G-Dub's story is the one everyone will be talking about.
I heard the same things Gary did Thursday night. Until the doctor confirms or contradicts the report tough to say. Edit: He has. Rob's out. Either way it's a shame for Rob to miss that much time. I only hope that Petro, Sene and Nick can make up for his absence if it turns out to be prolonged.
Eine Kleine Autobiographia:
I got in a crowded elevator this morning at work and someone audibly farts. LOUD. I'm talking duck fart here, a very clear, audible QUACK with a little splatter added. Nobody knew what to do. We're just standing there in our own little Seattle passive aggressive worlds, saying nothing as the stench slowly wafts through the car. I got off first and said as the doors closed "Don't worry, they'll find you out before this car gets to the 24th floor."
I just --know-- it was the fat sweaty guy in the business suit.
Some Wally postmortems:
I'm glad Wally's stepping down. I thought he far overstayed his welcome as GM and President and was a total liability as a public face of the franchise. That said having met the guy face to face I can echo many of the statements made about him from other people around the league. In person he is a really likable guy. There's no doubt in my mind that he wants this team to stay. I guess it's one of those bizarre dichotomies between the real person and the public person. Who you think people are in print and on TV bears little to no resemblance to the person they can be or are in person, and if there's any lesson at all I can pass on this bitter Friday morning, I guess that's it.
I'm a William S. Burroughs fan. Did I ever tell you about the man who taught his asshole to talk?
Walker squelched the 1994 draft-day trade of Shawn Kemp for Scottie Pippen.
Absolutely 100% wrong. It was Barry Ackerley and the Times reported it as such.
He wasted more than $30 million on center/stiff Jim McIlvaine, crippling the Sonics inside the salary cap and angering Kemp to the point of permanent distraction.
Simplistic revisionist crap. Kemp had nobody to blame but himself and Tony Dutt for misjudging the salary explosion of the early to mid 90s. Even if the Sonics wanted to pay Kemp more, they couldn't renegotiate his contract under the CBA that was in place at the time.
Wally's Follies included drafting Corey Maggette in 1999, then trading him for Horace Grant, re-signing Kemp's replacement Vin Baker for more than $80 million, and signing free-agent center Calvin Booth for another $36 million.
BS. The Sonics drafted Corey Maggette expressly for the Orlando Magic. Had the Sonics kept the pick they would have chosen William Avery ... we can debate how well that would have turned out but to use that pick against Walker is typical Steve Kelley BS hindsight. And they really didn't have any choice on re-signing Vin Baker at the time either. No complaints on the Calvin Booth signing from me. That was a frigging disaster ... but every GM has at least one of those on his resume. Hell, how many crap big man signings do Garry St. Jean and Isaiah Thomas have on their resumes? Danny Ainge? Who maxed out Raef LaFrentz? Juwan Howard?
Then the most laughable part of a laughable article from the worst sports columnist in town:
They should bring back former general manager Bob Whitsitt, who knows all of the players in this game — and I don't just mean the guys with jumpers and the shorts.
Whitsitt is friendly with the wealthy people in Seattle. He already has done an arena deal in this town. He understands how local government works. He has a passion for the game and a passion to keep the game in Seattle.
And despite the problems (almost all of them off the floor) with his players in his last seasons in Portland, Whitsitt knows basketball. If the owners are serious about working with governments to get an arena built, if they are serious about basketball in Seattle, they should make an offer to Whitsitt.
This after Kelley excoriated Whitsitt during his tenure as Seahawks GM where his players mostly succeeded in getting on the Kirkland police blotter. Whitsitt had Paul Allen's billions and total disregard for the cap in his last gig in Portland and still couldn't get the job done ... not to mention he singlehandedly poisoned the well in Portland as badly or worse than Walker did here.