Speculation

Anybody interested in discussing Steve Ballmer's possible deposition, or Judge Pechman ruling in the city's favor, or any other arena-related news?

No? Yeah, me neither.

So let's forget it for today and talk about the Sonics' second first-round pick, the one Steve Kerr bundled up and packaged so nicely for us last summer. Assuming the Sonics get the #2 overall (yes, I know what you get when you assume) and take Derrick Rose to solve their point guard problems, and assuming Kevin Durant makes the shift to small forward this season, it seems pretty likely to me that the Sonics will either go for a big man or a shooting guard with this pick.

Three names jump out immediately to me:

Chris Douglas-Roberts
Brandon Rush
Courtney Lee

All are taller 2 guards with above-average outside shooting skills, which makes them natural fits for the Sonics at this point in time. Being a former teammate of Rose, CDR would have an added benefit of comfortability with the point guard, but that's certainly not enough reason to give him the nod.

With four picks for the second round, the Sonics obviously are capable of making some moves to move up and select their guy if necessary. With that in mind, complete this sentence:

With the 24th (?) overall selection in the 2008 NBA draft, the Seattle Supersonics select ...

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New Sonic Asst GM

As Percy Allen reports in the Times, a much-rumored move has come to pass and the Sonics have hired Troy Weaver as their new Assistant GM to Sam Presti, replacing the departed Scott Perry, who returned to Detroit about one month ago.

Weaver has been with Utah since 2003, and I thought it might be interesting to compare who the Jazz have selected, and then match those picks up with the ones the Sonics made in that same time frame, with career points scored:

2004
Sonics, #12, Robert Swift (330)
Jazz, #14, Kris Humphries (1,090)
Jazz, #16, Kirk Snyder (1,333)
Jazz, #21, Pavel Podkolzine (0)
Sonics, #35, Andre Emmitt (7)

2005
Jazz, #3, Deron Williams (3,706)
Sonics, #25, Johan Petro (1,287)
Jazz, #34, CJ Miles (477)
Sonics, #48, Mickael Gelabale (489)
Jazz, #51, Robert Whaley (51)
Sonics, #55, Lawrence Roberts (334)

2006 - Ouch
Sonics, #10, Mo Sene (83)
Jazz, #14 Ronnie Brewer (1,174)
Sonics, #40, Denham Brown (0)
Jazz, # 46, Dee Brown (94)
Jazz, #47, Paul Millsap (1,220)
Sonics, #53, Yotam Halperin (0)

2007
Sonics, #2, Kevin Durant (1,624)
Sonics, #5, Jeff Green (840)
Jazz, #25, Morris Almond (13)
Jazz, # 55, Herbert Hill (0)

Basically, in the two years of 2005 and 2006, while the Sonics were picking up Petro, Gelabale and Sene, the Jazz picked up Deron Williams, CJ Miles, Ronnie Brewer, and Paul Millsap. You want to know the difference between the Sonics sitting home waiting to see where they’ll be playing next year and the Jazz throwing down with the Lakers on national tv? It’s 2005 and 2006, and especially 2006.

All of which is to say, thank God Troy Weaver is on our side now, rather than helping the Jazz get any stronger. Nice work by Sam Presti to add someone like Weaver in an assistant GM position, and let’s hope he brings some of that draft-day magic to the Sonics this year.

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Magic Man

Man, how big is that third-quarter clock foulup from Game 2 now, Magic fans? Rashard Lewis continued to defy his skeptics by throwing down 33 points Wednesday night in Orlando's win against Detroit, putting the series at 2-1, but it could easily be 2-1 Orlando right now, with Game 4 waiting for them at home and Chauncey Billups possibly watching in street clothes.

It was Lewis' biggest scoring output of his playoff career, and he's now averaging 21 points and 7.5 rebounds in the playoffs. Not bad, Shard, not bad at all.

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Radman

The always-entertaining Damon Agnos has a humorous story up at the Seattle Weekly 'Buzzer Beater' about long-time favorite Vladimir Radmanovic. It's worth checking out, even if you just observe the myriad hairstyles of Radman.

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Sonics Not Going Anywhere

Well, not for a year, anyway.

Judge Marsha Pechman made her ruling Tuesday, denying the Sonics' motion to have the financial aspect of the upcoming trial decided simultanesouly with the outcome of the trial itself.

