Sherman Alexie: Silver lining for Seattle fans if Oklahoma City Thunder wins NBA title
Jun 12, 2012, 10:31 AM | Updated: Oct 11, 2024, 1:30 pm
Sonics fan Sherman Alexie says there might be one good thing about OKC winning the NBA title. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
(AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
Sonics fan Sherman Alexie says there might be one good thing about OKC winning the NBA title. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki) |
A man who once testified his love for the Sonics in a courtroom is having trouble rooting for the Oklahoma City Thunder. Much like other SuperSonics fans he says he’s “furious.”
“The Oklahoma City fans won’t even acknowledge, by and large, the theft. All they do is trash talk about the Sonics feelings,” says Seattle writer and comedian Sherman Alexie. “They’re celebrating the very team that this city created and supported.”
As investor Chris Hansen works to build a new Seattle arena to bring the NBA back to the area, Alexie hopes we’ll be more sensitive to hometown fans of whatever team we find.
“Even if we get a team,” says Alexie. “It means like you’ve said, that we’ve taken somebody’s team and there’s going to be some broken-hearted basketball guys like me, like you, like all of our friends.”
So Alexie has wrapped up anger and his disappointment and thinks only of former SuperSonics owner, Howard Schultz.
Which for him means a somewhat sinister ‘silver lining’ if the Thunder wins the NBA title.
“I do take some solace in the fact of hurting Howard Schultz if they win, and making him look even worse,” says Alexie, who testified as a voice of the Seattle fans in the Sonics trial in 2008.
Just four years after a messy divorce from the city of Seattle that began with Schultz’s sale of the team to Clay Bennett, the Thunder could be NBA champs.
“What this proves is how bad an owner Howard Schultz was. How completely he failed, not only as a business, but as a supposed basketball fan, and a person who knew about basketball,” Alexie tells 97.3 KIRO FM’s Ross and Burbank Show.
Even though Alexie believes a Thunder win would make Schultz look bad, Alexie says he still can’t bring himself to root for them.
Listen to all Sherman Alexie’s thoughts on Sonics/Thunder:
Read more: Dori: A war of words between OKC and Seattle fans
By JAMIE GRISWOLD, MyNorthwest.com Editor
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
