While the NBA’s grand old gatekeepers take their time weighing the option of keeping the Sacramento Kings in California’s capital versus relocating the franchise to Seattle, the strongest reason for my pro-Emerald City optimism is that the league ultimately will not escape Seattle’s presence.

Like a ghost unable to stay hidden in a closet of skeletons, the Sonics – the team taken from its home in 2008 and moved to Oklahoma City – will haunt the league until that particular wrong is righted. And while I can envision Sacramento joining the likes of Buffalo, Vancouver and Fort Wayne in the pro basketball history books, I cannot envision the NBA in 10 years without a Seattle franchise.

The latest reminder of the Sonics’ omnipresent legacy was issued this week, with the news that Gary Payton has been voted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Growing up in Seattle during the prime of Payton’s career, my biases say he is the greatest Sonic of all time. But even if I were objective, that wouldn’t be a bold statement. Read More »

What makes NBA games so special and electrifying are the epic in-game dunks. Of course, we love the flashy passing and heart wrenching buzzer-beaters, but to be capsulated in a moment where someone gets posterized is beyond blissful. Let’s start by saying shout out to Brandon Knight as he valiantly didn’t give up on the play last night when he could have. He could have dodged DeAndre Jordan and let Lob City get away with another alley-oop. He didn’t. It’s okay. Read More »

When it was unveiled Shawn Kemp was one of the newest screenshots for NBA 2K13 it was clinched for me: The first time I get on the game, I’m going straight to play as the Reign Man. There are dozens of better players included in the game to be sure, but none whose game was the video game template everyone strives for. Kemp is not just my choice but everyone’s, even if they don’t know it. The kind of mid-90s player Kemp was is now the player everyone unwittingly creates — unlimited hops, size and power — without realizing they just created essentially Shawn Kemp. The option to play as him means you can even try to restage his top 10 dunks. What are they? Glad you asked. Read More »

With 2K Sports recently releasing a gameplay trailer, a trailer for All-Star Weekend, and a hilarious ad spot with Blake Griffin, you can tell they’re ramping it up to get ready for the stretch run before NBA 2K13 drops on October 2. We’ve heard so much about the Dream Team being in the game, and about all of the legends that’ll be available to use again, so how about we see a few of them? 2K Sports obliged and is showing off six of them today, including Scottie Pippen, Wilt Chamberlain, Shaquille O’Neal, Alonzo Mourning, Shawn Kemp, and the one we’re most excited for – a guy who wasn’t in the game last year as a historic player – Allen Iverson. Read More »

With Madden NFL 13 releasing today, we’ll probably be stuck on that for a while. But NBA 2K13 will be here before you know it – it’s barely more than a month away. We’ve already seen some cool control developments, and now here is a look at the All-Star Weekend events. It sounds like you’ll need to preorder the game to get access to these modes. Read More »

Building an Olympic team shouldn’t be like constructing an All-Star team. A one-off All-Star team doesn’t need chemistry, role players or defense (definitely not any defense). An Olympic U.S. team requires all that and a dose of humility, too, a point underscored after the 2004 bronze medal Olympic performance and the World Championship failures surrounding it. This summer has broken out the nostalgia from the 1992 team, and the otherworldly talent on it. Picking that squad must have been like having a dozen straight first-round picks in your fantasy league. No team, though, is perfect, even with that much leeway. Try as a committee might, there are always deserving players left out when it comes time to represent a country at the Olympics. Here then, are the best 20 players of the last 20 years who never made a U.S. Olympic team. Read More »

As we touched on last week, NBA TV’s documentary “The Dream Team” was pretty, pretty, pretty great. While we gave you a look at some of the top plays and what we learned from “The Dream Team,” it’s important to remember that there were two more “Dream Teams” – the 1994 “Dream Team II” and the 1996 “Dream Team III.” Read More »

The memories are still in Seattle. The team, and the playoff hardware it earned back in the Northwest, is now in Oklahoma City. Yeah, it’s an awkward time to be talking about the best playoff memories of Oklahoma City, which has only been in its new city four years, and when its former city is where all that magic happened. I don’t know how many fans of the Sonics have become full backers of the Thunder, but I can’t imagine it’s a majority. Read More »

Nothing gets us going in the Dime offices like a good ol’ fashioned debate, and the best debates are the ones that get heated. Trying to rate the best dunkers in the league is unanimously impossible. Do you want style? Force? Does a big man get points taken away? If a player is an epic dunker in warm-ups, does that count?

Back in the day, we had Vince Carter and there was no denying what type of dunker he was. But in the current NBA, outside of perhaps one or two guys, you could make a case for anyone. Read More »

By now, I’m sure you’ve seen the videos. In this era of technology, Twitter and 24/7 highlights, you probably heard about it not long after Pau Gasol felt it. It gives you an idea of how we value excitement in sports. The Clippers lost last night, Kobe Bryant hit a game-clinching shot and Andrew Bynum was going to work, and yet this morning it’s been all about Blake Griffin un-manning Gasol twice. As we wrote in Smack, he murdered him early, resuscitated him and then killed him again. Twice in one game he smashed all over the Spaniard. Kendrick Perkins and Timofey Mozgov breathed a sigh of relief somewhere. Read More »