Forty-seven years ago today, the NBA awarded Sam Schulman, Eugene Klein and the city of Seattle with a new franchise after Schulman paid the expansion fee of $1.75 milion. That franchise would become the Seattle Supersonics. The team was named by Howard Schmidt, a local teacher, and his son Brent, after a new jet being developed by Boeing (which was later cancelled). The team was the first professional sports team in Seattle and began play in October of 1967.
The team selected 13 players in the expansion draft, including Walt Hazzard, Bob Weiss (who would go on to coach the team in 2005) and Rod Thorn, and drafted Bob Rule out of Colorado State University.
Now here we are, remembering the day that our beloved franchise was first conceived, hoping to have that feeling again, hoping we can recreate the feeling that the city felt in 1966 when the NBA told us we were next. In 41 years, the Sonics made three trips to the NBA Finals, winning one NBA Championship, had the support of the twelfth largest media market in the country, and created one of the most dynamic duos in NBA history. The team was then ripped from us unceremoniously because of a little man with a vendetta. Luckily that little man will be gone in just two short months, and we, the Sonics Army, ask of Adam Silver to do the right thing and return our franchise to us. As Gary Payton put it during Sonicsgate's Webby Awards victory speech, "bring back our Seattle Supersonics."