It was bed. Unlike anything the city has seen in over a decade. When Kevin Durant of the defending champion Golden State Warriors took to the hardwood at KeyArena in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood on October 5, 2018, you couldn’t hear the ecstatic screams. You could only hear the roar of the entire crowd, which included many Seattle luminaries, from Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson to rapper Macklemore.
Why? Because Durant came out wearing forest green before that preseason NBA game Shawn Kemp formNo. 40. After the SuperSonics left town for Oklahoma City (where they became the Thunder) in 2008, it was a reminder that the city didn’t have an NBA team.
“It was just a great moment,” Northwest native and longtime ESPN SportsCenter anchor Kenny Mayne, who was in attendance that night, told the Guardian. “The recognition of Seattle basketball and the fact that so many of us miss it.”
To this day, the city of Seattle hasn’t hosted an NBA game in 14 years — never mind the Durant/Sean Kemp jersey night in 2018. Play in town against the Sacramento Kings. Considering the Kings were inches away from moving to Seattle in the 2010s, it was a fitting contest.
In fact, the 2018 preseason was almost brutal for Seattle basketball fans. At least, if the city wasn’t so cheerful and enthusiastic, it didn’t attract the attention of the NBA. “This is a basketball town,” Durant said after the game. But Durant’s statement may surprise some. Basketball town? Seattle?
Tech City, of course. Coffee and grunge music, yes. Sir Mix A Lot and the Space Needle, of course. What about basketball? It’s New York City’s prerogative, right? Well, absolutely not.
On October 3 this year, the NBA will return to Seattle for another preseason game. It will feature the Los Angeles Clippers (owned by former Seattleite, Microsoft billionaire Steve Ballmer) and the Portland Trailblazers (the only current Pacific Northwest team) and will likely sell out. Maybe Portland star Damian Lillard will show up wearing #20 Gary Payton Sonics jersey! Either way, the locals will be excited.
The game will be played at the newly renovated 17,500-seat Climate Pledge Arena (formerly KeyArena), perfect for hoops. When the Sonics went to OKC, the controversy was that the city’s facilities weren’t modern enough. Now, as May says, “[the NBA] Of course, at this point, you can’t complain about the facilities.”
With a population of approximately 750,000 (and 4 million surrounding areas), Seattle is well positioned to support professional sports. This year the NHL expanded and brought in the Kraken. Although new to the league, the Kraken averaged 17,151 fans per home game, 14th (out of 32). Plus, after the Seahawks and the “Legion of Boom” won the Super Bowl in 2014, football feels like a religion in town. Seattle’s MLS team, the Sounders, won titles and set attendance records. The Mariners, the local Major League Baseball team, recently enjoyed a 14-game winning streak. Indeed, Seattle is also a sports town.
As rumors continue to swirl about a possible NBA expansion with Seattle and Las Vegas (like that of NBA podcaster and author Bill Simmons ), it’s worth remembering just how much of a basketball town Seattle really is. . NBA commissioner Adam Silver has put cold water on those rumors, perhaps for simple negotiating purposes, but they still persist. (Seattle has been involved in many trade rumors before.)
Today’s Seattle is one, if not an NBA town Basketball city. This reality begins primarily with the Seattle Storm of the WNBA. Thanks to hometown owners Force 10 Hoops, OKC has won four WNBA titles (2004, 2010, 2018, 2020) with legendary Sue Bird running point, a franchise inseparable with the Sonics. The team boasts three of the top 25 players in the league, according to ESPN, from Bird to Jewell Loyda to former MVP Breanna Stewart. Staff is one of them – if not the most – socially conscious in professional sports. Although Bird recently announced his retirement, his presence will be felt both in Seattle and beyond for years to come.
