Spurned Sonics fans should feel dubious despite NBA expansion crawling ahead | Dave Boling

First of all, don’t believe a single flipping word the NBA puts out there.

Wait, it was just in the news, the Sonics are coming back to Seattle, right?

Believe it when you see it, folks, not a moment before.

But the commissioner himself just touted Seattle’s great fan base.

There’s “an enormous amount of passion” for basketball in Seattle, he said.

Did it take him 18 years to realize that?

And, actually, there was a lot more before the NBA let it get choked off in 2008, when the association rudely turned its back on Seattle.

To this day, it’s hard to believe that the NBA wasn’t complicit with the Oklahoma City oil barons who stole the Sonics.

New owner Clay Bennett, himself, promised a “good faith effort” to keep the team in Seattle when he and his fellow Okies took the club off Howard Schultz’s hands.

Like dealing with many of the finer reprobates and charlatans, you’ve got to check the fine print with the NBA – like the disclaimer commissioner Adam Silver made today: “We didn’t announce today we are expanding, we announced that we’re exploring expanding.”

I couldn’t listen to Silver’s entire announcement today due to a physical reaction I had. You know, how once you eat some bad shellfish you couldn’t keep down, yeah, that gag response can stick with you for years.

I get that with Adam Silver.

Silver had been deputy commissioner to David Stern when the Sonics were sold to Bennett before the 2005-06 season.

Yeah, good faith. The Sonics plummeted from 52-30 in 2004-05, to 35-47 in 2005-06, and 31-51 in 2006-07, and then 20-62 in their final season of 2007-08.

Leading up to their final draft class in Seattle, in which Kevin Durant fell into their lap with the second overall pick, the selections had the strong whiff of a team going in the tank.

Working to devalue the product might have been a ploy engaged to turn away the team’s fans, making the thievery easier.

After the Sonics lost the home-opener that last season, Bennett announced his intention to move the franchise. Well, that will sure inspire the lads to give it their all. They went on to lose eight straight. They won only two of 16 games in January.

Even with Durant showing the full promise of a sure Hall of Famer who is now in his 18th season, the end was a sad, lingering thing, a terminal pathology that gave off a sense of futility.

I covered the final game, versus a good Dallas team.

The place was nearly full, and the crowd loud and hostile.

Some of the better signs: “Olympia, Thanks for Nothing,” “Our Town, Our Team,” and “Will the Last Sonic Fan Turn Out the Lights.”

The “Save our Sonics” chants were steady, but even louder and more steady were the profane tributes to Clay Bennett that echoed for close to the full 48 minutes of play.

The Sonics won 99-95 with the highlight, for me, being the crowd response when a spotlight was shown on Gary Payton.

Standing ovation for the beloved All-Star point guard. The biggest cheer of the night. Payton had been lobbying for the Sonics to stay in Seattle, too.

In part because the NBA owners were so concerned about elevating franchise values and extorting public moneys for arenas, the Sonics’ move was feeling almost inevitable. The deck felt stacked, and the case limped through the courts before a deal was cut.

All aspects of the episode felt slimy.

This had been a championship team under Lenny Wilkens. And more recently, that place had seen Payton and Shawn Kemp and Detlef Schrempf and the others come back from down 3-0 to the Chicago Bulls in the 1996 Finals to take two in a row from Michael Jordan’s crew in that arena.

You want passionate fans and community support, Adam Silver? Seattle was as hot as any hoop city that playoff season.

The whole state loved those guys. How could you not? Nate McMillan, Hersey Hawkins, Sam Perkins – heck Frank Brickowski could have run for governor. And probably done a better job than the one in office.

Ownership that cares will be the key. The fans are still in place. They deserve it more than any other city.

But until it actually happens, I don’t think it’s smart to trust anything the NBA tells us.