So, I would love to tell you that I have not posted during the finals and the draft because I was on sabatical doing awesome things. I was in Cairo digging up pieces of antiquity. I was in the Swiss Riviera soaking in the plentitude of unfettered access to European... Actually I have been a lazy shit. It happens. I haven't written because I have been on my own mental holiday, but for you, readers, I will extricate myself from the mire of irresponsibility and donate a long rambling column of weirdness on the orange underground... Elipsis will abound... Even if they are used improperly...
The Finals... Still shocked. The West is the best. The Celts played beyond their ability for the first time in entire playoffs. The slid through the ice of the East and made it out because the conference sucked, and then they played a team that admitted they weren't ready. Fuck, people called this... It was like calling the end to a David Lynch movie. You might be right, but you were lucky. Real damn lucky. No way that finals represented the best in the West... I hate it... I hate it... more elipsis...
The Draft... typical... The Bulls drafted for fit like Ron Jeremy has sex for fit with a narrow virgin. I hope you were repulsed by that joke. Here we go, might not get better from here. Derek Rose could be the Charlie Ward or T.J. Ford, not a number one overall when Beasley is on the board. Micheal Beasley had better stats than Kevin Durant. The second year in a row a perfect first overall was skipped for a stupid pick... I said it, and it has nothing to do with the fact that the gimp hasn't played a game. Beasley will reach for the sky and tear up the ground... Bad Company style... F'n A Cotton, F'n A... Beasley will be the shit. If Pat Riley had skipped him the draft I would have driven to his house and talked to him about it.
Baron Davis... Oops! Elton Brand left. He left because Stern was diverting intentions away from the tampering charges and Tim Donaghy. He had to make sure Donaghy got a stiffer sentence than Pete Rose. Baron leaving the Warriors makes life better for up and comers in the West because both teams go shittier.
Brand... Elton will bring them to the finals if Igggie re-ups. For sure.
Josh Childress left because the dollar sucks. Usually apathetic about politics, but this one hurts. When the administration fucks us by letting the next sixth man of the year leave for Europe because our currency sucks we have problems.
Andris Beidrins got similar money to Emeka Okafor... Wtf?... Thats right I just typed a text abbreviation... I hate myself... Shit... Elipsis...
The Olympics are about to start and I am wondering what is going to happen with Yao's foot and Dwayne Wade's entire body...
Ime Udoka is the next Kelenna Azibuike (I spelled that wrong)...
More from the Captain more sooner than the last time.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Thursday, July 3, 2008
How Everyone Loses
So Clay Bennett is bringing the NBA to OKC. For those of you who don’t know, well, get caught up. I’m not going to waste any time here laying out the details of how exactly the NBA team that was the Seattle Super Sonics came to be the tenants of the Ford Center in Oklahoma City. I am more concerned with laying out why this is tremendously unfair to all sides involved.
Why it sucks for Seattle:
The Sonics had been Seattle’s longest tenured team. I have, tragically, never been to Seattle, but I keep hearing that the people there love their team. This move will apparently devastate the good people of Seattle. I sympathize with them, I really do. However, the reason this really sucks is that the political and business leadership in Seattle are the people who screwed this up in the first place. The reason David Stern and the league didn’t back up the city was because they wouldn’t build a new, state-of-the-art arena for the Sonics. I’ve always thought this was a lousy thing to call a city out on, particularly if the arena they play in is still relatively new (check) and is designed for the sport (check). I understood why the Spurs wanted to build a new arena to get out of the Alamodome. The Alamodome was an arena designed for a football team (which they don’t have and weren’t going to get), and an NBA team is going to have a hard time operating in sub-standard facilities, but by all accounts (excluding David Stern) Key Arena was still in pretty good shape. So here’s what needed to happen for the Sonics to stay in Seattle:
A. The good people of Seattle need to consent to a tax hike to pay for new facilities for the Sonics. This seems reasonable from a prosperous city like Seattle. Two factors made this a little unreasonable 1. Safeco Field (opened in 1999) 2. Qwest Field (opened in 2002). That’s right folks, two other professional arenas built and completed at least two a good extent on the taxes on the locals within the last decade.
B. Have I mentioned yet that the previous owner of the Seattle Super Sonics was a guy named Howard Schultz? Oh yeah, he’s the CEO of Starbucks. So he really couldn’t foot the bill for a new arena? I mean, I guess it would’ve been unfair since the city bailed out the owners of the Seahawks and Mariners. So if Schultz wasn’t going to put up the funds for the Sonics, then obviously…
C. Hurricane Katrina should’ve been forcibly stopped by the collective will power of Ray Nagen and George W. Bush, but since they didn’t use their powers to hold back the oncoming waters of a deadly storm, the New Orleans Hornets (under supported) had to relocate for two seasons to Oklahoma City. Now a place like Oklahoma City works well for a professional franchise, and they deserve to get a team of some sort (more on this later). OKC opened up its arena and sold out a ton of games. Suddenly the NBA is viable in the land of clay and Indian casinos. This means….
