It's no surprise, but many Seattle residents are talking about the Sonics move to OK City. In my experience, there are two refrains that seem to be popular among the casual so-called Sonics fans.
1) "We'll get another team soon" -- I even heard one guy say that the NBA would be back within 2 years. His justification? Seattle is too big of a media market to be without an NBA team. Like Los Angeles with the NFL? Or Washington DC with baseball until two years ago? Would the NBA like to make sure all the major media markets are covered with teams? Probably. But will they place teams in all those markets at the expense of a bad arena deal? No way. Also, sorry to break this to you Seattelites, but we are living in the 14th media market. Not exactly a must-have. One ahead of Seattle? Tampa. No NBA team.
2) "Why would we want to pay for a team that wasn't good anyway?" -- This is the worst kind of short-sighted, fair weather comment that I have heard. Even modestly knowledgeable sports fans know that a team's performance tend to cycle. Poorly run teams have a longer trough and shorter peak, but it is cyclical. To make decisions on the long-term future of a team based on short-term performance is moronic. How quickly can fortunes change? The NBA champion Boston Celtics were the worst team in the league last year. How did they go from worst to first? Trading their stockpile of young talent for All-Star players to surround their one superstar. If only we knew of a team with young, talented superstar and a roster full of young, promising players AND a boatload of number 1 picks in the future. If only.
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You forget my favorite excuse: "I don't like professional basketball." Which is, of course, thinly veiled code for "Black people make me uncomfortable."
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