Latest news with #Sonics
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
"Their balls was the chance of what Dallas was this year to get Cooper Flagg" - Gary Payton on why he wasn't surprised with Mavericks winning 2025 Draft Lottery
The Dallas Mavericks winning the 2025 NBA Draft Lottery remains controversial, with most saying there was more to it than the lucky bounce of the balls. But according to Gary Payton, the same thing happened to the Seattle SuperSonics the year they drafted him No.2 overall. The legendary guard shared his story on the "Club 520 Podcast," fueling the ongoing "the NBA Draft is rigged" narrative. Advertisement "They didn't have a chance to get me at all. Then all of a sudden, they fool around and didn't make the playoffs and then got in the lottery. And their balls was the chance of what Dallas was this year to get Cooper Flagg," said Payton. The Sonics moved up eight spots in 1990 The Sonics began scouting Payton in 1989 and felt that he was the perfect point guard for then-rising star Shawn Kemp. Their head coach, Bernie Bickerstaff, told Kemp about him and the latter started following him, too. Once the high-flying forward gave the green light, Seattle started tanking. Coming off three straight playoff appearances, the Sonics finished the 1989-90 season with a 41-41 record — 6-8 in their last 14 games. They entered the 1990 NBA Draft Lottery with only 3.0 percent odds to win the No.1 pick. Advertisement However, when the ping-pong balls were drawn, Seattle moved up eight spots to earn the second overall pick. The New Jersey Nets picked Derrick Coleman at No.1, while Payton went to the Sonics. Winning Cooper Flagg sweepstakes Meanwhile, the Mavericks finished the 2024-25 regular season with a 39-43 record, thanks mostly to injuries to Anthony Davis, Kyrie Irving, Dereck Lively II and Daniel Gafford. Dallas had a smaller 1.8 percent chance of winning the lottery. However, they moved 10 spots to land the No.1 overall pick and earned the right to draft Duke forward Cooper Flagg months after trading Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers. Advertisement The NBA world is still baffled by this development. Not GP, though. "Hey, it happens, man," he continued. "They crucified my boy Nico because he traded Luka. But all of a sudden, the bad luck went even worse when they laid all them injuries and then all of a sudden, big bang bang, didn't go long, I went to one of them old crazy liquor stores, paid $10, and got a lottery ticket. And what I do? I hit for that billion, you feel me? And got the boy. And got the boy boy." Many have suggested that Dallas could trade the No.1 pick for an established star who would fit better with AD and Irving's timelines. However, it's hard to imagine Nico Harrison doing something like that after he was rewarded with the opportunity to regain some of the Mavericks fans' trust. Flagg will most likely become a Maverick. Harrison will most likely keep his job. And the Draft Lottery will most likely surprise us again in the future. Advertisement Does that mean that the process is rigged? Those who aren't convinced by now will likely never be. Related: Gary Payton admits he made mistakes when teaching his son how to play basketball: "I was thinking about myself, how I played, and I wanted him to play that way"
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
"I watched Shawn go to Cleveland and he got big, and I felt that was my fault" - Gary Payton says he feels responsible for the sad end to Kemp's career
For most of the 1990s, the Seattle SuperSonics were an electrifying storm, and at the center of that thunder was a fast-talking point guard and a high-flying power forward who seemed made for each other. Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp. Advertisement Together, they formed one of the most dynamic duos of their era, elevating the Sonics into a title-contending force. Their chemistry was raw and instinctive. But it didn't last as long as they would have wanted. Payton's regret At just 27 years old, Kemp was traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers in a three-team deal that stunned Seattle fans and left Payton with a bitter taste that hasn't quite gone away. Decades later, the iconic point guard still sees the fallout as more than just bad management. He sees it as something personal, something he could've changed. "I watched Shawn go to Cleveland and he got big," "The Glove" said. "And I felt that was my fault, because I didn't step up in the way I should have stepped up with the ownership and let them do the right thing. It was a problem for me to see him there." Advertisement Between 1992 and 1998, Seattle never won fewer than 55 games in a full season. The 1995–96 squad went 64–18, made it to the NBA Finals and pushed the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls to six games. Yet, for all their power and promise, there would be no ring, and by 1997, the engine began to fall apart. In truth, the bouncy forward's exit from Seattle was tangled in contract frustrations and front office decisions that left him undervalued. He had just helped take the Sonics to the Finals, yet found himself making significantly less than newcomer Jim McIlvaine, whose contract set off a firestorm in the locker room. "The Reignman," who had been a member of the All-NBA Second Team in 1996 and averaged 18.7 points and 10.0 rebounds per game that season, felt disrespected. And GP, who was close enough to know exactly how deep that sting went, now