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Greatest of All-Time: The 1975 Seattle Supersonics

Over the next few weeks SonicsRising will be running reviews of the 22 Seattle Supersonics teams that made the playoffs. First up is the 1975 Sonics, coached by the legendary Bill Russell.

Edited by Tiffany Villigan

sportspressnw.com

The goal with these pieces are going to be to give you, the reader, a review of all 22 teams of the Sonics that made the playoffs and then based off your votes (staff votes too), we'll seed the top 16 teams and then simulate the games to figure out who the greatest team in Sonics history was. The whole staff will be taking a turn or five on these.

Eventually our greatest of all time team will go head-to-head with other SB Nation best of all time teams and we'll once and for all figure out who the greatest team ever is.

In 1975 the Seattle Supersonics qualified for the playoffs for the first time in franchise history. After treading water with Tom Nissalke and Bucky Buckwalter as coaches during the '72-'73 season, then-owner Sam Schulman got serious about winning and lured the legendary Bill Russell to coach the team.

Record: 43-39, 2nd in the Pacific Division

Coach: Bill Russell

ROSTER

#

Player

Pos

Ht

Wt

Exp

College

40

John Brisker

SG

6'5"

210

5

Toledo

32

Fred Brown

SG

6'3"

182

3

Iowa

16

Tom Burleson

C

7'2"

225

R

NC State

21

Archie Clark

PG

6'2"

175

8

Minnesota

25

Rod Derline

SG

6'0"

175

R

Seattle

31

Jim Fox

C

6'10"

230

7

South Carolina

11

Leonard Gray

PF

6'8"

240

R

Cal St. Long Beach

24

Spencer Haywood

PF

6'8"

225

5

Detroit Mercy

42

John Hummer

PF

6'9"

230

4

Princeton

30

Wardell Jackson

SF

6'7"

200

R

Ohio State

43

Kenny McIntosh

SF

6'7"

225

3

Eastern Michigan

22

Tal Skinner

SF

6'5"

195

R

Maryland-Eastern Shore

20

Dean Tolson

PF

6'8"

190

R

Arkansas

13

Slick Watts

PG

6'1"

175

1

Xavier University of Louisiana

Stats

Player

G

MP

FG%

FT%

TRB

AST

STL

PPG

John Brisker

21

13.1

.426

.857

1.6

0.9

0.3

7.7

Fred Brown

81

33

.480

.831

4.2

3.5

2.3

21.0

Tom Burleson

82

23

.417

.687

7.0

1.4

0.8

10.1

Archie Clark

77

32.2

.495

.834

3.1

5.6

1.4

13.9

Rod Derline

58

11.5

.428

.768

1.0

0.8

0.4

5.6

Jim Fox

75

23.5

.469

.802

6.5

1.8

0.6

9.0

Leonard Gray

75

30.4

.489

.722

6.4

2.2

0.8

11.5

Spencer Haywood

68

37.2

.459

.811

9.3

2.0

0.8

22.4

John Hummer

43

13.2

.380

.275

2.4

0.9

0.2

2.2

Wardell Jackson

56

16.8

.397

.718

2.4

0.5

0.5

4.3

Kenny McIntosh

6

16.8

.207

.667

2.5

1.2

0.7

3.0

Tal Skinner

73

21.6

.409

.649

4.7

1.2

0.7

4.8

Dean Tolson

19

4.6

.432

.647

1.2

0.3

0.2

2.3

Slick Watts

82

25.1

.421

.608

3.2

6.1

2.3

6.8

This team was definitely led by Spencer Haywood and Fred Brown. I will not pretend to know a lot about this team, as it was six years before I was even born. I now turn it over to you readers, especially the older ones who can share some stories of Bill Russell on the sidelines.

Also, be sure to vote on where you have the team ranked!