Results tagged “gregoden”

The 2008 football season ended last week for Walter Jones, the Seahawks' offensive tackle and general-prover-of-Einsteinian-physics. Jones was suffering from a knee injury so severe that it would require a cutting-edge procedure called microfracture surgery. The P-I's Danny O'Neil wrote that Jones had headed off to Colorado to have the intricate surgery performed by the world's leading expert, Dr. Richard Steadman.

We wrote this before watching the end of last night’s Blazers vs. Rockets OT thriller, won on a Brandon Roy three with 0.8 seconds left.

Portland's Greg Oden, the #1 pick in this year's NBA draft, is out for the season before playing his first NBA game after exploratory surgery found extensive damage in his right knee.

SonicsCentral pointed us to this story from the Daily Oklahoman, where Clay Bennett is as explicit as ever about his desire to move the Sonics:

"For now, without a building solution, it's our intent to play in Seattle and apply for relocation immediately after the (Oct. 31) deadline."

It's good that Bennett's finally declared his intentions, NBA-backers can now prepare for the big fight. The Sonics' lease, signed after we taxpayers remodeled the Coliseum for them, runs through 2010. It would seem that, with Bennett having given up on Seattle, the only hope of keeping the Sonics would be to force him to stay in town, exposing him to several years of financial losses unless he unloads the team to a local buyer willing to build a privately-funded stadium here. That, or convincing NBA owners to oppose his application to move. Surely the NBA can't be relishing the possibility of having a marquee player like Greg Oden or Kevin Durant stuck in the nation's 45th-largest TV market (Seattle is 14th).

As the amazing reality of the 2007 draft order settles in, it has become apparent that if you need to send a representative to the NBA Draft Lottery, pick a Garfield High graduate.

#1 Pick in the 2007 NBA Draft: Blazers!

Because they didn't file relocation paperwork with the NBA by some deadline, we know that the Sonics will play the 2007-08 season in Key Arena. Sonics Central and Supersonicsoul are thus far silent. Buzzer Beater outlines the possible scenarios, including the exciting "Sonics win #1 pick take Greg Oden and a tidal wave of excitement compels politicos to push through taxes" concept, better known as the "'95 Mariners Script". Maybe. But Clay Bennett, when he bought the team in July, set a 12-month deadline. If there was no arena deal by July 2007, the Sonics were gone. Of course, that could've been a negotiating ploy.

As the NBA's 10th worst team, the Sonics had about a 1/25 chance of getting one of the top three picks, and about a 9/10 chance of getting the 10th pick. They did not pick up an ace "on the river" however (if you have been unemployed in the past year you will know what this means), and so the tenth pick is theirs.