"Think Happy" by Seattlest Flickr contributor Timwillis Sue Bird is on a mission. With WNBA MVP Lauren Jackson nursing a bad ankle, Bird scored 13 points in the fourth quarter to lead the Seattle Storm to a 70-62 win over the Chicago Sky. The win seals a playoff spot for the fifth year in a row. Bird says she hasn't consciously changed her style of play. But Storm coach Brian Agler's urging may be having......

Seattlest is still digesting the unsavory news of the loss of our beloved basketball team, the Supersonics. But rather than dwell on the downside, we are trying to keep our chin up and look for some positives. After all, it's not every day that we wake up to find $75 million in the front pocket of our well-worn jeans. We've been wondering all week about how the city might spend that big ol' chunk......

Seattle SuperSonics 1967-2008.......

The justice system may buckle in Oklahoma City’s favor this afternoon with results of the Sonics trial set to be announced at 4 p.m., but the wrath of God is clearly on Seattle’s side. Former owner Howard Schultz—the vindictive baby who sold to an ownership group intent on immediate relocation after being denied a taxpayer handout—is already feeling the sting of what is sure to be the first in a long line of curses......

Indiana University officials are scheduled to go before the NCAA infractions committee today and tomorrow in Seattle over alleged rules violations by former basketball coach Kelvin Sampson (shown here with his evil twin, Emeril Lagasse). Even Pac-10 basketball fans should be aware of the hole that Kelvin Sampson has helped dig for this Big Ten school and their basketball team. It's a big one. Sampson is accused of providing false and misleading information to......

Judge Marsha Pechman will preside over the City of Seattle v. Sonics trial, scheduled to begin Monday. Since the fate of our beloved pro basketball team rests in her hands, Seattlest wanted to take a closer look at the person standing at center court. A former law faculty member at both UW and Seattle U, Judge Pechman has been described as an energetic and hard-working jurist who rose fast in the legal community. Bob......

Our Boston siblings brought our attention to yet another oddity in the Seattle Sonics saga. From our own paper, mind you: "For months, a Boston-area woman thought she was dating a Sonics front-office employee and former NBA player named Jeff Turner, a handsome, 6-foot-8 40-something who was polite, compassionate and respectful." But, of course, it was a flim flam and the aptly named Ronnie Craven was revealed to be neither Jeff Turner nor a......

Not only does Detroit's last place baseball team sweep other last place teams (ours), they also have teams that make the postseason. On Saturday night the Motor City will host two playoffs games. The Red Wings will play the Penguins at 7pm in the Stanley Cup, and the Pistons will play the Celtics in the NBA's Eastern Conference Finals half an hour later The city of Seattle has been home to two playoff games......

IMPORTANT: Workplace discretion advised---very NSFW. If you can't wait until you get home, we suggest headphones.......

A week from today the NBA teamowners will meet in New York to, among other things, discuss and possibly vote on moving the Sonics from Lower Queen Anne to Oklahoma City. It will be interesting to see how Portland Trail Blazer owner Paul Allen votes. He is a Seattle native, who lives, works, and develops here. He also owns the Seahawks, many of whose fans would be devastated if the Sonics were to move. On......

The NCAA Tournament is underway this morning at Seattlest Sports Headquarters. We could barely sleep last night with eight games tipping off before noon today. This afternoon, the Washington State Cougars launch their campaign at the NCAA Championship at the high time of 4:20pm on CBS. In their first-round game, the No. 4 seed WSU Cougars face the No. 13 seed Winthrop Eagles. Both teams pride themselves on their defense and prefer a slower......

The Cougs are still missing that killer instinct. Up 20 points and closing in on half time, Wazzu let the Oregon Ducks whittle away at the lead. With the 75-70 victory, Washington State will seek revenge against the Stanford Cardinal, who beat Arizona last night to advance to the semi-finals of the Pac-10 tournament. The Cardinal swept the Cougars in the regular season, an OT win in the Palouse and a 7-point win just two......

Geraldine Ferraro, who claims that a black guy named Barack Obama has an advantage in running for president in America, something pretty similar to what she said about Jesse Jackson in 1988, was reluctantly shit-canned by the Clinton campaign. Presumably for not being negative enough. Luckily for us, Ferraro is a huge Husky basketball fan and agreed to share her thoughts on UDub's opening round loss 84-81 loss to Cal in the Pac Ten Tournament.......

Dino Rossi is savvy enough to know the state’s inability to broker a Key Arena remodel is the type of far-fetched, wedge issue just ripe for exploiting come November’s election. Considering the hotly contested runoff between him and Governor Gregoire several years ago, the Sonics impending departure is the perfect issue to highlight as an example of weak-kneed Democrats not taking care of business on Gregoire’s watch. Of course, there is the fact Key......

Who knew? Seattlest tends to be slow on the uptake when it comes to going out on weeknights. We're the first to admit that, most of the time, we'd rather sit at home and watch reality television or satisfy our unhealthy workaholism well into the late night hours. Weekends are for going out....but, last night, in a rare fit of early-week fun-having, we rounded up as many of our favorite girlfriends as we could,......

The other day, (probably) the most read and best sports columnist in the country, ESPN.com's Bill Simmons, asked Sonic fans to send him emails venting their frustrations over the current "situation." The result was the longest piece he's ever posted. As we read all the emails, we went through many emotions, sadly none were close to joy. Ultimately (after we stopped throwing things), we were comforted that our fellow fans understood the situation so clearly--the......