Instead, as the city requested, the determination of how much money the Sonics would owe the city -IF they even won the trial, which is a hefty, Jerome James-sized IF - will be determined at a separate trial.

Meaning? Meaning that their are a couple of options on the table now:

1. Sonics win trial, wait a few months to settle the financials, wait for the inevitable appeal from the city. Team plays 2008-09 season in Seattle.

2. Seattle wins trial. Team plays 2008-09 season and 2009-10 seasons in Seattle.

And so, it appears the only avenue available to Clay Bennett and David Stern for playing the upcoming season in Oklahoma City would be if they can dangle enough money in front of the city council to get them to agree on a buyout of the remaining two years of the lease.

I'm not sure what's less likely than slim and none, but a buyout is right there.

In other words, national media, quit saying the Sonics are as good as gone. I understand, you can't comprehend that a city would stand up to a professional sports team, quite frankly, I'm surprised myself. It just doesn't happen all that often. That said, I'll spell it out as easily as I can:

The Sonics will not be playing in Oklahoma City next season.

And somewhere in a dust-filled parking lot, Clay Bennett just punched his car.

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Mayor

Analyzing the ongoing Sonic Saga is a bit like trying to read a newspaper through a stained glass window – you can get pieces of it here and there, but complete comprehension always seems a bit tricky.

Take the relationship between the city of Seattle and the state of Washington, for example. Clearly, the city has seemingly given up on finding the missing $75 million to replace the money it was counting upon the state to provide. With that in mind, the missing money must come from somewhere, and that somewhere must be the state, no?


Well, if that is the case, would it not behoove the mayor to play nice with the legislature? And, if he’s going to play nice, why is he making comments like these? Or these?

In essence, Nickels bemoaned the interference he feels the city receives from the rest of the state, laying at least part of the blame at the feet of the government in Olympia. The good mayor even went so far as to suggest that Seattle secede from the state, although his handlers made it clear he was only speaking in jest. (Although, when someone makes the statement, “I am serious when I say we ought to talk about independence,” does it leave much room for interpretation?)

Naturally, Nickels’ comments, like many of the comments uttered by many parties in the recent past, are not to be taken completely at face value. And, the mayor cannot be blamed for feeling dissatisfied with the way the city has been jerked around (in their view) by the state, especially in regard to the KeyArena situation.

It also could be argued that Nickels was merely trying to prod the other levels of government to work a bit harder at finding solutions, rather than merely pointing fingers at others. And, honestly, if that was his motivation, I can understand it. Regardless of your feelings on funding for sports arenas – pro, anti, or somewhere in between – you have to agree that the state’s fence-straddling on this subject is tiresome.

Still, at a time when the two levels of government need to work together to keep the option of a Seattle-based solution to the Sonics’ dilemma, is saber-rattling the best technique to employ? Much as David Stern is the devil we must deal with in the NBA, Frank Chopp is a fixture in Olympia, and regardless of our personal opinions of his methods, he holds the keys to the state money chest. Chopp’s, well, foot-dragging nature is not going to change anytime soon, and while I do not know the man personally, I suspect that verbal threats aimed at his direction will not be productive.

In the big picture, Nickels’ comments may not mean anything, but legislators have long memories of perceived slights, and at a time when the city and the state need to display cooperation, the mayor’s words may come back to bite Sonic fans in the shorts.

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Durant at Lottery

According to Darnell Mayberry of the Oklahoman ("From Clay's lips to our paper!"), Kevin Durant will represent the Sonics at the NBA Draft Lottery on May 20.

Clay Bennett was unavailable for comment.

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Former Sonics in the Playoffs

A quick rundown of how former Sonics are doing in the playoffs this season

Wally Szczerbiak: 10.8 ppg, 10/29 on 3’s, 25.5 mpg
Delonte West: 10.2 ppg, 9/18 on 3’s, 5 apg, 30.2 mpg
Rashard Lewis: 18.8 ppg, 8.2 rbg, 4 apg, 41.5 mpg
Ray Allen: 16.1 ppg, 18/45 3’s, 3.1 apg, 3.4 rbg
Reggie Evans: 6.8 ppg, 7.8 rbg
Antonio Daniels: 7.3 ppg, 3.0 apg, 25.7 mpg
Vladimir Radmanovic: 8.6 ppg, 35% FG, 4.2 rpg
Kurt Thomas: 6 rpg, 22.3 mpg
Brent Barry: 12.7 mpg, 4/8 3’s

As you can see, four ex-Sonics are averaging better than 10 points a game, including two (West and Szczerbiak) who were traded for a great big pile of nothing. That West/Wally for Marshall/Griffin/Newble deal is going to go down as one of the biggest shams in team history, mark my words. Not that West or Wally will ever amount to much in this league, but the sheer audacity of giving up players who are starting for a playoff team for just absolutely nothing is disgraceful.