D. Maybe you shouldn’t sell the franchise to investors from OKC unless you’re ok with them moving the team there. I mean this really wasn’t hard to predict was it? I don’t have any insider information, but after seeing the success of the Hornets in OKC, was it all that surprising to find out that the new owners were going to exploit the arena issues to move the team out of Seattle? Schultz said he had an agreement that Clay Bennett and the investors would do their best to keep the Sonics in Seattle. I mean, you knew what that meant right? You knew their “best” wasn’t going to be good enough, right? I mean Schultz must have some business sense, right? It’s not like he’s the CEO of a company that has locations on all four corners of every intersection in America, right?
The political and business leaders stepped in too late to try and keep the team in Seattle, but the lateness of their action makes me think that they are either 1. Incompetent (almost certainly with politicians) and/or 2. They just didn’t care that much about the team (seems highly likely). The losers on this side of the equation are definitely the good people of Seattle, but I think the fans in OKC deserve better than this as well, and that will be the subject of my next post.
-Dusty
Why it sucks for Seattle:
The Sonics had been Seattle’s longest tenured team. I have, tragically, never been to Seattle, but I keep hearing that the people there love their team. This move will apparently devastate the good people of Seattle. I sympathize with them, I really do. However, the reason this really sucks is that the political and business leadership in Seattle are the people who screwed this up in the first place. The reason David Stern and the league didn’t back up the city was because they wouldn’t build a new, state-of-the-art arena for the Sonics. I’ve always thought this was a lousy thing to call a city out on, particularly if the arena they play in is still relatively new (check) and is designed for the sport (check). I understood why the Spurs wanted to build a new arena to get out of the Alamodome. The Alamodome was an arena designed for a football team (which they don’t have and weren’t going to get), and an NBA team is going to have a hard time operating in sub-standard facilities, but by all accounts (excluding David Stern) Key Arena was still in pretty good shape. So here’s what needed to happen for the Sonics to stay in Seattle:
A. The good people of Seattle need to consent to a tax hike to pay for new facilities for the Sonics. This seems reasonable from a prosperous city like Seattle. Two factors made this a little unreasonable 1. Safeco Field (opened in 1999) 2. Qwest Field (opened in 2002). That’s right folks, two other professional arenas built and completed at least two a good extent on the taxes on the locals within the last decade.
B. Have I mentioned yet that the previous owner of the Seattle Super Sonics was a guy named Howard Schultz? Oh yeah, he’s the CEO of Starbucks. So he really couldn’t foot the bill for a new arena? I mean, I guess it would’ve been unfair since the city bailed out the owners of the Seahawks and Mariners. So if Schultz wasn’t going to put up the funds for the Sonics, then obviously…
C. Hurricane Katrina should’ve been forcibly stopped by the collective will power of Ray Nagen and George W. Bush, but since they didn’t use their powers to hold back the oncoming waters of a deadly storm, the New Orleans Hornets (under supported) had to relocate for two seasons to Oklahoma City. Now a place like Oklahoma City works well for a professional franchise, and they deserve to get a team of some sort (more on this later). OKC opened up its arena and sold out a ton of games. Suddenly the NBA is viable in the land of clay and Indian casinos. This means….
D. Maybe you shouldn’t sell the franchise to investors from OKC unless you’re ok with them moving the team there. I mean this really wasn’t hard to predict was it? I don’t have any insider information, but after seeing the success of the Hornets in OKC, was it all that surprising to find out that the new owners were going to exploit the arena issues to move the team out of Seattle? Schultz said he had an agreement that Clay Bennett and the investors would do their best to keep the Sonics in Seattle. I mean, you knew what that meant right? You knew their “best” wasn’t going to be good enough, right? I mean Schultz must have some business sense, right? It’s not like he’s the CEO of a company that has locations on all four corners of every intersection in America, right?
The political and business leaders stepped in too late to try and keep the team in Seattle, but the lateness of their action makes me think that they are either 1. Incompetent (almost certainly with politicians) and/or 2. They just didn’t care that much about the team (seems highly likely). The losers on this side of the equation are definitely the good people of Seattle, but I think the fans in OKC deserve better than this as well, and that will be the subject of my next post.
-Dusty
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