Flashback Friday: A Sonics finale

So the year is 2008, and for most of the basketball year myself and other Seattle Sonics fans have been in suspense for the most of the year. The reason why is because the new owner of the Sonics and a full time Nazi Clay Bennett was trying to relocate the team to his home of Oklahoma City. The city of Seattle wouldn't give out the money to build the new arena for the team but the fans were gathering and chanting "Save Our Sonics! Save Our Sonics! Save Our Sonics!". I went to 10
Sonics games that year and during that year I actually met the greatest Seattle fan Big Lo (BigLo66). Now during the 2007-08 Sonics season was one to forget, but the good news was that Kevin Durant was making a name for himself. 

The Sonics though did not play the greatest season ever going 20-62 for the whole season. But that's not the point of this flashback Friday blog, the point of this blog was the last Seattle Sonics home game I ever went to was the final and last one. Now the 10 games I went to that year were very memorable. The first game I went to the Sonics lost by 2 points to the Utah Jazz after Carlos Boozer made a 17 footer with 17 seconds left. Next game I went to they won their first home game against the Indiana Pacers as Kevin Durant put down 35 in a 95-93 win.

Ok I've told you the first two games that I went to, now lets get to the final game. I bought my ticket and decided that after this game, win or lose, I would save the ticket, because I knew that this would probably be the last home game that the Sonics will ever play at KeyArena. Before the game began I decided to head to the team store and with only $100 in my pocket that my parents gave me.......well ok I basically coned them by asking them both for $50. Anyways I headed to the Team Store knowing that I had to grab some gear before the game and before the team moved to Oklahoma City. 

I was able to grab a Sonics hat, a Ray Allen jersey, and a Rashard Lewis jersey. Now how much did I pay you ask, only $46.86 not bad for a hat and two jerseys huh? Well after that I grabbed a quick slice a pizza and then headed down to the court to try and get some autographs......didn't really work out for me but I did manage to have a cool chat with Luke Ridnour but for some reason I forgot to ask him to sign my basketball. So after all the exciting pre game stuff I did I headed to my seat and I actually sat in the same spot I sat in the last win, which was only 7 days ago when the Sonics won 151-147 in overtime.

So after all the pre game rituals tipoff began and the Dallas Mavericks took the first quarter easily outscoring the Sonics 26-19. Now the Sonics took the second quarter with Jeff Green scoring 7 points and Damien Wilkins scored all 12 of his points as well. The Sonics came out of the locker room and again outscored the Mavs 31-27 and lead 81-78. Now during most of that season whenever the Sonics had the lead going into the 4th quarter they found someway to blow the lead and lose the game. This game was different both teams didn't shoot well in the fourth quarter but in the final minute of the final Sonics home game, the crowd of 16,272 including myself got up and started chanting, Save Our Sonics, Save Our Sonics, Save Our Sonics. The final buzzer sounded and after that the Sonics waved their final goodbye's to the fans and the city of Seattle and traveled to Golden State and won their final game in franchise history 126-121 on Kevin Durant's then career high 42 points. 

Since then the KeyArena has only been home to the Storm and lets face it......who cares about the WNBA anymore? Seattle fans have been without a team since 08 but Chris Hansen continues to give the Seattle faithful hope as he put down another $75 million today on the Sacramento Kings. So when will we see the Sonics play again in Seattle? Only time will tell.