So Long, Sonics

It's official:

The Seattle SuperSonics are no more.

This is a terrible thing for any sports fan. Proof positive that a relationship with a sports team is tenuous at best. Money can destroy years of support and generations of living and dying with your club. What matters to the league is not to provide the best possible product, or to foster goodwill within local communities, or to provide families a shared interest or a common goal.

What matters is money.

It's obvious, and it's foolhardy to suggest otherwise. The NBA is corrupt. The commissioner is a phony, a villain, and a menace to every true supporter of any NBA club. Regardless of Clay Bennett's stated intentions, and his arrogance and his wads of cash, it shouldn't have mattered. David Stern should have stood up to the millionaire and defended his product, and he should have set an example by admonishing Bennett and his degenerate hick friends for even intimating that the 40-year-old franchise would ever break its lease and turn their backs on their supporters and devoted fans.

No such luck.

Bennett wanted a team, and he got one, having been led down the path by Stern himself. Never mind that the relocation of the Memphis Grizzlies would have made much more sense, and never mind that the Oklahomans blatantly lied about their intentions to basically everybody that was involved. Stern is a horrible man with no concept of ethics and fairness, and he has consistently demonstrated that the only thing he cares about, and the only thing that motivates him, is money.

Money.

I think about if this happened to my team, and I cringe. I will never support the Oklahoma City Swindlers, regardless of who is on their team. And I hope I never meet David Stern in person, because I would probably end up in jail afterwards.

TJH