It’s been 10 years since the Seattle Supersonics played their last game at historic KeyArena. Ten years since the team was sold to Oklahoma energy tycoon Clay Bennett and quietly shuffled out of town in the dead of night to be reborn as the Oklahoma City Thunder. And 10 years since then-NBA commissioner David Stern told Seattle fans not to fret because they could always just root for the Portland Trail Blazers or watch out-of-market games on NBA League Pass.
Over the past decade, basketball fans in Seattle have waited for the league to bring another franchise to town. Unfortunately, commissioner Adam Silver has met those fans with a level of ambivalence similar to that of his predecessor. But Friday night’s preseason exhibition between the Golden State Warriors and Sacramento Kings in Seattle offered some fans a much-needed glimmer of hope.
A sellout crowd of 17,074 piled into the 56-year-old building on a fittingly wet and dreary fall evening to watch the first NBA game of any kind played in the city since 2008. Some came adorned in the blue and gold colors of the “home” Warriors, a favorite among Seattle basketball fans thanks both to the number of Bay Area transplants who now call the city home and to the fact that Golden State star Kevin Durant is the most noteworthy former-Sonic still playing in the league. Many more arrived wearing green and gold, a silent demonstration of their desire to bring basketball back to Seattle.
“So many people know what the Sonics culture is, and I think that’s something the NBA can’t ignore." — KEVIN DURANT
The game was organized by Warriors president Rick Welts, a Seattle native and former Sonics ballboy, and was headlined by Durant, who has maintained a relationship with the city since following the franchise to Oklahoma City after playing his rookie year with the team during their farewell season. Although he was just a teenager then, the city and the fanbase made a lasting impact upon him, and vice versa.
Anyone who was in the building or watching at home on ESPN could feel the love the crowd had for the former No. 2 overall pick. When a beaming Durant stepped out onto the floor for pregame warmups about an hour before tip-off, fans huddled around the player tunnel jockeyed for position to get his autograph and offer words of encouragement. Sam Strader, a 26-year-old Sonics fan since birth, could hardly contain his excitement. He was able to attract the attention of the nine-time All-Star and snap a quick selfie with him, gloating immediately afterwards to anyone around him who would listen.
“I’ve been a Sonics fan since the early days, Shawn Kemp and Gary Payton,” said Strader, who grew up in nearby Puyallup and was 4 years old when the Kemp-Payton team reached the NBA Finals in 1996. Like many Sonics fans, he now mainly roots for Durant and against the Thunder. “The greatest day in the NBA—until we get the Sonics back—was KD leaving Oklahoma City and going to Golden State to win back-to-back titles and hopefully a three-peat. When Durant left, that was the karma Clay Bennett deserved for taking our team from us.”
Welcomed into the league in 1967, the Sonics spent 41 seasons in Seattle. Durant experienced the passion of the fanbase and the history of the franchise firsthand, and after Friday's game he spoke bluntly about the need for pro basketball in the city.
“So many people know what the Sonics culture is, and I think that’s something the NBA can’t ignore,” said Durant, who addressed the crowd before tip-off sporting a throwback Shawn Kemp jersey and a pair of green and gold KD 11s. In his voice was a tinge of hope, but the tone he struck was more of exasperation with the decade-long saga surrounding the fight to bring back the Sonics. “I think tonight was kind of the cherry on top, as far as saying, ‘We deserve a team here,’ and they need to bring ‘em back, man. We’ll keep saying it until it happens. All of us in here, everyone in that arena, every NBA player knows it, so hopefully the NBA does what it’s supposed to do.”
On paper, Seattle would seem to be an obvious place for the NBA to call home again. It’s the 14th largest media market in the league and the biggest in the US without a pro basketball team. The city is flush with money thanks to the growth of local behemoths Amazon, Microsoft, Starbucks, and other Fortune 500 companies. And the region is a hotbed for basketball, boasting 10 players from the greater Seattle area who suited up in the league just last season—like Jamal Crawford and Isaiah Thomas—with many more currently in the pipeline.
But the predicament of bringing pro basketball back to Seattle has always been twofold. First, there is the fact that NBA owners rarely put their teams up for sale. When they do, relocation often isn’t an option due to arena lease terms and the league’s aversion to moving teams except as a last resort. Second, there is the fact that to this point Seattle’s arena situation had not improved since the team left in 2008, in large part as a result of KeyArena’s lack of modern amenities and relatively low seating capacity. But the city is hoping to change that.
Last month, the Seattle City Council unanimously approved a $700 million project to largely demolish KeyArena, dig down 15 feet to expand its footprint, and build a state-of-the-art arena below the iconic sloped roof that will be preserved from the original building. The rebuild is expected to be completed by fall of 2020 and will be entirely financed by Los Angeles-based Oak View Group, headed by longtime NBA and NHL executive Tim Leiweke.
"I think tonight was kind of the cherry on top, as far as saying, ‘We deserve a team here,’ and they need to bring ‘em back, man. We’ll keep saying it until it happens. All of us in here, everyone in that arena, every NBA player knows it, so hopefully the NBA does what it’s supposed to do.” — Durant
The NHL, a league that currently hosts an odd number of teams after expanding to 31 clubs with the addition of the Las Vegas Golden Knights in 2017, hasn’t been shy about its efforts to bring a franchise to Seattle. OVG and the city of Seattle submitted an expansion request to the NHL earlier this year, and unless there is an unforeseen setback the city should be officially awarded a franchise before year’s end. From the beginning, Leiweke has stressed an NHL-first, NBA-second approach with regard to attracting tenants at the New Arena at Seattle Center, the working title for the new building.
On Friday morning, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst threw some cold water on the hopes of Sonics fans excited by the recent progress. He reported that the NBA remains cool on expansion until at least 2025 and that relocation before then may be a long shot as well. However, he did identify the Memphis Grizzlies as one quiet contender for relocation in the future. He also reported concerns shared with him by several ownership sources across the league about the new arena’s financial viability, given the fact that any team would have to share the arena with a future NHL club, the WNBA’s Seattle Storm, and dozens of concerts and events each year. Windhorst said some even believe that a second, NBA-focused arena may need to be built in order to appease the league to approve a new franchise. Leiweke was quick to shoot down Windhorst’s report during an interview with Seattle’s Sports Radio 950 KJR before the game.
“Trust us, we’re going to get [Seattle] to the right place,” Leiweke said, referring to past reporting by Windhorst that sang a similar tune. “Just trust us, and ignore people like that.”
Trust is something many Sonics fans are short on these days, and for good reason. The local government is infamous for its plodding pace when it comes to progress on large-scale projects, a phenomenon referred to as the “Seattle Process.” The last decade has been fraught with political battles over whether or not to build a new arena without a guarantee of a new team from the NBA or the NHL, if KeyArena should be rebuilt or if a new arena should be built elsewhere, and how to fund whatever project was eventually selected. Over those years Seattle has lost valuable time, and while the city came close to luring the Sacramento Kings to town in 2013, no other realistic opportunities have arisen in the five years since.
Friday’s game marked the final event at KeyArena before the two-year rebuilding process begins. Throughout lulls in the action, fans loudly chanted “SUPER…SONICS” and “We Got Next,” the slogan emblazoned on green and gold signs given to fans outside the arena by a local merchandiser. And after the final buzzer, hundreds of those same fans milled around the lower bowl. Some lined up near the player tunnel in the hopes of snagging autographs, but many others appeared to be waiting for something else, perhaps reassurance that things were going to work out one day, hopefully soon. After a while, they too packed up and left the arena, leaving with no greater degree of closure than they’d entered.
