with you guys".

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Hold on a sec, sweetie.

Dissonance19

Can't Stern block a move? I thought he said something about them not going anywhere.

G-Force

Clay Bennet can just bide his time until next October and then make a formal request to move the team, but that does not mean that Stern and "the board of governors" or whatever they are called will automatically grant that request.

Chan