Now what? Debriefing the Seattle Supersonics

Note: We had this post up earlier, but for some reason, Jeff's replies weren't showing up, now that problem is fixed! Enjoy!

Here is part one of a conversation that took place between my fellow blogger and I, debriefing the whole Sonics' situation, getting all the stuff that needs to get out and such. Enjoy!

Kevin: A week later as a Sonics fan, how do you feel?

Jeff: Some of the passion that I felt the first couple days after the agreement has died down, but I always got that thought looming in the back of my head that we no longer have a basketball team. I would sum up how I am feeling right now with two words; lost and hopeful. Lost because I'm not sure whether I should pull for some other team right now (OKC Sonics, Portland or Denver) or if I should give up the NBA until we get a team. Hopeful because I have a feeling that everything is set in place to get a new team within 5 years. But overall, I'm still pissed.

Kevin: Right now I feel dumb for believing that Clay was trying to keep the team in Seattle. I remember when he first bought the team he gave a press conference speech on all this bull on how basketball belongs in Seattle and such. He even had an ad in the Seattle Times professing his "effort" to keep the Sonics in Seattle. I should have read between the lines. Rich Oklahoma guys bought a team from a spoiled coffee maker in Seattle.

Jeff: Yeah, I can't really remember what I thought at the beginning of all this but I was pretty quick to pick up Bennett's lies. You could tell that something wasn't right. But when you see someone trying to get away with something that obviously isn't right, you expect the authority to clean it up and I was sure that Stern wouldn't allow this to go on in broad daylight. I'll never get over how he basically gave the middle finger to us as an entire city just to please one rich guy.

Kevin: My viewpoint on Stern has significantly changed. For a long time I've seen him as an evil villain in this process. An evil dictator that will succumb to the cash. However, I do realize that the commissioners' job is to protect his owners, even if that means protecting a lying thief like Clay Bennett. So I'm not as mad at Stern as I used to be. He's just doing his job, even if it's a bad job.

Jeff: I have to disagree with the commissioner's job being to protect the owners. His job is to protect his league. The NBA will survive perfectly fine with Bennett out of the picture. The NBA is dying in popularity and moving from large markets to smaller markets is only going to ruin it further. Stern continually acted unprofessionally by lying throughout this whole process and anybody willing to stoop that low has lost my respect.

Kevin: I agree with you that he did a crappy job with the emails and this whole process, he lied a lot. He has to realize that lying will lose the NBA fans. This was a bad year for the NBA in the eyes of basketball purists, the actual game has become secondary to many other things...

Kevin: Who's was worst in this process, David Stern or Howard Schultz?

Jeff: Well Schultz could have prevented this all from happening if he had his priorities straight, and Stern could have prevented this if he did too. If you are an owner of a basketball team you should care for your team. Putting money over the future of the basketball team was an unforgivable mistake that shouldn't have happened.

I have a feeling that he is fine financially but still he sold out our team to a group that clearly did not have intentions of keeping the team here. But who knows, maybe he was tricked and actually believed that Bennett would make a good faith effort (at which point Stern should have stepped in). So I guess there just as bad as each other.

Kevin: I'd say it's all Schultz' fault. If he was a true Seattlite he would've sold the team to a group of local owners instead. Although he would've had to take a hit financially, I think Starbucks would probably bring him a little cash..With this new lawsuit I think he just put it out to try to save his own back and not go down as part of the blame..