Collison Confronts Jim Traber
In case you missed it on The Sports Animal today, host Jim Traber’s mission to run Nick Collison out of town hit a climax when Collison called into the station and had a 17-minute conversation with Traber.
For those that don’t know, The Oklahoman’s Jenni Carlson wrote a column Monday about how Collison is using the social networking site Twitter to show his personality, which includes his fondness for the city of Seattle.
Traber took exception to Collison’s tweets and his alleged shots at Oklahoma City and has declared war on the Thunder’s power forward ever since. What transpired today turned into truly unbelievable radio, combining comedy, shock value and downright good entertainment. What makes it so interesting is that neither Traber nor Collison is joking. It would be one thing if this were staged, a big act to drive ratings. But these two are genuinely going at it, airing out their differences for thousands to hear.
The first 15 seconds alone had me in stitches.
Traber: “Craig, we have a guest on the line. You know who it is?”
Craig Humphries: “I was told during the break that Nick Collison might be calling in.”
Traber: “That’s exactly right. Live from I’m sure up in Seattle right now it’s Nick Collison. Nick, I’m Jim Traber (with) Craig Humphries. What are you doing?”
Collison: “Hey Jim, what’s up? I heard you’re trying to run me out of town. What’s the deal?”
Other highlights include:
- Collison’s admitting his hatred for the word, “Tweet.”
- Collison claiming he’s “the sweatiest dude in the league,” which has actually been confirmed by at least one opposing player.
- Traber getting personal by calling out Collison for how much he makes every two weeks.
- Collison calling this ownership group and management the most dedicated to winning of any he’s every played for. (He points out he’s played for five head coaches, two GMs and two ownership groups, all with Seattle/Oklahoma City since he joined the league in 2003.)
- Collison asking Traber if he can stay at his place when he returns for the season since his lease is up.
Listen to the rest yourself by clicking on the link above.
-DM-
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Comments
Jim Traber said what I wish I could have said to Nick Collison for over a year. He has been the one player that has seemed to not have accepted the move from Seattle. I think NC is a good player BUT if he or any player does not want to play for my team in my city then good riddance. No one begrudges a person for wanting to or liking where they live, but, the fans of the Thunder are the best and deserve players that want to represent them and their city wholeheartedly while they are here. Thanks Trab
Traber’s a joke. Like I’ve said elsewhere, we’re a major league city with minor league sports radio. You would think the “radio home of the Thunder” might actually have people who follow basketball, but I guess that’s asking too much.
Nick Collison is one of the great guys in the NBA with the best attitude. He is the highest paid player on the current OKC roster, Bennett will trade him as soon as possible.
Don’t worry OKC fans, Collison will be gone soon. . .
The proverbial smoking gun in this whole fiasco is DM’s coworker scraping the bottom of the barrel of sports dry fishing season and ending up with a boot of a column. I’ve received better prose on Christmas mailers from extended family and they usually come with cookies. Does the person who threw the red meat in front of the aging lion (traber) deserve no blame? 
Nick was great as always.
I am proud of Collison for not laughing during the conversation. Berry Tramel couldn’t hold it in afterwards. Traber needs to drop this quick because each passing day he brings it up makes him look more clueless
Job well done Mr. Collison
What I appreciate about the conversation, along with what others have already mentioned (comedic moments, shock value, sincere live conversation), was Traber giving legitmate responses to Seattle’s longtime, “41-year tradition” of basketball argument and to many of the Seattle media personalities who continue to degrade Oklahoma City. Nick gets a lot of credence for calling in to Traber’s show. This specific issue was blown out of proportion as far as Traber wanting to run Nick out of town. Maybe Nick wasn’t sensitive enough about his comments on Twitter, but I don’t believe you should try to kill mosquitoes with a bazooka. What did transpire was a great on-air resolution that listeners could appreciate.
Traber and the rest of the afternoon morons including Hammel and AL should stick to what they know best and love.”OU football” and get out of the talk of the NBA. They are truely clueless. The NBA is a bussiness and it will take some people that done fall in love with OKC to win here and thats the bussiness of the NBA. DM the sports animal should give you a show so that the people that want to talk NBA have a place to do that. And finally we all have some complaint no matter how big or small it is about where we work, Go Nick and the Thunder to a great start to a new season.
