I still have flashbacks of watching a rookie out of the University of Texas named Kevin Durant getting his feet wet in the NBA. I remember watching Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis killing teams with deadly accuracy from behind the arc. I remember watching Gary Payton infuriating anyone he faced up against, while Shawn Kemp raced up the court and threw down on anyone willing to get in his way.
It has been eight and half years and counting since we have seen a Seattle Sonics jersey on an NBA court, and it has been a dreadful ride since then.
We have sat through a great deal since April 16, 2008, the Seattle SuperSonics final NBA game. We have had to sit back and watch the prime years of LeBron James, one of the greatest players to ever set foot on an NBA court from afar. We have missed out on the first unanimous MVP, Steph Curry, who has never had the luxury of playing in front of the raucous atmosphere of Seattle sports fans. We also missed our chance to experience three first ballot Hall-of-Fame players, Duncan, Garnett, and Kobe, play one last time.
If you wanted to catch any professional basketball game, you would have to travel down I-5 to watch the former rival of Sonics fans, the Portland Trailblazers. To a lot of fans the money it would cost for transportation to and from Portland, not including the ticket price, just isn't in the budget.
Thankfully we are lucky enough to have home grown talent in the NBA who are willing to bring some form of the NBA back to the Seattle area with Jamal Crawford's Seattle Pro-Am, as well as the Isaiah Thomas' Zeke-End Memorial Tournament, both bringing in multiple professional players for the community to enjoy.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, I have some encouraging news, we have come one step closer to finally bringing the NBA and SuperSonics back to Seattle!
Hedge-fund manager Chris Hansen, who has put forth the blueprint to bring the Seattle SuperSonics back home, has made another huge push to building a new Seattle Arena. Hansen has sent a letter to the Seattle City Council stating that he will terminate his current contract in which the public would have a $200 million bond on the arena and instead will rework to take full responsibility for funding the new arena.
Included in his letter is a plan to contribute to building an overpass for the Port of Seattle to help with congestion. This plan is a considerable contribution for the Port traffic; however, the Port of Seattle commissioner still states that he is opposed to building a new arena in the Stadium District of Seattle.
Hansen's new plan is to fully fund the Seattle arena with private money, at no cost to the city. Not only is his plan to build an arena for the NBA and return of the Seattle SuperSonics, but he has also put money towards three public transportation hubs around the arena that will facilitate people to and from the surrounding areas of the Puget Sound.
Now NBA fans in Seattle will have to await a decision from the Seattle City Council to vacate Occidental Ave, a glorified alley.
The Port of Seattle still appears to be our biggest hurdle. Opposing the vacation of Occidental Ave as they claim they are frequently using the roadway. However, multiple news stations have spent hours monitoring the street and have stated otherwise.
We have been close before, but local officials have declared this new information a "Game Changer."
We are close Sonic fans! I can almost smell the hardwood now.