Along with Bird, Jamal Crawford is on the list of Seattle hoops emissaries. Crawford not only had an outstanding NBA career (and now post-career), he is an ambassador for Seattle basketball. Crawford directs The CrawsOver, an annual local pro-am that brings together local talent with local legends and even deceased Hall of Fame players. Kobe Bryant, playing games in the summer for fans. Taking over the Pro-am from another area standout, Doug Christie, Crawford helped guide the city’s best and brightest during a 20-year NBA career that included three Sixth Man of the Year Awards. Homegrown NBA stars (and CrawsOver alumni) such as Michael Porter Jr., Dejounte Murray, Isaiah Thomas, Brandon Roy and Nate Robinson are indebted to Crawford’s stewardship.
“A lot of it is home-grown, with people like Jamal throwing their fans,” says Mayne, who remembers going to Sonics games in the late ’60s and seeing visitors like Wilt Chamberlain and later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. “Part of that, with the loss of the Sonics, I think everybody took a little responsibility to put your hand up and say, ‘Look at us, we’re playing really good ball here.'”
But Crawford owes a lot to those who came before him, from Christie to 2011 NBA champion Jason Terry to the likes of the SuperSonics. Camp, Payton and Detlef Schrempf. Then, Ray Allen, Rashard Lewis and 2001 NBA Slam Dunk Contest winner Desmond Mason. Speaking of the Sonics, the team has an illustrious hoops pedigree. The NBA team, which began its first season 55 years ago in 1967, won the NBA championship in 1979 and then played in the NBA finals against Michael Jordan in 1996, losing in six tough games. Unfortunately for the locals, the team was sold in 2006 by then-owner and Starbucks co-founder Howard Schultz to Oklahoma native Clay Bennett, who moved the team to OKC in 2008. Schultz later called it one of his biggest mistakes. life
“The Sonics were my childhood,” hooper-musician Cedric Walker tells the Guardian. “Watching your childhood being transported to another city was awful.”
For Walker, 33, who was born and raised in Seattle, the Sonics were his inspiration, having been introduced to the game in elementary school by his mother, now a retired public school teacher, Gaynell. As a teenager, he starred at Summit High School. And Walker and his mom go to Sonics games during the week, sometimes sitting through nosebleeds to catch a glimpse of the Payton/Kemp era lineup. He remembers being in the playoffs against the Houston Rockets and Utah Jazz, which were “electric” crowds.
Walker recalls protests in the city as word spread of the Sonics’ possible departure, with fans hoping to keep their beloved home team. “Seattle is one of the best basketball cities in the country,” Walker says. “We just had the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft [Paolo Banchero]. We have a rich basketball history dating back to the 70s. “Even though the team no longer exists, I’m sure we have more playoff appearances than some in the league.”
Perhaps the biggest feather in Seattle’s basketball cap is its connection to the great Bill Russell, who died Sunday. The centerpiece of the original Boston Celtic dynasty, Russell boasted more championship rings than fingers (11), and after a stint as a player/coach with the C’s in the late 1960s, Russell moved to the Pacific Northwest to manage the young SuperSonics. Coach in 1973-1977. Russell, the namesake of the NBA Finals MVP trophy, lived in the area until his death.
But it’s not just professionals. In Seattle, the game’s roots go deeper than high school to college. Christie, Crawford and Murray are graduates of perennial Washington state champion Rainier Beach High School, located south of the city. Smack-dab in the center of town is Garfield High School, where Roy graduated. O’Dea High School has the No. 1 pick in the 2022 draft, Banchero (Now also the CrawsOver album).
Even well-known local musicians got into the mix. Pearl Jam originally named themselves Mookie Blaylock after the former New Jersey Nets All-Star. In 2009, Seattle’s Grammy-nominated rock band, Band of Horses, released the popular Detlef Schrempf song. Macklemore’s latest music video features Crawford and Thomas in hoops. And Grammy-winning rapper (and Garfield High School graduate) Ishmael Butler was a Division-1 baller at UMass under veteran coach John Calipari.
Perhaps given Kevin Durant’s recent trade request to get out of his obligations to the Brooklyn Nets, the “Slim Reaper” will once again be the face of the Seattle SuperSonics and rapid expansion (perhaps one day he’ll suit up for the other side. LeBron James’ leadership Vegas team he did). Now that would really get some shameless applause.