Before I heard the Jim Traber/Nick Collison clip, I side with Traber. I said if Collison makes millions of fans watching him play basketball, he should keep a lid on dissing that fans in question. But after I listened, I lean towards Collison. I believe the only thing he said about downgrading OKC is the weather is too hot in the summer, and it is (even though OKC is the most northern city I live in–I was born and lived as a child in Corpus Christi, TX). Now, Collison is not as passionate as Kevin Durant in playing with the Thunder, but I guess I will pass on that.
traber is one of the many reasons i don’t listen to the radio here at all. i am glad traber pointed out that he is not from oklahoma, that’s a relief…
…and one more thing, it is hot here, and the heat (among other things) sucks! now, run me out of town, beeyotch!
Wow, Nick displayed an immense amount of restraint and class. Geez Traber; are you that hard up for journalism? Surely we can find something to talk about besides someones observation about our weather here in Oklahoma. If you still train, 105 in Oklahoma is tough. By training in 105 degree weather; I don’t mean sitting on your arse, biggin’, in a golf cart and claiming a Callaway Warbird when you hit a Titleist NXT off the box…
Seee Yaahh-
Jim Traber is a fathead and a bully. I no longer listen to the Sports Animal in the afternoon, because I can’t stand listening to his self-serving garbage.
Congrats to Nick Collison!
Nick should be traded from that franchise. He doesn’t want to be there, obviously. He bemoaned the fact in the summer of 2008 of having to relocate to OKC. So, he should be traded closer to his beloved home of Seattle. Like Portland, or Golden State. Or Sacramento. Just get out of Dodge. Hope he does, especially to Portland. This from a former Sonics fan. And no disrespect to the good ppl of OKC, but Bennett the thief can kiss my behind for what he did to us Sonics fans up here. Real Shi%^y! You don’t relocate a 41 year old institution. Should have bought some other franchise, or waited until one was availible. OKC is where in the media market? Seattle is the 14th largest American city. That says it all……..
If the Thunder trades Collison for either Przybilla or Oden (from Portland), I can deal with that (as well as Collison).
Actually Richard, what says it all is that Seattle could’t keep their NBA team, didn’t choose to do what it took. Oklahoma City citizens and politcians, otoh, welcomed them.
I applaud Nick for calling in and having fun with the do*che bag Traber.
To be honest, I can you fault Nick for liking the weather better in Seattle? He just stated his opinion… it isn’t meant to kill anyone. I mean he played only a few hours away in Kansas. It isn’t like he has anything against the people or anything.
Traber can run Collison off all he wants, but in the process the Thunder would be losing a good player and very good human being.
I don’t think Collison said anything bad. If you were going to the same school for years and then you had to switch, you’d be upset. But then you make new friends and get used to it. Same here. But he’s got new fans and friends and he knows OK is great. He can like Seattle for as long as he wants and say good things about it. Doesn’t mean he is dissing Oklahoma. Traber is just a jackass that gets off on making a big deal out of nothing. I was born and raised in Oklahoma and love my hometown and homestate, but I still think 105 degree weather sucks….:)
Not only did he go to college in Lawrence, he still owns a house there and spends a lot of the off-season there and was born and raised in Iowa. He has nothing against the plains, just prefers Seattle in the winter. Can you really blame him?
You know how you are listening to OKC radio? Traber spewing nonsense and the slot machine jackpots in the background. God I miss Oklahoma.
The real blame is on Jenni Carlson. It was her article that started the mess. This is the third article of nonsense this year from her. The 2 about Tulsa where nothing more than a slam on a city that has grown by leaps and bounds. When it should have been about wanting to see a city grow in the world of sports and how OKC can help them. Her like alot of writers and radio people in this town (except DM) dont have a clue about the bussiness that is the NBA machine. This is not college, this is not OU or OSU. This isn’t an article about a young man or kid. It was about a professional and I support Nick for what he did.
