Shaq shares in fans' dismay
By JIM MOORE
P-I COLUMNIST
THE PHOENIX SUNS beat writer said Shaquille O'Neal didn't usually talk to reporters before games, so I walked into the visiting locker room thinking he wouldn't have much to say, if anything at all.
Grant Hill was seated next to O'Neal, and I thought, well, if I ask Hill a few questions about the Sonics and their situation here, maybe the big fella would join the conversation.
Sure enough, he did. Want to know what Shaq thinks about the Sonics' possible move to Oklahoma City? He feels like most Sonics fans.
"It's dumb, it's stupid," O'Neal said. "They should have to wait from the bottom like everyone else."
I'm not sure what that meant, but since Shaq said it, I wrote it down. I'm assuming he thinks Oklahoma City should have to wait for an expansion team instead of taking someone else's.
"Seattle has tradition, the Space Needle, and there's water here," Shaq said. "Oklahoma City's a college town. You're not going to have the TV market there."
He was just getting warmed up.
"When I think of Seattle, I think of G.P., the Reign Man, Sikma, Lenny Wilkens," Shaq said. "The Oklahoma City Sonics? When my son asks me about that, I'll say there's no such thing."
He said he'd rather play in Seattle than Oklahoma City any day of the week, month and decade.
But Wednesday night's game might have been the last in Seattle for the Big Aristotle, an NBA legend who was acquired by Phoenix from Miami on Feb. 6. He is asked if he can recall his greatest game here, and he doesn't think he had any.
"But I had a lot of good ones," Shaq said.
Like most of the Suns, he is unfamiliar with the problems that have led to the possible end of the Sonics' 41-year history in Seattle, but it sounds like he'd back Mayor Greg Nickels in his verbal battles with NBA commissioner David Stern. He thinks if the Sonics had a better team, there would be more support from the community.
"If you don't have the players, people aren't going to pay," Shaq said. "If LeBron was here, you wouldn't have these issues. The young fella (Kevin Durant) has the potential to be like that, but (it's going to take) three to five years."
When you listen to Hill and Shaq, you determine that most NBA players prefer Seattle to Oklahoma City.
"That's a bad road trip," Hill said of Oklahoma City. "It's cold. This shouldn't happen. Seattle's a great market, a great city, and I would think there's a lot of money in this city. It's a shame. They had a good product.
"When I think of Seattle, it's hard to see what's going on now. When I came into the league, it was rockin'."
Hill and Shaq remember playing at the Tacoma Dome during the 1994-95 season while KeyArena was being renovated, and now it's considered obsolete. Eddie Johnson has a hard time believing that.
"This was the best arena I ever played in at playoff time," said Johnson, who was here when the Sonics had some magical seasons in the early to mid-'90s.
"I'm sad," said Johnson, now an analyst on the Suns TV broadcasts. "You look at this city and see that the Mariners have a new facility, the Seahawks have one, and the only team that's won a championship has got to get a remodel. I don't get it. I don't understand that part. This city deserves a basketball team."
He walks into KeyArena and the memories always come back to him. The 1992-93 team that lost to Phoenix in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals was "by far the most talented team I've ever played for," Johnson said.
And now? A team that mails it in from time to time, especially of late, giving up 168 points in Denver last Sunday night. Clearly the Save Our Sonics folks are trying to save the franchise, not this team. Hill is asked if he can believe an NBA team allowed 168 points.
"Hopefully they'll do it again tonight," he said.
Suns coach Mike D'Antoni sat on the bench an hour before tipoff while Steve Nash worked on his perimeter game. Asked if he thinks it will be the Suns' last game here, D'Antoni said: "I hope not. My mother-in-law lives here, and my wife's family is all from here. Hopefully it will all sort out. It's a great place to play, a great city, and traditionally, they've been great fans."
After hitting his last warm-up jumper, Nash left the court and expressed the same sentiments. Nash grew up in Victoria, B.C., and there were no teams closer than the Sonics after the Vancouver Grizzlies left for Memphis in 2001.
"I'm sorry for the fans," Nash said. "It's a great basketball city. They deserve a club here. ... Obviously, I'm not privy to all the reasons, but it doesn't make sense on the surface."
Hill summed it up better than anyone, saying, "The people who get shortchanged here, of course, are the fans."
P-I columnist Jim Moore can be reached at 206-448-8013 or [email protected]. His columns appear Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.
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Originally Posted by Collier11
