The Seattle Supersonics, named after the Boeing Supersonic which never officially got off the ground, were first given the opportunity to be an official NBA franchise in 1967, which lasted till  2008. Seattle won its only NBA Championship in 1979. The Sonics played their last game in a very depressed Key Arena in April of 2008. Seattle Sonics owner Howard Schultz sold the team to Professional Basketball Club, LLC and the new owner Clay Bennett in 2006.

The new ownership group vowed to do what it could to keep professional basketball in Seattle and the Seattle Storm along with it. This was of course never to be, as the NBA was threatening Seattle with relocation. If there was not to be a new stadium deal intact or at least a remodel of the Key Arena then they would be forced to relocate the team.

The LLC group had no intention of ever making a deal for a new stadium and of course the group always had plans of bringing the team to Oklahoma, where Bennett was born and raised. Seattle as a city banded together to try to stop this move, but failed to do so.

Seattle has had a group called  Save our Sonics (SOS) since 2008 and has made real progress to get a team back to Seattle thanks to former and current NBA stars such as Gary Payton, Shawn Kemp and current NBA star Kevin Durant who was drafted by the Sonics in 2007. Seattle has felt dark and a little bit more gloomy than usual without basketball in the SoDo area.

I remember going to games as a little boy and I can tell you that there wasn’t a better ticket in Seattle. The Sonics had one of the greatest sharp shooters to ever play the game, Ray Allen. I remember watching him sink 50 plus points against teams almost every single night while wearing that beautiful green and gold. It was a disaster when Seattle moved to Oklahoma and we have been waiting to get a team back ever since then.

In September of 2018, the Seattle City Council voted to approve a $ 700 million renovation to the Key Arena. This has brought a feeling of hope to the city as the NHL has gone into serious talks with ownership groups to bring the NHL to Seattle. This has brought ideas that if the NHL can thrive in Seattle for a couple years, then the NBA will have to bring a team back.

Well, slow down Seattle, because the NBA isn’t coming back anytime soon. Current NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has already said that he doesn’t plan to expand the league at anytime in the near future because there is going to be a re-negotiation with TV sponsors in the next five years. This will tell the league whether or not the NBA is in a viable position to expand, so I would say sorry Seattle, you’ll be waiting until at least 2025.