Look, I don't want to jinx anything, but I'm just too excited about our prospects here for the current NBA season (yeah, this is about the Sonics, and if you don't like it, then you can just GITTT OUTTT!).
At the moment, YOUR Seattle Supersonics are ... drumroll please ... the FOURTH WORST TEAM IN THE NBA!!!!! That means, come lottery time, we'll have the fourth most balls in the giant spinny-cage thing! That means, there's like ... a __% chance that we'll land Kevin Durant! Can you say 25 points and 11 rebounds? Can you say 37 points and 23 rebounds against Texas Tech a week ago? Can you say The Next Tim Duncan? (with the obvious differences being that San Antonio had a flukey down year in the midst of a long string of playoff seasons, whereas the Sonics have been sucking since just after Vin Baker's first season with us).
A few things bug me about the potential of this scenario playing out. First of all, Rashard Lewis is almost ready to rejoin the team. That's a 20/10 man we just don't NEED! Secondly, Nick Collison's been playing especially superhard over the last two or three weeks and we've shown signs of being decent. Third, the fucking fuck-me-in-the-ass Sonics are NOTORIOUS for sucking for 2/3 of a season and then really turning it on at the end with a bunch of wins, making management believe the team's promising and the coach is getting through. Ultimately, we DON'T make the playoffs anyway, but we do rise about 8 spots in the draft order, leaving us with the 12th or 13th pick. EVERY. FUCKING. YEAR. Fourth, and this is the thing that worries me the most: The Sonics have 17 wins, which means they're second worst in the Western Conference only ahead of 12-win Memphis. There are two teams (Boston and Philly) in the East who have fewer than 17 wins, but six more NBA teams are hovering around 18-21 wins, three of them in the East. As we all know, the Eastern Conference is TERRIBLE. Only 7 out of 15 teams have winning records at the moment, and that's an inflation from the number a month ago. If there are five teams hovering around or below the Sonics' already pathetic record of 17 wins in an Eastern Conference that better resembles a WNBA conference, then that means the Sonics are better than we give them credit for.
Here's the deal, I'm looking at the remainder of the schedule, and I see 11 very winnable games. That gives us 28 wins on the season. And 11 is a LOW estimate, because I'm not really accounting for too many upsets going in our favor. That would mean that teams like Memphis and Boston would need to win another 17 games over the last three months; there's no WAY that's gonna happen! And Philly would need to win 13??? Yeah right! You're talking about teams with no viable superstar at the moment, who are tanking this year to gear up for nabbing either Durant or Oden. With all the Sonics stars healthy, I wouldn't be surprised to see us prattle off another 17 wins and REALLY fuck up our draft status!
I'm telling you, if we just lost the rest of our games, we'd be in business. Get a top 2 draft pick, fire Bob Hill for being incompetent, draft Durant or Oden, retain Lewis and Allen, bring in Dwayne Casey to coach, put the fucking point guard controversy to bed once and for all (I say put all your balls in the Ridnour basket and cut Watson ... Ridnour's shown a better shooting touch, especially from long range, but when you fuck with his confidence and his minutes, of course he's gonna start sucking!), give Wilkens an ultimatum to either shut the fuck up and play or try to be a 12th man on some other fucking team, and for the love of God light a fire under the ass of Wilcox! We'd be in the running for championships within three years, guaranteed. Once Durant finds his groove - which should be during one of Ray Allen's final productive years and when Rashard Lewis is consistently being snubbed for All Star Games - people will fear and respect the Seattle Supersonics like they did in the early and mid 90s.