This is Traber’s deal. He calls out Collison and when someone calls him out he gets defensive. I like when he makes an ass of himself. on live radio. How many times a day does he talk about when he was in the major leagues. I will continue to listen to him because he’s just too damn funny.
There are so many good things happening with the Thunder this off season and Jim picks this to talk about. Just shows his ego is more important to him than the Thunder team and fans. If he truly believes in Oklahoma sports as much as he says he does it’s time for him to but the mic down and walk away. But I’m sorry to say I believe his ego is to big for him to do this. I hope he proves me wrong.
I wonder if Traber will start ripping Russell Westbrook or James Harden if they choose to live in SoCal in the off-season? Which they probably will. Why? Because they are from there, probably will have homes there and the weather is really nice there during the summer! That has absolutely nothing to do with wanting to play NBA basketball in OKC, or any other city for that matter. This Collison thing is just insecurity and anti-Seattle bitterness on the part of Traber and flat out stupid.
All the anti-OKC rhetoric coming out of Seattle was stupid too but it was predictable and no doubt would have came of any other city that lost their team to OKC.
Traber sounds like the loudmouth punk at the bar you want to walk over and punch out. What a total idiot. Whoever thought that the Sonics moving to OKC was some kind of civic victory? It was a simple business decision and Nick is an employee…does he need to sign a loyalty oath? He plays basketball you insecure nut jobs. What do you want?
They are all mercenaries in the end. You show your naivete of professional sports by expecting something else…stick with college sports.
Traber is exactly what Seattle folks want to believe all Oklahoma fans are like. What an ass, of course he probably spiked his ratings.
As far as Seattle basketball, the team supported the team for 41 years. It’s not like the league, or the owner did Seattle any favors being there. The City as well as the fans made a boatload of money for the previous owners. The fans are customers.
Once the team was sold to the OKC ownership, the writing was on the wall that the team was going to leave. The asked for a $500 million dollar arena to be built and paid for by the government and never agreed to pay any portion of that amount. It was an absurd request.
The Seattle politicians got into a pissing contest with God( David Stern). That’s all she wrote.
Blaming the fans in Seattle for the team leaving is just not true. The ownership ran the product into the ground. This was all about what Clayton Bennett as well as David Stern’s ego with the Seattle politicians.
On a side note, the mayor of Seattle who many blame for this, is currently running third in the primary
To Chris @ 8:40 a.m.:
By “legitmate (sic.) responses” you mean making up bogus statements about 4,000 to 5,000 fans showing up to games, and repeating it again and again, as if that would make it true?
The fans of Seattle got hosed by the NBA, Howard Schultz, Clay Bennett and the politicians.
Bennett wanted the team in OKC. I have no problem with that. The charade he posed in Seattle was a joke though. At the end of the day, we’ll see if OKC can support the franchise. If not, you’ll get to see up close and personally how generous Mr Bennett really is.
Time will tell if the Thunder are successful in OKC. At this pace the continued bad feelings toward Clay Bennett and OKC will achieve nothing. It’s time for the Seattle fans to go to work on their state leaders to do what it takes for them to get another Sonics team. Plus if you get another team the rivalry between the Sonics and the Thunder would be classic. Think Yankees/Red Sox. Zero love lose between those two teams. Now if that isn’t motivation to get a new team I don’t know what is. Maybe someone would try to but a Durant jersey somewhere in your new arena.
Jim Traber is an idiot and I couldn’t even listen to that whole audio clip because I was getting dumber.
Been listening to Jim for years, and enjoying it most of the time. One thing I’ve noticed about Jim is that sometimes he speaks before he knows the whole story, makes up his mind about how he feels and THAT”S IT. “He’s done!!!”
At least his whole world doesn’t consist of Sooner this and Sooner that. That is why I listen to him. All Al is concerned about is OU football/basketball. There’s so much more to life than football and basketball, gentlemen!! Try a little OU or UCO hockey this fall and winter boys. Get outa da box!!!!Live a little!!!
Jim did it for the ratings, just as he is currently attacking the guy from Seattle right now. He even commented that he has more listeners now than before, has has more people listening across the nation.
I grew up in Kansas City, went to school in Lawrence.