Also of note, of those listed, only Daniels and Evans are home watching the games on television now. The remainder are all still alive, and unless San Antonio, LA, Boston, Cleveland, and Orlando are all elimated, you will be watching ex-Sonic(s) either start or play key roles off the bench in the NBA Finals this season.

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More Numbers

As mentioned earlier, this past season the Sonics took the fewest number of 3-pointers of any team in the entire league. Naturally, this means the Sonics also ranked at the bottom in points scored from 3-point attempts, checking in at 11.5 points per game (actually, they just edged out Philly, but it was a close race).

However, as the father of the nerdy 27-year-old virgin says to him at his 28th birthday party, “You’ve got to score sometime, right?”

In the Sonics’ case, they scored on 2-point jump shots. Call it the Alex English Approach.

Long ago, 3-pointers were not commonplace. Even after the league added the line 20-some years ago, it just didn’t happen. Just as an illustration, Kobe Bryant, the NBA’s leading scorer this season, attempted 415 3’s this year. In 1983-84, that would have led the league.

And, by league, I mean league. San Antonio led the league with 308 attempts as a team. Kobe Bryant is a gunner, to be sure, but, still, he attempted 100 more 3’s than any team did in '83'-84.

Anyhow, how does that relate to the Sonics? Well, Seattle led the league in points scored off 2-point jump shots, and, in this year of melancholy, I suppose that’s a bright spot (these numbers all swiped from 82games.com). After all, they could have ranked last in 3-point attempts and 2-point attempts, right?

Interestingly, the 2-point leaders were not all cellar dwellers. Among the top ten were Dallas, Detroit, New Orleans, Toronto, and Utah. Of course, the top ten also included the Clippers, Bulls, and T-Wolves, so it’s not exactly a who’s who of great NBA teams.

But here’s the rub: the playoff teams, unlike the losers, were good at taking 2-point shots, which is why they took so many of them. Here’s an illustration:

Granted, the difference between the worst and the best is not huge, but is it really a coincidence that the four worst teams out of the top ten all failed to qualify for the playoffs?

It speaks volumes to the inefficiencies of an organization that 1) produces a team which is unsuccessful at something and 2) continues to do it frequently. It’s fine that the Sonics are not good 2-point jump shooters, but why continue to do it? The Golden State Warriors hit 36% of their 2-point jump shots, a woeful figure to be sure, but that accounted for only 33% of their total attempts on the season, the second-lowest in the league.

That’s what smart organizations do: spot inadequacies and make moves to minimize the impact those inadequacies would have.

In a way, though, the decisions facing the Sonics’ coaching staff this season paralleled the decisions facing the creators of the Bush Presidency DVD. It’s all fine and dandy to tell them what NOT to focus on, but what should they include?

Because, after all, what the hell do you emphasize when the entire thing is a miasma of crapitude?

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Long Range

Sometimes, graphics and statistics can be misleading. The number of foreclosures reported in the newspaper, for example, is misleading in that it tells the total number of foreclosures, but fails to explain that a single home can have two, three, or four mortgages, meaning a single home could be “foreclosed” up to four times. In reality, only one family is facing foreclosure, not three or four, but if you read the paper you would have no idea of that fact.

Likewise, sports statistics are often misleading. The Nuggets and Warriors forced the most turnovers in the league this season, but that doesn’t mean that they necessarily have the best defenses, it just means that they play at a higher pace than most squads, with more possessions.

Sometimes, many times, statistics are insightful, though. Take the Sonics and 3-point shooting, or lack thereof.



