The scene that stuck out to me was where hundreds of Sonics fans gathered outside the courthouse – during the last ditch case to enforce the team’s lease with the city – to give Clay Bennett a piece of their collective mind. Bennett sneaked out the back door, and a man holding a camera sprinted around the back to catch Bennett.

The winded man with the camera yelled “Save our Sonics” to a non responsive Bennett who was safe inside the tinted windows of his SUV. The futile yelling perfectly represented the very real impotence of Sonics fans then and now.

The team was going to move. We had no say in it. It never mattered that we cared. The whole tragedy was a hard lesson in the realities of pro sports that I have still stubbornly yet to fully process.

It is hard for the part of me that loves sports to admit what the rational side of me knows: these teams are not beholden to the cities they play in. Anyone can move. The NBA and other leagues will pit cities against one another in an effort to create and exploit the best possible economic situations for themselves.

I suppose I have no theoretical problem with this. I have not read enough about economics to be totally sure, but I posit that capitalism is teh bombz. Talk to me in a decade when I have my subscription to the New Left Review, after spending terrible hours weighing Wealth of Nations against Das Kapital.

I still watch the NBA and pro sports in general for a couple of reasons. Nick Hornby wrote in Fever Pitch that people follow sports because they are a refreshing contrast to the ambiguities of, you know, reality. There is an agreed upon framework of rules in which the game is contested. There is a winner and a loser and it will be decided in a relatively short period of time. I like that. I understand it.

The other reason is explained in the documentary by Sherman Alexie. This is a rough paraphrase. Ray Allen might have been the greatest shooter in the history of basketball. Because of the Sonics, the greatest shooter of a basketball in the history of the world lived in Seattle during the prime of his career. Probably some of the greatest computer programmers in the history of the world live in Seattle as well. Probably some of the greatest designers of airplane parts. Or whatever. I can’t really relate to that. I have however shot a basketball thousands of times. I could appreciate the majesty of Ray Allen’s jumper, and it was on display for relatively cheap 41 nights a year.

As if you couldn’t tell by reading this far, I’m rambling. I guess the last thing I want to say is that the Seattle based attorney for Bennett’s group, Bradley Keller, comes across as a smug asshole. Keller basically credits the settlement of the Key Arena lease that ultimately sent the Supes to Oklahoma City to his brilliance in the trial. Keller doesn’t appear to care about the case one way or the other, just so long as everyone notices that he is awesome. Congrats dickbag. You are a real credit to your profession.

I suppose the documentary is actually worthwhile if it can inform a few people that the reason the Sonics left Seattle is a hell of a lot more complicated than the notion that the city or the people didn’t care one way or the other. We cared. It just didn’t matter.

Watch it. Hate the situation. Resolve to put yourself in a position one day to fuck over everyone who fucked us. Failing that, someone will be fucked. Fuck.

www.sonicsgate.org

I started writing this as a response to Constable’s Pac-10 preview below, where he discussed the merits of Jordan Hill over Blake Griffin.  I have decided to analyze their respective talents further by comparing their complementary big screen personas.  Let us begin…

Jordan Hill is the Predator.  He cannot be killed by conventional weaponry.  On the other hand, Blake Griffin has been called the Terminator, also difficult to kill.  Predator was killed (sort of) by Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character, Dutch, whereas Arnold himself was The Terminator.  Edge: Terminator

The Predator killed Jesse Ventura and Carl Weathers, as well as scores of other hardened commandos in the South American jungles.  The Terminator killed a bunch of Sarah Connors, other random people, and also the T-1000 and the sexy chick Terminator.  Jordan Hill has had to battle against some talented bigs in the Pac-10 like Jon Brockman, Jeff Pendergraph, Taj Gibson, and Aron Baynes (ok, some not talented).  Griffin has pretty much slaughtered a bunch of poor ladies and nobodies in the Big 12, with the occasional badass (Taj Gibson again) or sexy chick (Cole Aldrich could be a sexy lady if you are in the right mindset).  Edge: Predator, mainly for having the audacity to kill Carl Weathers.

The Predator died by blowing itself up after Dutch pinned it under some logs, but Predator was laughing menacingly until the moment it exploded.   The Terminator died in T2 by lowering himself into some molten iron and giving a totally lame thumbs-up to a sobbing John Connor.  Hill’s Arizona team will surely self-destruct in some awesome, spectacular way.  Griffin’s Oklahoma team will just go out embarrassingly in the second round of the tourney, crying with their heads covered by towels. Edge: Predator, although T2 is an incredibly awesome movie.

blog.oregonlive.com

Predator had all sorts of weapons built into it.  It had a rocket launcher, infrared vision, super hops and strength, and it was a sneaky bastard.  The Terminator was almost invincible and just basically used force and a minimal grasp of the English language to kill his enemies.  Jordan Hill is similarly equipped to the Predator.  He can beast you down on the post, slam it so hard diarrhea dribbles out of your butthole, hit the midrange J’s, or come out of nowhere and swat your weak shit into the stands.  Blake Griffin just uses his supreme athleticism to rack up huge numbers, and he also dunks so hard my balls shrink.  Sometimes though, like the Terminator, Griffin gets knocked in the head too hard and his internal systems get all fucked up.  Edge: Predator (I deducted points from Blake Griffin for having poor English skills, even though that is purely a fabrication of my mind for the sake of this analogy.)

Definitely doesn't have the sexy ladyness of Cole Aldrich.

Final Score: Predator wins 3-1.

Aubrey McClendon of the Great Sonics Heist of ’08 needs some money badly.  The Wall Street Journal reports the once-billionaire is selling his 9,000 bottle wine collection at auction.

Sotheby’s says it expects the sale to fetch at least $5 million–not much for a former billionaire, but these days every little million helps.

Even the Wall Street Journal is throwing jabs against that dickhole.  Ouch.  The comments at the end of the article are the real gem.  Here are a few highlights:

The sympathetic millionaire:

If Aubrey is selling his collection I would like to buy a bottle and return it to him. Anyone who has had the opportunity to share a bottle of wine over dinner with Aubrey, as I have, knows that he truely enjoyed sharing his wine with others. I also know Aubrey is a true gentlemen and would never relish in the downfall of another person as so many seem to be doing here.

Comment by Russ Porter – February 3, 2009 at 4:21 pm

The tasteful critic:

He may be a nice guy but the Swift Boats ads from the 2004 presidential campaign were anything but gentlemanly.

Comment by Maj-JC – February 3, 2009 at 4:49 pm

And, my personal favorite, the bitter asshole:

Too bad for the Okie, hope he goes broke and him and his lover ClayClay are forced to live in a box and drink their oil to get hammered.

Screw you Aubrey you geek with a poof’s name. Hope you and CLay get cancer of the rectum and die slow painful deaths in the poorhouse while the Supes are returned to Seattle where they belong.

Comment by Tim McVeigh – February 4, 2009 at 11:01 pm

Hotter than this??? No way.

If you would like to continue the mockery of the worst team in the NBA, go here: Benditlikebennet.blogspot.com