I think Seattle is one of the best places I have visited.
If the stars lined up, I would move there in a second.
That opinion doesn’t make me like KC or Lawrence less…..nor do I dislike Dallas, where I live now.
Oh, Nick Collison is about as good a person as any team could hope for. He works hard, he hustles, and he is humble.
It says a lot about your frnachise to keep a guy like that around.
Both Jenni and Jim Traber are equally guilty of fueling the Nick Collison “controversy”. But Ms. Carlson first needs to clarify what looks like a ridiculous statement: “The… Thunder front office loves it too”. Come again? How could the Thunder ownership and management love that Collison raves about his off-season home in Seattle, where the frnachise was relocated from, and pretty much rips his employers’ hometown?
What am I missing? There is nothing positive in Collison’s comments about OKC, it’s people, fans or (certainly) weather.
I missed the radio exchange between Collison and Traber, so possibly Collison threw OKC some boquets, but unless he did, a general apology would be in order to at least make it seem like he cares about his new place of employment.
Thunder ownership probably would rather not comment at all, hoping the apparent lack of discretion on Collison’s part just fades away. But, in general pro athletes on any team need to exercise caution in their public comments/postings. Or else these words could come back to haunt them.
Is this Traber guy serious? What a jerk. Who doesn’t think 105 degrees is hot? It was 103 a couple weeks ago here in Seattle and Nick would have said the exact same thing. Big deal. I’ve never heard of someone being so butt-hurt over something so insignificant. It’s pretty pathetic that Traber is begging Nick to get OKC some compliments. Traber sounds like a high-maintenance teenage girl you’d see on MTV. What a drama queen! And no, the fans did not give up on the Sonics. We’re just smarter than to fill the pockets of scum bags who were doing nothing but lying to us. They wanted a $500 million palace in a Seattle suburb. The Mariners’ Safeco Field located just outside of downtown with a retractable roof and 45,000 capacity didn’t even cost that much, neither did 67,000 seat Qwest Field right next door, which includes an events center. Like Nick said the writing was on the wall, so hell no we’re not going to support that BS.
I Love Nick Collison! I love the Thunder! I want to be clear on that one. Nick is the only player who was/ is dissapointed the Sonics left Seattle. Me two. Still am. But the people in OKC are not to blame. Jim Traber doesn’t listen to Nick and is a real jerk. Nick said nothing negative about OKC, but Jim still insist he did! What a jerk…
Like Nick said, this thing is taken out of porpotion!
I hope that in the future, the ThunderSonics will return to Seattle. We still believe!
Go SuperThunderSonics!
[...] an Oklahoma City sports talk radio guy now and has made blog headlines lately for minor beef with Nick Collison and Bill Simmons, which inadvertently led me to this clip of him charging (and charging and [...]
if anyone has a reliable link to this interview i would like to hear it. from what i can tell, collison needs to use some common sense, when deciding to twitter. while he may not have actually bad-mouthed OKC, saying you wish the team was still in seattle certainly isn’t a loving review of OKC. traber may be a loud mouth, and he may have got some of this wrong, but he got some of it right. can’t believe people are trying to defend a spoiled millionaire player complaing about where he has to play to get those millions. you give me that much money, i will play basketball in the sahara in a f’n snow suit, or hockey in antartica in a speedo. shut up and do your job. to the fans in seattle, stop your bitchin’, its done andover, the sonics are gone. bashing OKC because of the owners decision is asinine. as far as no one moves a 41 yr old organization, how old were the expos when then were moved to washington, not much under 40. where were the local owners when the sonics went up for sale, no where! this whole thing, all of it, collison, traber, and fans on both sides, is nothing but a kindergarten playground pissing contest. grow up, its a bussiness, teams have moved out on cities in all 4 north american sports leagues, for a variety of reasons. basketball fans in seattle now know, what hockey fans in winnipeg and quebec city feel like.
Traber is of course a lying hack (maybe related to Bennett?)
He asks Collison (over and over) – “Did you love playing in front of 4 or 5 thousand people?”
