The Front Row with MARK NELKE June 10, 2012
During the Seattle Mariners game at Anaheim against the Los Angeles Angels the other night, an announcement was apparently made congratulating the Seattle SuperSonics on reaching the NBA finals.
Most Sonics fans look at what the Oklahoma City Thunder are doing these days through gritted teeth, wishing hateful stuff on anybody associated with the franchise which was uprooted from Seattle following the 2007-08 season, and is now four victories away from an NBA title.
I look at it a little differently.
Seattle had an NBA team for 41 years, and let someone come in and take it away. Get over it.
BESIDES, AS a Portland Trail Blazers fan, I look at Kevin Durant doing all those amazing things on the court, things we were kinda hoping Greg Oden would do when we drafted the 7-foot Oden over the 6-9 Durant with the No. 1 pick in 2007.
At the time, the move made some sense. Dominant big men don't come along very often, the conventional wisdom goes, so you draft them when you can. People with Durant's skill set are more common, so you can usually pick one of those up next time.
(Of course, no one has come along since who can even remotely do the things that Durant does, so so much for that theory as well).
Anyway, Oden was injured most of the time he was with the Trail Blazers. He missed his first season in Portland because of injury, and was limited to 82 total games with the Blazers - all in 2008-09 and 2009-10 - because of knee and foot injuries. He has not played since, and was eventually waived earlier this year. Oden said he plans to sit out next season as well to focus on rehabbing his injuries.
Durant, meanwhile, was the NBA Rookie of the Year, and was an NBA all-star, the league's scoring champion, and first-team All-NBA each of the past three seasons.
SO I often wonder what would have happened if Oden had entered the draft in a different year, and the Trail Blazers drafted Durant, who instead fell into the SuperSonics' lap with the No. 2 pick.
In a way, maybe it's just as well, given the curse of those who go to Portland.
The Blazers were off to a 50-10 start in 1977-78, perhaps on their way to a repeat NBA title, when Bill Walton went down with a foot injury and barely played again in Portland.
Then there was Sam Bowie, whom the Blazers selected No. 2 overall, ahead of some guy named Jordan. Bowie played one healthy season in Portland, then played only 63 games total over the next four seasons, including five in 1986-87 and none the following year. He was traded to the New Jersey Nets in 1989.
And not only did the Blazers go through the Oden debacle, but a teammate and the player who was emerging as the face of the franchise, former Washington Husky Brandon Roy, developed knee problems so serious he was forced to retire.
Meanwhile, Durant is wrapping up his fifth, largely healthy, season in the NBA. He was Rookie of the Year in his lone season in Seattle before the team was moved, and is now one of the top players in the league. It's hard to imagine Sonics fans extending their hatred toward Durant, who along with Nick Collison are the only players from that final Sonics team that are still with Oklahoma City.
SO WHILE many Sonics fans will root for Oklahoma City to get drubbed in the NBA finals, it doesn't look like the Thunder is going away anytime soon. Their top two players, Durant and Russell Westbrook, are just 23, and third scoring option James Harden, the elbow of Metta World Peace recently removed from the side of his head, is only 22.
They have scorers and young legs and have little ego and are largely unselfish - a pretty good and unusual combination in sports these days. So like 'em or not, get used to them.
Meanwhile, the Trail Blazers just stumbled through a 28-38 season, finishing with an interim coach, a ramshackle roster and no real apparent direction for the future.
At least Seattle might get a team again in a few years, and can start all over. That might not be a bad thing for Portland to do.
(In a way, I was rooting for the Celtics and the Spurs to meet in the finals. It would have been like watching ESPN Classic, except these games would have been live.)
Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at CdAPressSports.