Seattle Sonics aka Oklahoma City Thunder & Aubrey McClendon's Evil Grip

A few days ago I blogged about an FW Weekly article about Aubrey McClendon, he being the evil doer who is behind all sorts of nefarious dirty dealing, including lying to steal the Seattle Supersonics from Seattle.

When I read the FW Weekly article, I, with my problem about paying attention to details, did not notice that the cover photo of the notorious Aubrey McClendon had his evil grip around a hapless Seattle Sonic player. Number 35 whoever that is. Spencer Haywood? That shows how old I am and when I last paid close attention to the Sonics.

The Oklahoma City Thunder are now playing. The new season of the NBA is underway. If you want to see the former Sonics play, it costs you way way way way less than it did in Seattle. You can probably get airfare to hapless OKC, plus your game ticket, for less than the small fortune it cost to see a game in Seattle.

As in I saw an ad for the OKC Thunder a day or two ago where the tickets ranged from $10 to $20. That's Seattle prices from the 70s. Keep in mind, though, you'll be watching the game in a town that is not quite up to the standards of 1970s Seattle.

Several of the Seattle players are not at all happy about going from trendy, upscale, super fabulous Seattle to dowdy, out in the middle of nowhere, Oklahoma City. Several have left their family's behind, not wanting to move their kids to inferior schools.

I don't blame them. I like OK, I've met great OK people, but the schools, well, let me put it this way. I know a family who moved from my zone of Washington to Oklahoma. Their kids were average C students in Washington. In Oklahoma their kids were suddenly A students, top of their class. And very popular. The Okies thought they were British. Our Yankee accents can be confusing to the locals.

Meanwhile back in Seattle. They'll likely have a new NBA team in a year or two. It'll likely be called the Seattle Supersonics. There'll likely be a new basketball arena built. And Seattle people will have a great time booing and beating the OKC Thunder whenever they come to town.

Aubrey McClendon, Chesapeake Energy and the Seattle Sonics

In a wonderful piece of poetic justice Chesapeake Energy's CEO, Aubrey McClendon lost a couple billion bucks a couple weeks ago during the worst of the financial meltdown. His company has been in full retreat ever since.

FW Weekly's cover article this week is an in depth look at Chesapeake Energy's CEO Aubrey McClendon.

I don't know if I've mentioned it before but I'm originally from the Seattle zone of the country. The only professional sport I've ever had any interest in is basketball. I've been to a lot of Seattle Sonics games.

So, I followed the developments that led to Seattle refusing to give in to the Sonic's new owners demands for a new basketball arena to replace one the voters had just spent hundreds of millions of dollars on in the early 1990s, with the result being that the Seattle Sonics are now the Oklahoma City Thunder.

I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but I can be really dense sometimes. I did not realize that the lying schemer who bought the Sonics is the same lying schemer who runs Chesapeake Energy. Sometimes I simply am not able to connect the most simple of dots.

Most of the FW Weekly article is about McClendon's other dirty dealings, mention was made of McClendon and the Sonics. Here's an excerpt below...

From the beginning, the new ownership group assured Seattle fans that the team would stay there. And like most team owners, they wanted tax money to refurbish Key Arena, to the tune of $300 million. Negotiations with local and state officials continued into this year.

But while the other Oklahoma City-based owners were publicly saying the team would stay put, McClendon let the truth out. In an interview last April with The Journal Record, an Oklahoma City business publication, McClendon said, “We didn’t buy the team to keep it in Seattle, we hoped to come here. We know it’s a little more difficult financially here in Oklahoma City, but we think it’s great for the community and if we could break even we’d be thrilled.

“To the great amazement and surprise of everyone in Seattle,” he said, “some rednecks from Oklahoma, which we’ve been called, made off with the team.” To the amazement of Seattle political leaders, McClendon made that statement while negotiations were still going on.

Click to read the entire FW Weekly article about Aubrey McClendon and his dirty dealings.

Seattle And The Sonics Parting Not All That Much Sorrow

I read an interesting article in this morning's Seattle P-I about the evolution of Seattle's relationship with the now departing Sonics and how, among other things, Seattle has become like Los Angeles, being at the point that the public is ready to shrug off a sports team. LA has been without a Pro NFL team for well over 10 years. With the West Coast often starting trends for the rest of the nation, I'm hoping this bodes well for the coming end of the bizarre pro sports world of ridiculous salaries and billion dollar palaces to play the children's games in.

I can not imagine an honestly introspective self-aware type of article appearing in the more propagandaish, Chamber of Commerce boosterizing, often outright misleading and dishonest, Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Read a blurb from the P-I article below. Read the entire article here.

"Before, (Seattle) aspired to be big," Brewster said. "Now it thinks it's probably bigger than it really is.

"So it can behave like Los Angeles (which has been without the NFL for 14 years) and say, 'OK, we don't have a professional basketball team. We don't need that. That's for smaller cities like Oklahoma City.' So we have almost a condescending view toward cities that are dying to have professional sports."

Most Seattleites have never been to a Sonics game. Some view them as a nuisance that gums up downtown traffic 41 times a year. Instead of a sprouting town eager for events, we are now a crowded metropolis inundated with them. But Gorton doesn't think that lessens the value of our pro sports institutions.

"I don't think there is any leisure activity that involves all of the people," Gorton said. "Certainly the majority of people (in Seattle) have never set foot in Safeco(Mariners) or Qwest(Seahawks). An even greater majority has never set foot inside Benaroya Hall or the art museum. I don't think that cuts down on the desirability of those things."

"There are so many things to do here, I think we've become complacent or blasé about any one single attraction," Uhlman said.

In 1967, the Sonics were part of Seattle's identity, part of the recognition that helped it grow as a center for business and tourism. Now, the bottom line is that Seattle no longer needs the Sonics for those things.

Seattle Sonics in Oklahoma City?

Ten years ago if someone had told me that ten years later I would be living in Texas I would have thought that a scenario that could not happen. If they'd told me I would be living in Fort Worth, Texas I would have told them there is no way I'd be living in that rundown town. (At that point in time I'd only been to Fort Worth once, in 1981, when it was pretty much a rundown eyesore. Fort Worth has greatly improved since 1981).

Ten years ago if someone had told me that ten years later the Seattle Supersonics would leave Seattle and re-locate to Oklahoma city I would have thought the idea idiotic.

But that is what is going to happen. Starbucks Chief, Sonic Owner, Howard Schultz sold the Sonics to Clay Bennett from Oklahoma City. At the time of the sale promises were made regarding the Sonics not moving. Then Bennett insisted Key Arena, where the Sonics play, was not up to league standards, so he demanded a new arena.

Seattle balked, the state legislature balked. No new arena. This was one time too many where a Seattle sports franchise demanded a new arena. That and it was only in the 1990s that Key Arena had been totally remodeled with its seating capacity greatly expanded. For the voters to be told that just a few years later Key Arena is now outdated seemed ridiculous.

I never went to a Sonic game after Key Arena was remodeled. I don't think I'd been to a game after it became Key Arena. Key Arena originally was known as the Seattle Coliseum. It'd been converted from the Washington State Pavilion left over from the 1962 Seattle World's Fair.

The city and Bennett have been battling in courts for weeks. But yesterday the two sides settled the dispute. Seattle gets to keep the Supersonic name. Bennett still faces possible court time with the Starbucks guy. And there could be an injunction filed to keep the team from moving. But, I'm guessing it's a done deal and the Sonics are bye-bye from Seattle.

Is there a better basketball arena in Oklahoma City than Seattle's Key Arena? If so, I've not seen it.