A few inconvenient facts for the traber the jackass:
Seattle Sonics at Key Arena (17,064 capacity):
2003-04 15,255 91.6%
2004-05 16,475 96.5%
2005-06 16,198 94.9%
2006-07 15,955 93.5%
2007-08 13,355 78.2% – (lame duck season)
Oklahoma City at Ford Center (19,136 capacity):
2008-09 18,693 97.7%
Those numbers are sold tickets, not attendance. Sold ticket numbers are way higher than attendance.
Seatle ranked 25 out of 30 on sold tickets alone in 2007. With a much lower attendence putting them in the bottom 2.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/attendance?year=2007
Kent – It seems you’re willing to use 2007, the lame duck season, to make a point regarding a 41 year franchise.
Question: Are you going on record as agreeing with Traber’s comment about 4 or 5 thousand fans?
I ask because the only point I was really trying to make was that Traber is a liar, just as Bennett is. I’m from Seattle and I’ve been to OKC. Liked the area and people I meet couldn’t have been nicer, but these two (Traber/Bennett) image-wise do your city a huge disservice.
Jim spent most of his time in the minor leagues and still approaches sports radio the same way. He’s a great AAAA entertainer but not big league. This time it was too weird–as Jim came across a combination of his usual bullying self with a big dose of chamber of commerce cheerleader. I’ve taken Jim’s advice about what to do when you disagree with him…click. Now..please send me an Arbitron.
You guys listen to Traber and give him the ratings, otherwise he’d be a goner. You get what you deserve.
Thank you to all that support Nick. My god how odd can some people be that think what he said is a knock to Oklahoma.IT IS HOT.He prefers the more mild climate. Who cares.He loves playing for Oklahoma. You should support a player of this caliber. He will do your team well.
what is jim traber’s problem? was he on crack when he hosted this show? don’t listen to him nick. he’s just jealous because you’re awesome!!!!
Seattle Sonic FANS never gave up on the team, and never stopped supporting the team. I’m not sure why his moron thinks Seattle was supposed to pony up $500 million in public funds to meet Bennett’s demand for a new stadium, when we had already publically unded a renovation of our arena 10 years earlier. Seattle fans were not idiots and were not going to come out in droves to support a team whose ownership made clear had no intention of staying in the area. Fans had no power to stop the move and have been the victims in the whole thing. It hurts to hear uninformed idiots like this guy who keeps insisting the Sonic fans sealed the team’s fate. Its as far from the truth as possible.
This radio show host is a fool. When the team that was already not getting anywhere near the playoffs gets bought by a ownership group for Oklahoma City, that in the past, has said his goal was to bring a NBA team to OKC what do you think the fans, other then the 10,000 or so hardcore ones, are going to do? Spend money on a bad team that is owned bt someone who ultimately wanted to and did move the team. The ownership kept the players from the media, changed the radio channels to a unknown and dropped all advertising in the city in the years they owned the team in Seattle. They destroyed the fan base that had been there for 41 years. Dirty trick by a dirty man! OKC is a great place im sure. But this guy is way off saying Seattle didnt support the team!
