The Sports Guy on Sonics, Oklahoma
Bill Simmons, perhaps better known as The Sports Guy on ESPN.com, was recently interviewed on a Seattle sports talk radio show and weighed in on the Sonics, owner Clay Bennett and Oklahoma City. In the words of talk show host Dave “Softy” Mahler, Simmons has “been more than a friend to Sonics fans” for the work he’s done on ESPN.com, where he recently dumped tons of e-mails from distressed Sonics fans on the Web site’s pages. You can read through part one of Sonics fans letters to Simmons here and part two here.
In this radio interview, Simmons said he doesn’t like the precedent that’s being set, “where a fan base can root for a team for four decades and just have the team taken away because they don’t want to spend a couple hundred million to renovate an arena that they just renovated 13 years ago. I just think that’s scary.”
Here’s an excerpt of the interview….
DSM: What’s been frustrating is that Clayton Bennett comes here and says, ‘OK give me my $500 million Taj Mahal in Renton,’ which is just south of Seattle. He wanted to build a new arena. Any renovation of KeyArena was off the floor, off the table from the get-go. So my question has always been why is a $120 million renovation of the Ford Center OK but not the same thing here in Seattle of KeyArena in a bigger market.
BS: Because he wants to move the team. He bought the team because, I think, he’s one of the most visible people in that Oklahoma community. He’s going to be a hero if he brings the Sonics. The weird thing about his role in this whole thing is the e-mails I get from Oklahoma City people seem to be pretty torn. Like they really want an NBA team, but I don’t think a lot of the people there want a team under these like sleazy circumstances. And that part has been under-reported and I really haven’t read that anywhere. But I’m sure there’s Oklahoma fans that they’re just so happy to get an NBA team they just don’t care. But I do think there’s an element of people out there that do think this is a little sleazy and the wrong way to get it done.
DSM: The mayor of Oklahoma City was on our station last week and he talked about the fact that honestly they’d rather have the Hornets than the Sonics. But because of the Hornets situation and Katrina that’s even more sleazy than this situation, getting a team by way of a natural disaster. It’s a bad situation. What I’m worried about is the old boy’s network. Clayton Bennett’s done so much for the NBA in helping moving the Hornets and what he did for the Spurs. I mean, what if there is a package in place here that is better than the package in Oklahoma City but David Stern just goes to the old boy’s network and sneaks it through anyway?
BS: I’ve thought about that and I’ve thought that one through, and that would not jibe with any of the ways he’s run the league over the last 25 years. I do think that this situation can be salvaged. I just think you need to have somebody come up with an offer where you’re going to basically overpay for the team to get Bennett to walk away. Because if you look at it from his perspective, not only is he going to bring this team to Oklahoma but he also has Durant who is eventually going to be one of the five meal tickets in this league. I think (Durant’s) taken some unfair criticism this season. You just can’t ask for a worse situation for him to go into. He’s 19 years old. He’s playing shooting guard. He’s shooting 22 times a game. He’s playing for a coach that everybody hates. He’s got two point guards that hate each other. I just don’t think you could have thrown him into a worse situation, especially with the team moving. But I think eventually he’s a top five guy. And that’s really one of the cruel parts about this whole thing. If the Sonics leave, you guys have to watch Durant thrive somewhere else and I don’t think anybody deserves that.
-DM-
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
NBA fans in Seattle think it is great when a new city like OKC comes onto the scene and is excited to part of the league. The vast majority that contact us don’t want to take our team, they want a team that is their own. If the Sonics are ripped from Seattle OKC will have a bad reputation forever. It never goes away.
What is painful is the minority of OKC fans that want to talk smack and act thrilled about stealing the team from Seattle. They try to justify this imoral act by claiming we don’t deserve the team because we didn’t pay up. We did pay up, we built the EXACT facility that the NBA asked for 12 years ago. Now they are back for more.
OKC needs to have their eyes wide open in this deal because Clay Bennett has already said that eventually he will need a full on Events Center like he asked for in Seattle to be viable in OKC. This was just the first trip to the public well.
Back in Seattle we have one of the richest men in the country leading a group willing to keep the team here. Unlike Clay they are willing to put up HALF the money to upgrade Key Arena to the new NBA standards.
Clay wants to take your tax money, not put a nickel of his own in, ruin your national reputation AND wants you to make him your hero for doing all this.
So again, we all hope you get to be a “Big League City” but just don’t do it by stealing from someone else.
Tell your elected officials that you want your own team not one ripped from a city where the fans are fighting to the last breath to keep it. And when you do get a team, no matter where it comes from, or how you do it make sure they leave the name, colors, and history behind. At least that way you end up with a little class and won’t have to be reminded forever that you took something from someone else that wasn’t yours.
There is a reason that the segment of OKC not wanting an NBA team in such a sleezy fashion is underrreported is because the sleezballs own media distribution in OKC. No reporter from the Oklahoman is going to call the deal for what it is, especially the writer charged with covering the NBA for the Oklahoman and the dimwit Jenny Paulson is just going to say what she thinks everyone wants to hear. To even get the hint of what’s going on, a reporter for the Oklahoman has to put up dangling excerpts in place of thoughtful commentary and analysis. I don’t blame him, he’s probably got five kids to feed just like the rest of us.
~Chris
Not sure where you stand or what you mean joey now or in your first post.
i just meant people are hearing what’s happening and they can make up their own minds..
those posts were written over the course of a couple of days. also in and out of other conversations. sorry. it does look a little confusing. all im saying is darnell is biased. sometimes. and yes so am i. im also, not a professional journalist!
DARNELL IS COMING AROUND GUYS. SHOOT, HE HAS TO. HE HAS TO LIVE WITH EVERY OTHER CITY IN THE UNTIED STATES LOOKING AT HIM AND OTHER OKC CITIZENS LIKE “ARE YOU CRAZY”. LIKE “DID YOU GUYS NOT SEE THE OTHER 4 FIGHTS THE CITY OF SEATTLE HAS FOUGHT AND WON OVER SOME OTHER ENTITY TRYING TO TAKE AWY A PIECE OF THE FAMILY”. SEE YA IN JUNE DARNELL!!
MIKE U.
darnell. im proud of you! now thats journalism!