wonders if he could have done more to mend it. What followed was a trade that sent Kemp to the Cavs, a team that lacked Seattle's defensive identity and discipline. It also sent him far from the culture and routine that had kept him grounded. Advertisement Related: Walt Frazier admits NBA players were afraid to lift weights back in the day: "Basketball players thought it would affect their shot" Kemp's lost path Initially, all seemed well. In Cleveland, Shawn posted career-high averages — 20.5 points and 9.2 rebounds in the 1997–98 season — but something had already shifted. His weight ballooned, his explosiveness began to fade and his struggles with substance use slowly took hold. Payton doesn't sugarcoat Kemp's Cleveland chapter. He respects the numbers, but sees the pain behind them. "But as I look at it, that was the best year Shawn ever had," Payton said. "In Cleveland, being a big … he admitted to me that was the best season he ever had. But he got lost after that." Advertisement It wasn't just about basketball anymore. Kemp's personal life grew heavier. By the early 2000s, he had been suspended multiple times for violating the league's substance abuse policy. His weight issues plagued the final years of his career and while he made brief stops in the Portland Trailblazers and Orlando Magic, the burst that once defined him had vanished. For a player who made six All-Star teams before turning 30, the iconic forward's decline was steep and unsettling. And for Gary, who continued his career into the mid-2000s — winning a title with the Miami Heat in 2006 — the contrast stung. Both came into the league young, wild and relentless. But one soared longer. And that, to "The Glove," is something he still feels partially responsible for. Related: Shaq threatened Gary Payton's agent to join the Purple and Gold in 2003: "He told me he'd break my neck if I don't get Gary to the Lakers"
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Sonics' return? For 1st time, commissioner gives a date for NBA to begin talking expansion
By now, it's like the drip, drip, drip of a leaky faucet. It's the tease of the long overdue. The latest in the drawn-out saga of the NBA flirting with returning the Sonics to Seattle: The league may, finally, begin the expansion process this summer. NBA commissioner Adam Silver was on SiriusXM satellite radio this week. There, for the first time, he gave a start time for the long-awaited process of the league expanding from 30 to 32 teams. And Silver for at least the second time since 2023 named Seattle first as a 'tremendous' candidate for a new team. 'We have an NBA board meeting in July, in Las Vegas, and my sense is it will be on the agenda to discuss, with full ownership now for the 30 teams, to get directly the existing owners' views on potential expansion,' Silver said Tuesday on SiriusXM's NBA Today show. 'And (it would be) how we would begin further study of all the implications.' Those implications include the willingness of the 30 team owners to divide their massive annual media-right revenue pie by two more slices, which means incrementally less revenue for them. Silver also mentioned two additional teams diluting the league's player talent. 'And, then, get a sense of the level of interest from certain markets,' Silver said. 'Look, obviously I know there is tremendous interest in Seattle. I know there is tremendous interest in Las Vegas. Several other cities, as well. ... 'Just to be clear, we haven't begun any sort of process,' Silver said. 'So, even to the extent cities have reached out, we've said, 'Thank you for your interest, but we are not ready to take meetings yet, and have more in-depth discussions.' 'But we will have that opportunity early this summer, again, to talk to all the different ownership groups in the NBA and get a sense (on expansion).' Silver added: 'I'll lastly say: I mean, expansion I think over time makes sense. As for precise timing, I think we still need to work on that.' The NBA Board of Governors meet each July in Las Vegas during the league's Summer League games there. This year's Summer League is July 10-20 in Las Vegas. When it does expand, the league wants it to be by two teams instead of one, for balancing game schedules and aligning its conferences. Two new teams both in the west make practical sense for the NBA. Right now it has 15 teams in the Eastern Conference and 15 teams in the Western Conference. Teams in the Western Conference include not-exactly-west Minnesota and New Orleans. We can hear the calls from the understandably cynical across the Pacific Northwest: I'll believe all this when the new Sonics are actually tipping off in Climate Pledge Arena. Such is the stalled quest since the SuperSonics, who began in the city and NBA in 1967, left Seattle in 2008 to move with new team owners to Oklahoma City and become the Thunder. The NBA's Board of Governors will decide which cities' expansion bids to improve. The Board of Governors are the owners of the league's 30 teams. An NBA expansion franchise is likely to cost $3-4 billion. That money would get divided evenly among the owners of the league's other 30 teams. That expansion fee would help offset those owners having to divide the NBA's new media-rights revenues 32 ways, with two expansion teams added, instead of by 30. The NBA expansion process in most cases takes 2 1/2 to three years from bid submission to approval then beginning play. That depends on the availability of an arena the NBA deems suitable. Unlike in 2008 when the Sonics left KeyArena for Oklahoma, Seattle now has a suitable NBA arena. The Oak View Group that built $1.15-billion Climate Pledge Arena for the NHL's Kraken did so to NBA specifications — with the eventual return of the Sonics to Seattle in mind. Silver setting a quasi start date of July for the expansion process is the latest in this drawn-out saga. The commissioner had said the league would begin talking expansion upon completion of the NBA's new collective-bargaining agreement and its new media-rights deals. The league got its new CBA with its players two years ago. Then last summer, the NBA reached agreements on contracts with ESPN, NBC and Amazon worth $76 billion to for live game telecasts over 11 years. But those deals weren't final for months. Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns the TNT cable network that has broadcast NBA games since 1989, sued the league for being left out of the new deal. The league and Warner Bros. Discovery settled that lawsuit in November 2024. Then the Boston Celtics, the defending NBA champions and a signature franchise in the league, went on sale. The agreement on the Celtics sale came this March. They sold for $6.1 billion, a record for a North American sports franchise. It's more than the NFL's Seahawks are valued ($5.45 billion, by Forbes in September 2024). On March 27, just after that Boston sale agreement, Silver said the league and its owners were 'digesting' the Celtics deal before the NBA considered expansion. While the Celtics are a traditional power far above the value of a new franchise, their sale gives NBA owners a ballpark figure from which to base expansion fees. By saying expansion talks should begin among owners in July, Silver is indicating they've digested those dollar amounts. And they are obviously quite satisfied. While all that has gone on in the NBA, Seattle has kept laying groundwork for the Sonics' return. Climate Pledge Arena has been hosting NBA preseason games for years. The WNBA's Storm plays there. This spring the NCAA men's March Madness played its first- and second-round games there. Last year, Kraken CEO Tod Leiweke said on KJR radio Kraken co-owner Samantha Holloway 'will be leading the charge for the NBA here.' Holloway reportedly emailed Kraken season-ticket holders to be anticipating 'a parent brand that will umbrella the Kraken brand and prepare for other big opportunities.' That umbrella company is to put the Kraken and the new Sonics under one operating entity. 'We wanted to get in front of this,' Leiweke said on KJR in April 2024. 'We wanted to build an arena that was custom-fit (for the NBA). We did a study that said our sight lines are better than two of the four NBA-only arenas.' Leiweke has said he and his companies are ready to build an NBA team's training center, much like they built the Kraken's facility at Northgate north of downtown Seattle. 'Much of what the NBA left for (in 2008, a new arena with modern, luxury seating, a state-of-the-art practice facility) is here now,' Leiweke said. 'And we have ownership that, I believe, will step up at the right time. 'And I think it's something that's going to happen.' Seattle's mayor agrees. He's been touting it for a while now. Bruce Harrell said at the mayor's State of the City address in February 2024, days after Silver said the NBA 'very likely' will expand: 'I'm ready to add another point to our 46 points of our downtown activation plan: Bringing the Sonics back.'
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Want the Sonics back? NBA boss Adam Silver is happy to play stall ball
If you're a fan who loved the Sonics and desperately wants them back in Seattle, prepare for more negative news in the next few months. I base this on comments from NBA commissioner Adam Silver, who continues to play a game of stall ball as it relates to expansion and the rebirth of the Sonics. This ongoing nonsense coincides with troubling developments on the court, where the Oklahoma City Thunder, the former Sonics, have an excellent shot at winning the NBA championship this year. That would be every Sonics' fan's biggest nightmare to see the team that should still be theirs hoisting the trophy. OKC is favored to win the title at +155 at Draft Kings mainly because they're pretty damn good, posting a 68-14 regular season record, winning 54 of their games by double digits. The Thunder won their first playoff game over Memphis by 51 points. It's been 17 years since the Sonics were done dirty, taken to the dust bowl in the most misguided transfer of a team in professional sports history. Debate that all you want, but 41 years in Seattle with a successful NBA franchise is proof enough for me. I didn't think anyone could out-bozo David Stern, but Silver has managed to do it - the only things missing from his statements about NBA expansion as it pertains to Seattle are a red nose and red hair and oversized shoes. Everyone knows that when the NBA does decide to expand that Seattle is the most obvious spot for the next team to join the league. An ownership group and a state of the art arena are in place along with a long history that has shown an NBA team can thrive in Seattle. Yet we get the same old crap from Silver whenever he talks about expansion, rarely confirming what he should be confirming, that Seattle should be first in line when the league adds new teams. This is what he should be saying: 'We in the league recognize that the Sonics should have never been allowed to leave Seattle, and we're looking forward