This DJ is just taking shots to get ratings. Even if he loves that city, Nick didn’t say anything negative about OKC. He can love Seattle as does most of the world. It’s been in the top 20 best places to live forever now. A guy works for a team that he likes to play for. The team is located in Oklahoma City. He likes to live in Seattle and respected the franchise in Seattle and wished that it didn’t lose their history. He also loves the fan support in OKC. A guy can feel both of those things. It’s not limited to one or the other. And the fact that a drop in attendance for 3 years in comparison to 41 year franchise doesn’t mean that we “gave up on our team.” We didn’t let the team go. The owner did what he wanted to not what he said he was going to. The last couple seasons the ownership did not give the Sonics the means to be a contender and that is why the fans stopped coming and justified the move. To this day there are crazy amounts of Sonic gear sported and sold. There is some undue hostility toward OKC where it should be directed at your owner and not your city. I don’t rock a “FUCK THE THUNDER” t-shirt with the Sonic colors, but do want my Sonics back. And it does piss me off that he bought our history. When I’m watching ESPN and it talks about Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp being some of the best players in Thunder history it’s a joke. They never wore those colors nor the name. They wouldn’t even accept court side seats to represent that. Clay Bennett’s plan was always to move them hence not putting money in the team and paying off the city for the lease at Key Arena to move them. It was a scam and lies told to the fans and the city and we want our Sonics back. “In 2006, after unsuccessful efforts to persuade Washington government officials to provide funding to update KeyArena, the SuperSonics’ ownership group, led by Howard Schultz, sold the team to Professional Basketball Club LLC (PBC), an investment group headed by Oklahoma City businessman Clayton Bennett. The purchase, at $350 million, also included the Seattle Storm WNBA franchise. The former ownership group, Basketball Club of Seattle headed by Starbucks Corp. Chair Howard Schultz sold the franchise to Bennett’s group because they thought that Bennett would not immediately move the franchise to Oklahoma City but instead try to keep it in Seattle. Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett was quoted as saying “I think it’s presumptuous to assume that Clay Bennett and his ownership group won’t own that Seattle team for a long, long time in Seattle or somewhere else. It’s presumptuous to assume they’re going to move that franchise to Oklahoma City,” Cornett said. “I understand that people are going to say that seems to be a likely scenario, but that’s just speculation.”[10] After failing to persuade local governments to fund a $500 million arena complex, Bennett’s group notified the NBA that it intended to move the team to Oklahoma City[11] and requested arbitration with the City of Seattle to be released from the Sonics’ lease with KeyArena.[12] When the request was rejected by a judge, Seattle sued Bennett’s group to enforce the lease that required the team to play in KeyArena through 2010.[13] On July 2, 2008, a settlement was reached that allowed the team to move under certain conditions, including the ownership group’s payment of $45 million to Seattle and the possibility of an additional $30 million by 2013 if a new team had not been given to the city. It was agreed that the SuperSonics’ name would not be used by Oklahoma City and that team’s history could be shared between Oklahoma City and any future NBA team in Seattle.[14] The team began play as the Oklahoma City Thunder in the 2008–2009 basketball season after becoming the 3rd NBA franchise to relocate in the past decade.
In months prior to the settlement, Seattle publicly released email conversations that took place within Bennett’s ownership group and alleged that they indicated at least some members of the group had a desire to move the team to Oklahoma City prior to the purchase in 2006. Before that, Sonics co-owner Aubrey McClendon told an Oklahoma City newspaper “we didn’t buy the team to keep it in Seattle; we hoped to come here,” although Bennett denied knowledge of this.[15] Seattle used these incidents to argue that the ownership failed to negotiate in good faith, prompting Schultz to file a lawsuit seeking to rescind the sale of the team and transfer the ownership to a court-appointed receiver.[16] The NBA claimed Schultz’ lawsuit was void because Schultz signed a release forbidding himself to sue Bennett’s group, but also argued that the proposal would have violated league ownership rules. Schultz dropped the case before the start of the 2008–09 NBA season.
In 2009, Seattle-area filmmakers calling themselves the Seattle SuperSonics Historical Preservation Society produced a critically acclaimed documentary film titled Sonicsgate – Requiem For A Team that details the rise and demise of the Seattle SuperSonics franchise. The movie focuses on the more scandalous aspects of the team’s departure from Seattle, and it won the 2010 Webby Award for ‘Best Sports Film’.” Wikipedia it if you don’t believe the scandal.
[...] A couple summers ago, Collison tweeted about how great of place Seattle is, it made the news in OKC and OKC sports radio show host, Jim Traber, blasted Collison for his pro-Seattle tweets and wanted him out of town. Traber apologized after Collison decided to confront Traber and called into the show – listen here. [...]
This was classic. I heard it live at work today and couldn’t believe my ears. I applaud Nick for calling in and confronting him. He was very professional about the whole deal. Jim was as well, although there were a few times during the conversation where he got a little heated. Either way it was pretty funny.
I normally like what Jim has to say but I think he was a little over the top on this one. I was a little critical of Nick when I first heard about this, but then I actually went and read his Twitter page and didn’t see what the big deal was. Just goes to show you how what a person really means can be taken out of context when using a medium like e-mail or Twitter.