The sky's beginning to fall down on the Seattle Supersonics. ...

From the Seattle PI.

Seattle falling off sports map
Last updated July 3, 2007 11:18 p.m. PT

By ART THIEL
P-I COLUMNIST

Rashard Lewis. Ray Allen. Nate McMillan. Jack Sikma. Detlef Schrempf. Mike Hargrove. Jamie Moyer. Gil Meche. Steve Hutchinson. Spencer Hawes.

No wonder we almost broke the ribs of Ken Griffey Jr. with our weepy group hug.

Does any A-list sports talent want to work in this burg?

Ichiro Suzuki, let's see your hand up.

Please?

News that Lewis practically leaped out of his shoes to agree to a deal with the Orlando Magic on the first day of NBA free agency was the latest in a long line of departures that suggest Seattle is drifting toward becoming the downtown Kazakhstan of big-time sports. INSERT: LOL

Obviously, reasons and circumstances are as varied as the athletes. Some had choices, others didn't. Turnover is a standard fixture in these sports. Besides, plenty of athletes are happy to be here. Willie Bloomquist, for example. Probably.

So an all-inclusive conclusion isn't logical.

But it's hard to dispute that the recent burn rate for top-tier local sports figures has been faster than tax money for a Halliburton no-bid contract.

The Sonics' implosion is generating the highest casualty rate. They have been on a rolling, two-year financial collapse, thanks to the 2005-06 season in which the old ownership plotted its exit, and the 2006-07 season in which the new ownership plotted its exit.

The Sonics may still get some value for Lewis in a sign-and-trade deal. But if they don't, it's the full A-Rod -- nothing in return for the premier player of his free agent class.

It's not easy to have that happen twice in the same sports market. Unless one considers that it's happened three times in Seattle. The Seahawks' Hutchinson received more money than any guard in NFL history from Minnesota, and the Seahawks received nada.

That's the sort of civic sporting whiff that has kept Seattle championship-free in the major sports since 1979. All leagues attempt, with varying success, to promote enough parity so that every team may someday find a route to the top. Seattle teams keep getting lost.

This sort of mediocrity is a little more understandable in places like Kansas City, Milwaukee and Cincinnati, smaller markets that lack the Fortune 500 companies and large private wealth that can indulge franchises as objects for dilettante amusement. INSERT: OK??? So if Seattle is soooo rich, then why is it happening Art?

Despite the extraordinary explosion of cash in the Puget Sound region, starting with the 1986 public offering of stock in Microsoft, Seattle and its landed gentry often still act like it's a sawmill town short on trees. INSERT:LOL!!! and they like to call OKC - hick. ... Sawmill town. lol.

Then again, the Mercer Mess has been so since the 1960s, so there probably is no precedent for presuming we can get out of our own civic way.

Paul Allen is one guy who is willing to deal, but unfortunately for local sports fans, he bought into the one sport with a hard salary cap for players that is the least influenced by reckless wealth of an owner.

He's spent well for coaches such as Mike Holmgren of the Seahawks and McMillan of the Trail Blazers, but the limits on NFL player spending and rules on revenue sharing explain in part why the sport works in places like Green Bay and Jacksonville, and why the NBA, in contrast, can fail in Seattle and Vancouver. INSERT: Hey, dont try to lump Vancouver into Seattle's failure. Vancouver lost the grizz because the NBA never developed the market. Fan attendance was fine all along but there was nothing to get excited over, esp for a new market/country, when Brian Big Country Reves (from Oklahoma by the way) was all Vancouverites had to cheer about. The owner sucked and that is why the Vancouver franchise moved. Seattle's is moving because Seattle sucks.

Even in the NFL, Seattle managed to wait nearly 30 years for its first Super Bowl appearance. Up until the 2005 postseason the club's pile of playoff wins stood at a neat and tidy three.

Another example of Seattle futility revealed itself this week with MLB's announcement of the rosters for the All-Star Game.

The current Mariners lost to the former Mariners, 6-2.

Three times as many ex-Mariners are in the game (Griffey, Meche, David Ortiz, Alex Rodriguez, Carlos Guillen and Brian Fuentes) than current players (Ichiro, J.J. Putz). And for those stars who departed via trade, nothing remains on the current roster from those transactions. That's just one explanation for how the Mariners remain one of five MLB teams never to have made the World Series.

The impression is that while Seattle sports are, in fact, a collective big dog, the moguls prefer to run with the Chihuahuas.

Another example of thinking small: Although bonuses and other payments may alter the complete comparison, it is likely that the highest-paid athlete in town is Wally Szczerbiak, one of the two players acquired from the Celtics in the Allen trade last week.

Now with his third team in two seasons, Szczerbiak, partly due to injuries, was able to start just 19 games for one of the NBA's worst teams, yet is owed $26 million by the Sonics for the next two seasons.

Go ahead. I'll wait while you remove your index finger from your throat.

The killer irony is that the main, if not only, reason Allen and Lewis will not be on the team next season is because owner Clay Bennett doesn't want to pay their high salaries, which are a little more than Szczerbiak's, but would in either case go to more productive players in the franchise's most important season.

The fact that Lewis' pal, Allen, was jettisoned for a rookie destined for Lewis' spot was all he needed to know about the Sonics. After the draft-day deals, there was no way Lewis was coming back to Seattle.

At least Lewis' decision was based on simple, comprehensible facts such as money and team prospects. No such concrete data explain the decision of Hargrove to abdicate his post as manager of the Mariners.

Never in the 107 years of major league baseball checked by the Elias Sports Bureau has a manager departed voluntarily after an eight-game winning streak. Why am I not surprised it happened to a team in Seattle? Even when things are going good, badness is just a sweep by the Kansas City Royals away.

While conspiracy theories abound regarding the reasons behind his resignation Sunday, I have yet to hear the real one:

He was following the crowd.



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P-I columnist Art Thiel can be reached at 206-448-8135 or artthiel@seattlepi.com.

© 1998-2007 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
This was just too funny but sad also. Seattle will be just fine with two teams only. Get over it guys.