to righting that wrong and can't wait to see the green and gold back at Climate Pledge Arena.' Instead, we get the lanky bald man saying nice stuff about the Sonics but always having to throw in some B.S. as a side dish that no one ordered. '(Seattle) was a market that was fantastic for the league that we left for understandable reasons, but there's no doubt there continues to be enormous passion in that market for the NBA,' Silver said on The Pat McAfee Show on ESPN last week. OK, come on, who in the world besides Silver and OKC owner Clay Bennett feel like the Sonics left Seattle for understandable reasons? Answer: No one. And he can never quite commit to Seattle, most recently saying the NBA is looking at the Emerald City and Las Vegas, but mentioning the league is considering other markets too. He did tell McAfee that the NBA will start a formal expansion process this summer - most likely when the Board of Governors meets in July - but wouldn't commit to the league actually adding teams. It's yet another reminder from the league that we need to be patient, as if 18 years doesn't qualify as patient enough. We were led to believe that the NBA would consider expansion after the new media rights deal was secured, but that happened last July. Then we were told that expansion would be on the front burner after the Celtics were sold. That happened last month, but here we are with more empty comments from Silver. I personally don't care if the Sonics come back. But I really want them to return for fans who miss them so much, and I can relate to how they feel. I grew up in Redmond and was 10 years old when the Sonics came to town in 1967. I loved them all, from Tom Meschery to Bob Rule to Walt Hazzard to Tommy Kron to Bob Weiss to Plummer Lott to their first coach, Al Bianchi. I kept score of most of their games and enjoyed listening to Bob Blackburn's play by play on the radio. I lived out my dream to cover the Sonics for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in the 1990's, but I don't watch the NBA anymore. I guess you could call me one of those guys who appreciates how talented the elite players are but doesn't care for the style of play in the league. Threes and dunks. Does anyone care about defense? And what about load management, a nice of way of saying I'm sorry you bought a ticket to watch a superstar play tonight, but he'll be on the bench watching just like you this evening. Did you see Miami's Tyler Herro the other night? He made a nice steal and had a sure thing break-away dunk or layin waiting for him, but he chose to pull up for a three that he missed, and the Bulls turned that into a game-clinching three of their own. Here's the other thing, if they come back, the Sonics won't be the team you remembered. And the ticket prices won't be what they were in 2008. The average NBA ticket costs $94 now. You can call me old and clueless and that's fine. It might even be accurate. I just know if I were part of the ownership group I would get sick of having to suck up to Silver at every turn. Imagine always telling Silver they understand why he's taking his time with the expansion process while actually thinking they're tired of his song and dance and wish they could tell him to pound sand. It's as if he still wants the future Sonics to provide a resume that shows their worth as an expansion team when all anyone needs is two eyes to see that no one else is a better candidate. Jim Moore has covered Washington's sports scene from every angle for multiple news outlets. He appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 10 a.m. on Jason Puckett's podcast at He writes a Substack blog at You can find him on X (formerly Twitter) @cougsgo.
The Guardian
31-03-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
‘The food is bad, everything is bad': what it feels like to be on a hopeless NBA team
The business of sports is about winning. But that, of course, doesn't mean there aren't plenty of losers out there. That's most evident every year in the NBA around the first day of spring. With about a dozen games left in the regular season, it's obvious which teams are also-rans – and they have probably known that for some time. But when a team are losing and losing often, how does that affect the roster? How do the players deal with the constant lows? 'When you lose,' says former NBA All-Star Xavier McDaniel, 'it's like getting a life sentence. I knew for me, losing, it started me to drink beer. Losing created a lot of bad habits. Losing can be a disease. We were losing so much [my rookie season] that by January I was drinking beer!' Growing up, McDaniel was seemingly destined for the pros. Tall, tough and talented, the X-Man led his high school and college teams to victory after victory. In the 1985 draft, he was picked No 4 overall by the Seattle SuperSonics. When you're a top selection like that, you're often entering a lowly team. That was the case for McDaniel. His rookie season, the Sonics finished 31-51. They improved in his sophomore season and for most of his career in the league, McDaniel was on winners. But there were a few seasons later in Boston and New Jersey when times were equally as tough. 'I would say [you can tell a losing season is unfolding] when you get about 30 games in and you're struggling,' he says. 