Today's Sonics articles mostly focus on the return of Dwane Casey. Percy Allen's piece goes into a bit of detail and speculation about what might have happened had Nate left before the T-Wolves hired Casey. Tonight is the first of the matchups between the Sonics and the two other coaches in thier division that were on the same staff for the last 3 years. Watch tonight to see how quickly the coaches counter moves knowing how the other's though processes work.
While over in the PI the story remains about the return of Casey. However, the interesting part of this article is the two lower sections of the article. First a bit of insight into a story Brian Robinson mentioned yesterday in his practice notes about Danny Fortson's knee injury. Second is the admission by Bob Weiss that the Sonics should have employed a different defensive scheme against Sam Cassell late in the game Wednesday. I like what I am hearing out of the coaches and believe that they'll learn from mistakes made early on..
Frank Hughes' article focuses on what factors crept into Weiss's mind during the opening night loss to the Clippers. Weiss's comments about not sticking to what he believed his rotation was going to be is interesting, what will be more interesting is whether he makes this mistake again. Also his commentary on Petro's performance but not being sure he wanted to play him at the end of games was a bit contradictory to what he's said leading up to the end of the preseason.
At Supersonics.com Kevin Pelton's articles picked up a few quotes from players and Weiss that none of the other beat writers mentioned, or if they mentioned the comment they didn't have the direct quote. Ray's take on momentum and its effect on the game as well as his role as leader is very refreshing commentary in an age where players, coaches and the media all tend to try to assign blame onto everyone and everything except themselves. To have a player say, no one is immune from critcism and point out that once momentum switched to the Clippers the chances of winning diminished greatly is exactly what I want to hear from my teams star player.