Feb 22, 2021
After a severely challenging, COVID-hampered
2020, it wasn't altogether surprising to hear NBA Commissioner Adam
Silver openly muse with reporters at year's end about the potential
for adding a new franchise or two to help shore up the league's
finances.
"I'd say it's caused us to maybe dust off some
of the analyses on the economic and competitive impacts of
expansion," Silver said back in December. "We've been putting a
little bit more time into it than we were
pre-pandemic."
While not necessarily a fait accompli,
it is still a remarkable turn of strategic thinking that
immediately sent local tongues wagging in multiple North American
cities from Las Vegas to Louisville to even Mexico City and
Montreal.
But few would argue that the aggrieved city of
Seattle - losers of the much-beloved SuperSonics in the summer of
2008 to a carpet-bagging ownership group from Oklahoma City -
should be the first in line for a new club when the NBA is
officially ready.
Author Jon Finkel ("Hoops
Heist: Seattle, the Sonics and How a Stolen Team's Legacy Gave Rise
to the NBA's Secret Empire") helps us bolster the case for
big-time basketball's return to the Emerald City - through the eyes
of both Sonics' legends like Lenny Wilkens, Spencer Haywood, Gary
Payton, Shawn Kemp & Ray Allen, as well as via home-grown players
like Isaiah Thomas, Brandon Roy, Doug Christie, Jason Terry, Nate
Robinson & Jamal Crawford - who all came of age in the Sonics'
shadow and now define the modern-day NBA.