'You see you're going nowhere fast. For me, [losing] feels like shit. When you're losing, everything is bad. The food is bad, everything is bad.' If you're young and on a bad team, you can hope that the roster will get reinforcements via the draft in the coming summers. But if you're a vet on a loser, you may as well start packing your bags. Bad teams want to showcase the young guys and deal the vets. Or it could be a case that the temperaments on the team just don't mix. 'One thing about the NBA,' says McDaniel, 'you've got to find guys who play well together.' When he started his career, Scott Williams barely knew what it was like to lose. In his first three seasons, the undrafted player out of the University of North Carolina won three titles with Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls. But in subsequent years, he found himself languishing on bad Philadelphia teams. Those squads, he says, didn't care about the idea of the team. That was their downfall. 'A lot of times,' says Williams, 'I've found that it's [about the] character of the makeup of the team. In basketball, really only about eight dudes determine the success or failure of the season. And if you got one or two or three dudes on a team that don't have the [right] character, you're going to have a losing year.' In the NBA, Williams says, everyone is talented. So it is often attitude that separates winners from losers. 'If your star doesn't have good character, if he doesn't want to put in work, the preparation, the consistence,' says Williams, 'if he doesn't have resiliency, you're going to struggle.' Williams remembers his days with Jordan. 'There was nobody that had more intensity and stronger will and a passion to work than Michael Jordan,' says Williams. 'Everyone has to come along if the superstar is doing it.' Williams played on 60-plus-win teams and teams that have won games in the teens. There is no greater high in his life, he says, with perhaps the exception of the birth of his children, than winning an NBA title. It's the culmination of so much work, time and sacrifice. But the opposite is true when you're on a team going nowhere. Such was the case when he was in Philly on squads helmed by a young Allen Iverson. 'When you're in a losing season – man, you can't wait for the freaking year to end,' Williams says. 'You're showing up every day with dudes with negative attitudes who are me-first people. It's miserable to be around them. You count the days until your contract is finished so you can get out of there.' It's hard to stay motivated, he says. 'It weighs on you. To fight that defeatist mentalist is hard – especially in your 20s when you haven't had as many life lessons.' What's worse, when you're on a losing team with players who don't care about improvement, Williams says, it can make you question your own effort. 'Why would I want to risk diving for a ball and banging my knee when we're down 15 when the dude next to you won't even help you up off the floor after you do it?' he says. 'But there's certain things you have to fight through and realize there's a bigger picture.' In 1981, Cedric Maxwell was named the NBA finals MVP. Surrounded by guys like Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish and Tiny Archibald, it was Maxwell who won the hardware when his Boston Celtics beat the Houston Rockets. The win, though, came after several years of rebuilding, including the first two years of Maxwell's career when the Celtics went 32-50 and 29-53. Boston were in the middle of an overhaul, despite playing in the Eastern Conference finals in 1977. Injuries and ageing players plagued the roster. So, in the hopes of turning things around, Celtics coach Tom Heinsohn looked to his rookie. The team had lost six games in a row to start Maxwell's rookie campaign. But he got in and played 30-plus minutes in a game on 11 November against Buffalo. He scored 21 points and grabbed nine rebounds. 'I came in that game and played really well,' says Maxwell. 'And I remember [veteran Celtic] John Havlicek came up to me and said, 'Hey, rook, just keep it going!'' But despite his good play, the Celtics never flipped the script that year. 'The [vets] were convinced we'd turn the thing around, like, 'We're going to get on a streak!' But we never did.' All the losing led Maxwell to feel down, he says. But that's when the team's veteran big man offered his own bit of philosophy. 'I remember Curtis Rowe saying to me after I felt depressed about one game – Curtis said to me, 'Rook, there ain't no Ls or Ws on them checks.' But while some guys don't live and die with the results, for Maxwell, winning is everything. 'I've always been a competitor,' he says. So, he did what he could: he focused on himself and his own self-improvement. He focused on what he could control. 'I was going to find a way to make myself better,' he says. He watched his teammates and their bad habits. He made sure that he didn't follow in their footsteps. 'During the late 1970s, drugs were big in the NBA,' Maxwell says. 'I was asked multiple times did I want to get some coke or do some blow. But I had a strong enough constitution to know that wasn't something I wanted. Those bad habits, those things I was able to avoid.' Looking back, Maxwell can sum up his position on losing with one piece of advice. Don't let the noise and negativity affect your game or the way you look at the world. Because right around the corner could be an upswing, the playoffs, a chance at a title. 'The best thing,' says Maxwell, 'is to be your own person. As my mom and dad used to say, 'Be a leader. Don't be a follower.' That was something that helped me out in what I wanted to do. So, to any rookie out there, just be true to yourself.'
