NBA Thoughts: Hopeless In Seattle
Anticipation. Excitement. Hope.
These are just a few words that describe the feelings and emotions of sports fans as the dawn of a new season approaches. For the dearly devoted, the beginning of a new season is the start of a new day. It's a chance for our favorite franchises to wipe the slate clean and look toward a bright and shining future.
Even if our team is a talent-less bunch of overpaid, prima donnas, we can still enjoy the early days of a fresh campaign by deluding ourselves into believing a magical string of events (a new coach, trades, unexpected player development, etc.) will change the course of our woebegone ball club and finally make them a winner.
It's this kind of unbridled hope and enthusiasm that has New York Knicks fans all aflutter as they look forward to a future that doesn’t involve Isiah Thomas running the front office.
However, the mood is a little more somber in the Pacific Northwest. As the 2008-2009 NBA season tips-off, there is no anticipation in the city of Seattle. There is no excitement. And there certainly is no hope.
There is sadness. There is anger. There is despair.
Because Seattle is a city filled with Supersonic fans for whom the beginning of this NBA season is an obscene reminder that the last four months were not a horrible dream, but a unfortunate reality. Their beloved team of 41 seasons, the only major league sports franchise in the region to win a championship, is now gone; stolen in one of the all-time muggings, the likes of which only Cleveland and Baltimore football fans can truly and painfully understand.
The time to place blame has passed. And there's no shortage of scoundrels to pin this travesty on. Instead, as Oklahoma City opens its doors to professional basketball and looks forward to watching Kevin Durant's bright future unfold, it's time to remember.
Time to remember a franchise that once was. Time to remember the fans that were left behind. And time to remember that this is now the nature of professional sports (particularly in David Stern's NBA) and this kind of injustice will most certainly happen again.
For the NBA fans in Charlotte, New Orleans, Memphis, and Sacramento, enjoy the anticipation, excitement and hope while they last. Something tells me one of these cities will soon know Seattle's pain.
