Basketball. Is that the one where they run around and throw a ball?

Sour grapes much?

@2: you have to live here to know the feeling of being ROBBED. fuck the NBA, it's surprisingly easy to ignore.

Fuck the Sonics already. May the Mariners & Seahawks follow suit, welfare queens all.

But yeah, I agree w Goldy, the best outcome would have been the total collapse of the whole NBA pile-o-shit. The Billionaires and Millionaires-in-underwear realized that nobody would care, and finally made a deal to keep the scam going.

there's no need to feel sorry for anyone here - it's greed on every side. That disease is non discriminatory.

What far left liberal blog isnt complete without some sports bashing.

Goldy, go eat a bowl of cancer.

Fuck David Stern.

I'll shed my tears for the sonics when someone gets a time machine and goes back to 1990 to make Barry Ackerley retain his proposal for an NHL expansion. Until then...fuck `em.

I'm not a big fan of the NBA either these days, for obvious reasons, but the only problem with letting the lockout go on indefinitely is that it would severely impact a lot of ordinary people as well, like all the people who work in the arenas, and all the people who work in businesses around the arenas who depend on the added traffic in the neighborhoods on game days.

Woo the NBA is back, Go Bulls!

As far as I'm concerned, I wouldn't have been bothered to see this labor dispute drag on forever to the financial ruin of all.

I wouldn't want to see that, just because I know how important pro sports is to so many people but watching overpaid jocks play with balls holds little interest for me.

@ 6, unless it's a sport you don't like, right? Pot, meet kettle.

I'm with @3 and @7.

The only major professional sports team to bring a National Championship title to this city, and some swell-headed coffee peddler sells them out from under us......... Damn it, it still hurts!

Who can forget Sherman Alexie's "Sonics Death Watch" series in this very paper? damn it...

bitter bitter bitter

@12

If its a local pro sport, im all for it. I dont care for the minor leagues.

What's worse than an anti-sports snob? A fan-snob who looks down his nose at sports he doesn't like. And one who lies, too - remember passionately defending UW, your local minor league football club? I do.

Getting paid one million instead of two million to play a child's game?

My tears, they flow poorly.

If the business owners that have claimed for a decade that the business model is broken have gone to all of this trouble only to still be unable to operate every team with the possibility of turning an operating profit and a chance of winning, then they all lose.

For the handful of potential local owners that have used the prior CBA as an excuse, it's on you now.
Bellevue or Seattle
Bel-Red or 8th Ave
SoDo-ish or Seattle Center

For the sports haters, McCaw Hall wasn't free, the players don't even wear short pants, and for the entertainment of millionaires and billionaires in the "good" seats. You have no room to talk.

It's not a surprise the players caved - your average player has what - a 5-year span of peak earning potential? If the owner misses a season it's not a big loss to him - he was the rest of his life to recoup. A player losing out on a season stands to lose a big chunk of his career earnings. Not to mention all the benchwarmer players probably can't afford not to play.

I'm actually confused as to why the players even need the league in the first place? Why didn't they just hire a couple of accountants and booking agents and set up their own league, and keep all the money, instead of the half that the "owners" give them? Owners of what, exactly?

The owners still get to keep the taxpayer-provided stadiums, right? Whew, what a relief.

The owners own the brand, specifically the individual team names and identities and everything that goes with that. In terms of play, the players could go without the owners, but if you lose the team names you lose the whole heritage of the sport that keeps people hooked to their particular team. It's one thing to change the name of one team when it switches cities, because it buys in to participation with all the teams and history that's intact when other teams come to town. But to start up a new league entirely and get rid of the Bulls, Lakers, and other big name teams, all at once and forever? It wouldn't work.

I don't understand how players who may have grown up in one area, played college ball in a different one and then play for different NBA teams create for a 'home town pride' team.

@22, same could be said for much of the white collar workers at Boeing and Microsoft.

@21, it could work, it would just mean huge paycuts for the players, and a complete loss of the franchise as an asset.
Somehow they overcame their stupidity, in this instance, and made it work.

The opt-out in 6 years when the new tv deal is a factor will add a whole new level of entertainment.

@23 I don't think those are equally applicable. Boeing was dependent on Columbia River electricity, that enabled their success. Microsoft needed UW's graduates, but I bet any big Uni would have given them what they needed. They're the product of historic investments. And regardless, is there really much of a home team mantra about them? The kind that's on par with sports teams?

@ 25, tell true - are you a fan of either collegiate or pro sports?

As to your point, I was still in Seattle when Boeing moved its headquarters. LOTS of natives I knew were saddened and angered about that, even though it was largely a symbolic gesture - a net loss of maybe 500 jobs for the region. People may not go around wearing MS or Boeing shirts, but the fact that two world-beating companies grew here, was a source of a lot of civic pride.

@26 naw, watching other people play team sports doesn't really interest me. I'm a UW alum but will never buy anything that says Huskies on it cause the academics of the school out rank the athletics of the school by leaps and bounds. And it always irked me how much fan-fare football got.

The only sports I've ever watched, and not with any measure of regularity, have been track and field, gymnastics, and summer olympics. I think human endurance sports are more interesting to watch than team sports. I'd watch a hotdog eating contest before I'd watch an Apple Cup.

I'm one of those nerds who like to make "local sports team" jokes.

In other words, Jen's a fucking bimbo. I sure hope she's cute, because she's got nothing else going for her.

So, no live slog of the Apple Cup?

@ 28 oh noes, internet insult. So sad now :(

@28, that's a damned peculiar definition you have for 'bimbo'.

I (and most rational sports fans, not actually an oxymoron, though perhaps we are in the minority) understand why people would be put off by big time pro & college sports. We do however, get annoyed by the folks who take that smug & often sanctimonious "Oh you guys are just a bunch of arrogant & conceited, dumb frat boys" attitude that so often seems to permeate & underscore these discussions.

I also appreciate those sports Jen mentions, though the reality is those sports seem to offer much rarer opportunities to see those amazing displays of unbelievable hand-eye coordination and dexterity that is a big part of the draw of team oriented sports (say watching Brandon Roy drive in for a lay-up, draw a defender, then make a last second, mid-air, split-second decision to change hands and extend to the other side of the rim for a reverse, as an example.) They are, when it comes down to it, among the most agile and graceful people on earth.

Of course they're incomprehensibly over-paid for what it is they do, but if you're just willing to divorce yourself from certain elements of the culture that surrounds it (challenging, frequently) it can be a beautiful thing to behold.

Plus, it's a fine & readily accesible excuse for knocking back a 6-pack on a random Tuesday evening in the middle of January, for those in need of one.

Go Blazers.

@28 Geez, dude, why don't you go marry her already?

(@27 You don't have to marry him.)

I'd watch a hotdog eating contest before I'd watch an Apple Cup.

I think I just fell in love a little bit with internet jen.

@28, coincidental, not causal, a leap to a conclusion.
@32, fuck the blazers (and proving Jen wrong @22)

@33:
1. @34 has dibs on her
2. I will not have any girl who prefers the term 'tuchus' over 'tushy'
3. I'm already married
4. I still don't get @28's logic at all

@ 32 - most of the coverage of the lockout said the very best players were actually underpaid, relative to the value they produced for their franchises.

@ internet jen, with your disinterest in sports now established, would you please tell me why you asked the question @ 22?

This from a paper that gives rapturous coverage of movies -- where stars and celebrity directors earn riches that make NBA players look like paupers.

Oh, and of course we love the Sounders -- whose owners are proud members of the 1%.

So who else bought Sounders gear on Cyber Monday and got those sweet sweet deals?