Unlike our beloved baseball All Star Game, we’ve tended to skip the NBA's version in recent years. However, with our hero Brandon Roy, in Sunday's game we can’t wait to watch our fellow ex-Bulldog cram some FANtastic™ action down the East’s face. However, we’ll be in Vancouver--sorry TNT. Local Connections: Brandon Roy--Played for Garfield High School and the University of Washington. Currently for the Portland Trailblazers. Steve Nash--Native of Victoria. Then U-Dub coach Lynn Nance......

So the Sonics won last night. Kevin Durant scored a bunch of points and stuff. The biggest highlight, though, came from the seats, when Pearl Jam bassist—and die hard Sonics fan—Jeff Ament donned a headset for a chat with announcer Kevin Calabro. Jeff commented on Durant's talent, voiced opposition to the Sonics' possible departure, and said our recent snow (quality) was stellar. Regarding his band, Jeff told Calabro, "We're gonna get together here in......

Last time we checked in on Shawn Kemp, Jr., he was a 6-7 wingman considered a fairly decent prospect in Georgia. Now, Kemp is considered one of the top prospects in the nation, and, according to Glenn LaFollette of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a recruiting target of Lorenzo Romar. As you might expect, Kemp is a pretty good basketball player--a 6-9 dunk machine who Rivals rates as the #9 center in the class of '09. (Yes,......

This, honest to God, is what we would do if we won the lottery: We would purchase a Portuguese League basketball team and stock it with former Washington Huskies. We would spend our mornings sipping sangria by the seashore, our afternoons trying to say that ten times fast, and our evenings watching some of our favorite ballers ever. But until our lucky numbers (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6) come up, we're settling for......

The Seattle Times' Jim Brunner points out a head-exploding irony in the Sonics' legal case to escape their Key Arena lease. For a lifetime, we've heard professional sports owners trot out the argument that we ought to pay for their arenas because they provide an economic benefit to the community. Think of the waiters, the parking attendants, the ushers and all the people that make money when the team plays. Or don't--they'd be getting their......

You'd assume that the few people who showed up at Key Arena tonight were hoping from a show from Kobe Bryant. They got one. Bryant scored a season-high 48 points, including the final three baskets of the game to get his Lakers the overtime win. The Sonics were up four points with under two minutes to go, and with Kurt Thomas at the line for two shots. Thomas missed both, and then Bryant hit ridiculous......

We saw Garfield High ninth-grade basketball phenom Tony Wroten make the most incredible dunk last Tuesday, but as we'd been assured by a KING 5 cameraman that they'd caught it on tape, we didn't want to waste words describing it. Check out this video. The dunk comes about halfway through. That video doesn't quite do the play justice, the camera loses track of Wroten at the last second--probably because everyone in the gym jumped to......

We all know what happens to kids who attend private school. Their folks buy them 16 years of education, they get a job at Daddy's firm, and eventually they sit in board rooms and devise ways to increase profits--usually by laying off kids who went to public school. The forward-thinking youth at private Kennedy High don't want the hopeless, powerless lives of their public school lessers to come as a shock, so they are preparing......

Tony Harris was a star basketball player at Garfield High School and Washington State University. After college, he played in a variety of international pro leagues: The Philippines, South Korea, Brazil. He was in his second stint in Brazil this fall, having left his pregnant wife behind in Seattle, when he disappeared, claiming that his life was in danger. He was later found dead. What went wrong? Possibly, it was Harris' own mind. ESPN's Wright......

Great news for Seattle Storm fans broke last night: Sonics owner Clay Bennett will sell the WNBA team to a local ownership group. That group hasn't yet been identified, but we'll find out who they are at an 11am news conference today. Bennett had said he wasn't going to separate the Sonics and Storm. Why'd he change his mind? Brian Robinson of SonicsCentral and Save Our Sonics speculates: "In general I think the 'divide and......

In Garfield High alum Brandon Roy's national coming out party, he didn't have a great statistical game, shooting 6-23. But anyone who watched the Blazers 89-79 win instead of just looking at the boxscore saw that he was clutch when it mattered. The turning point was a 18-4 Blazers run at the beginning of the second half. During the run, the Blazers scored 10 baskets. Roy either scored or assisted on 8 of them. It......

Counterpoint at Tuesday night's Garfield/Inglemoor game, played at Garfield's temporary home, Old Lincoln High. At the P.A., a white man with a white beard in a black sportcoat with a voice like a KING-FM DJ. Think James Lipton. Behind us, a black woman with a Garfield purple track jacket that said "Class of '77", with a voice like an airhorn. Think Wanda Sykes. Lipton: "Welcome to Garfield's gym..well, ersatz Garfield." Sykes: "This ain't the gym,......

Making up for weeks of hibernation and workaholism, Kim will hit the parties this weekend. Tonight, she’ll don her Groucho glasses for a lesbian function at Jabu’s celebrating the births of her two favorite Sagitarii. Saturday, it’s to the War Room for a company party with the missus and her workmates. Finally, she’ll ship off to the sub-tropics on Monday, where she’ll spend what remains of 2007. While his wife is taking a Wilderness......

For the first time in Seattlest's life, we're actually bemoaning the fact that we don't have any tank tops in our closet. Heck, this is probably the first time we've ever thought about not owning a tank top. Not having one puts a serious crimp in our plans to go to Sustainable Capitol Hill's Tank Tops to Totes this Saturday at Stitches on Capitol Hill. (We don't think Sustainable Capitol Hill has a Web site.......