Sonics take a page out of history

Amazing. Without a single revision, no call for updates and nary a shift in tenses from present to past, the Seattle SuperSonics' 2007-08 media guide was transformed, overnight, into a history book.

What began as a mere franchise relocation turned into a publishing miracle. What was, a few hours before, a living, breathing document for a living, breathing NBA franchise in the Pacific Northwest -- the region's oldest and the flag-planting there for major-league sports -- suddenly was encased in amber. Sealed off after 40 seasons, an artifact, a relic.

The book serves as a reminder, too, of how much of the Sonics' identity and heritage belongs to Seattle, rather than to the ownership group absconding to Oklahoma City with the NBA-sanctioned rights to assemble a team, to sell tickets and to play 82 games next season. And the season after that and the season after that, at which point the OKC crew still will trail the team's true fanbase by 37 years worth of memories.

Consider, for instance, a section smack in the middle of the book entitled "Sonics History, 1967-2007." It takes up 96 pages. The franchise's all-time records and all-time playoff records require another 52 pages. The all-time roster? That's 32 more, a running total of 180 out of 378.

None of that will belong to the Oklahoma City Whatevers when they fish the basketballs out of their carpet bags for the first day of training camp this October.

There is a 56-page section on "Sonics opponents" crammed with stats and scores and series results, all amassed between the rest of the NBA and a team based in Seattle since LBJ was wringing his hands over the Summer of Love.

The team's players, from start to finish, all had the city's name or "Sonics" or both plastered across their chests, done up in variations of green and gold and white. None of those will make the trip to Oklahoma City, either, because by an agreement that hopefully is more binding than its KeyArena lease, the nickname and the team colors still belong to Seattle.

This, admittedly, is like winning a coin flip to keep pop's urn on your mantel rather than snotty sis's after the funeral. But in the moment, it feels good. Might be the Sonics' last victory for a long time, too.

Eleven pages of the media guide are devoted to a review of '06-07, which is plenty given the club's lackluster play (31-51) on the court; the results from the most recent season were even worse, a 20-62 trudge through gloom and doom that foreshadowed Wednesday's dreary decision.

Oklahoma City, frankly, has done better in pro basketball terms in recent years but has done it with an entirely different franchise. From '05-07, it served as the New Orleans Hornets' home away from home, a proud and asterisked stretch during which the city built post-Hurricane Katrina goodwill with the NBA and staked its claim as a big-league wannabe. Still, that had nothing whatsoever to do with the Sonics.