Russell Wilson Campaigns on Twitter to Bring SuperSonics Back to Seattle
Seattle's fight to bring the NBA back to the Emerald City picked up a major supporter Tuesday night, when Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson voiced his desire to see the return of the SuperSonics.
In a pair of tweets, the Super Bowl-winning signal-caller urged Seattle to push even harder for the resurrection of the Sonics:
Wilson's comments came on the heels of the Seattle City Council's rejection of entrepreneur Chris Hansen's request Monday to control part of Occidental Avenue South in order to build a new arena meant to spur the creation of an NBA expansion team or lure an existing franchise to the city, according to Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times.
Per Eric Mandel of MyNorthwest.com, 710 ESPN Seattle's Danny O'Neil believes the vote was a major setback for the hopes of an NBA return to the city:
"It's certainly a significant blow. My opinion is this was already a longshot project at this point, that they were going to land an NBA team or start building with all private money. I did not think that the likelihood of this resulting in an arena or teams was very high. At the same time I was still surprised that the decision was made in many ways by the city council to pull the plug now.
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Former Sonics announcer Kevin Calabro agreed with that assessment:
The SuperSonics were an NBA fixture from 1967 until they moved to Oklahoma City and became the Thunder in 2008.
With one championship and three trips to the NBA Finals to their credit, the Sonics enjoyed a great deal of success in Seattle.
Seattle is home to what is considered one of the NFL's most raucous fanbases, and Wilson is of the belief that an NBA franchise would cultivate a similar following.
Although Wilson is masterful on the football field when it comes to making something out of nothing, there is likely little he can do about Seattle's NBA situation until the council budges from its current stance.
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