If one has ever gone to see the Seattle Seahawks play at Lumen Field, one will notice that the streets and buildings don't just have images of current Seahawks, Mariners, Sounders, Kraken, or Storm players. Fans will see quite a bit of homage to a team that has not been part of the sports landscape in Seattle since 2008.
The Seattle SuperSonics were stolen from the city after a botched sale by Starbucks owner Howard Schultz. Schultz sold the team to Clay Bennett of Oklahoma City, with Schultz believing the team would be kept in Seattle. It wasn't, and Bennett moved the team to OKC.
To be sure, Seattle was a great NBA town, and having a vibrant sports culture helps all professional teams in the city. Having the Seahawks, Sounders, Storm, Kraken, and Mariners is great, but a perfect scenario has a city having a team from all four of the big leagues in the United States: the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL.
The Seattle Seahawks could get new neighbors as soon as this summer
Seattle has three of those, and it should have never lost the fourth. Presumably, the NBA is looking at possible expansion and announcing two new teams to the league as early as this summer. Seattle is expected to be on the short list.
As for the city, they are making it clear that residents want their Super Sonics back. This included the unusual step this past weekend when the city unveiled a statue of former SuperSonics player and coach Lenny Wilkens outside of Climate Pledge Arena, formerly KeyArena.
Wilkens is the first person to have a statue placed outside the arena. That cannot be understated.
The SuperSonics won their NBA championship in the 1978-79 season with Wilkens as the coach. He had joined the team one season earlier and led Seattle to the NBA finals that year. He also played with Seattle from 1968 to 1972, and has made his home in the Seattle area for decades.
Surely, the NBA will notice how much the city of Seattle misses its NBA team and deserves a new one. Basketball fans in the Pacific Northwest, many of them also Seahawks fans, of course, are going to support the new team because they never stopped supporting the last one.
Plus, adding the SuperSonics gives Seahawks fans one more thing to do between January and September: Root for an NBA team. The OKC Thunder won the NBA title this year, and that should have happened in Seattle. The least the league can do is give Seattle back its franchise.