No, self-satisfied lovers of Al Franken, it’s not George Bush’s approval rating. Rather, it’s the Sonics’ ranking within the NBA on 3-pointers attempted. The chart begins with Ray Allen’s arrival in Seattle in 2003, and concludes with the season just completed.

Taking their cue from the team’s greatest star, Allen, the Sonics quickly emerged as the top-gunning team in the league, and by 2004-05 (year 2) they took more three-pointers than any other team. That trend continued in the next two seasons, but tailed off until this season, when the Sonics finally made the transformation complete, ranking dead last in the league in attempts.

In other words, within five seasons the Sonics have gone from the most likely to attempt a three to the absolute least likely; from World B Free to Olden Polynice in half a decade.

It’s a remarkable turnaround, a change in philosophy shown in other figures as well. 82games.com shows that only 13% of Seattle’s field goal attempts were from long-range, the lowest percentage in the league (Orlando, home of Rashard Lewis, ranked first).

But consider this: of the 13 teams who attempted more than the league average in threes this season, 10 qualified for the playoffs (77%). Of the 17 who attempted fewer than the league average, only six made it beyond the end of the regular season (35%). And that’s not an isolated trend, either. Last year, 80% of above-average gunners made the playoffs, while only 27% of the non-gunners did. The previous season, the numbers were 76% of gunners and 23% of non-gunners.

Clearly, this is not an isolated trend. Combined with Kevin Durant’s reluctance to launch threes as the season went along, and the departure of the team’s best shooter, Wally Szczerbiak via trade, it is painfully clear that the Sonics need to acquire outside shooting this summer. While the first pick they make will likely be for Derrick Rose (assuming the ping pong balls cooperate), Sam Presti will no doubt be looking hard at shooting guards this June.

Assuming, of course, he’s trying to make a better team. Which, in these days of uncertainty, is a big assumption to make.

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PJ Back Next Year

Ending a month or so of speculation, Sam Presti announced at a press conference today that PJ Carlesimo will return as the Sonics' head coach next season.

Carlesimo enters the 2008-09 season having posted a winning percentage below .300 in three of his past four seasons, and since leaving the rosy confines of Portland a decade ago has compiled (emphasis on "pile") a record of 66-175.

In other words, if the Sonics go 82-0 next season, Carlesimo would still have a below .500 record in the NBA coaching teams outside of the state of Oregon.

However, were the Sonics to win all 82 games, then continue with a 27-game win streak to start the 2009-10 season, PJ would then be right smack at .500 for his post-Blazer career.

Of course, it's not really fair to PJ to blame him for this past season's roster. It's not as if he benched rookies in favor of veteran retreads like Donyell Marshall or Francisco Elson in an attempt to study the mystical powers of those veterans. And it's not as if he didn't have, oh, I don't know, the starting point guard for the Cleveland Cavaliers collecting DNP-CDs for half the season.

Oh, nevermind.

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Trial Delayed?

Hard to say at this point, but the City of Seattle filed a motion in Federal Court yesterday asking for the trial to be delayed by six months should Judge Pechman agree with the Sonics' recent motion requesting the amount of money be decided at the conclusion of the trial.

To give a quick synopsis, the team is asking for Pechman to render a decision on 1) the trial and, should the Sonics emerge victorious, 2) the amount of money the city should be compensated should the team leave prior to the end of their lease.

Keep in mind that this motion to delay only comes into affect if Pechman agrees with the team, which is no surety. Should Pechman decided that the team's request is not merited, then this delay becomes moot. In a way, if Pechman agrees with the team's request, then agrees with the city's request to delay the trial, Clay Bennett is going to be awful ticked at his lawyers for even bringing this issue up, as their idea to speed up the process by including the money with the trial will have had the unintended affect of ruining any chance they had of playing in Oklahoma City this fall.

In other trial-related news, the company which compiled a market study of Seattle v Oklahoma City for the NBA has objected to Seattle's subpoena for said study, citing client confidentiality and a lack of adequate response time. The NBA also objected, in that the study would reveal that moving a team from Seattle to Oklahoma City would, in the words of the study, "be as dumb as putting a team on the moon."

I kid, of course.

And, finally, some people look to swallows returning to Capistrano, or seeing a robin in the front yard as an indication of spring arriving. Me? I look for the "Will George Karl Get Canned?" headline to let me know it's time to break out the shorts and clean up the barbecue.

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