To Be Calimquim

I’m a huge Seattle SuperSonics fan — ever since they won their one and only NBA Championship back in 1979. It has been a painful road ever since. There have been a few bright spots along the way. One memorable one was during the Gary Payton / Shawn Kemp era of the mid 90’s, when they played the Chicago Bulls in the 1996 NBA Championship Final. Unfortunately, the SuperSonics lost the series 4-2. As of now, there is still doom in gloom in Sonicland, because the current owner of the SuperSonics plans to move the team to Oklahoma City or Kansas City, if the city of Seattle doesn’t come up with a plan to build a new downtown arena for the SuperSonics.

Then on May 26, 2007, luck bounced Seattle’s way, when, out of nowhere, they landed the 2nd pick in the 2007 NBA Draft. The Portland TrailBlazers have the 1st pick and the consensus says they will take Greg Oden from Ohio State. Most “smart” minds say the SuperSonics will follow that by picking Kevin Durant. Durant, a much-heralded freshman out of Texas, out-played most, if not all, of his opponents, and almost led the Longhorns to the Final Four in the 2007 NCAA Tournament. It seems that Durant is the savior that Seattle has been waiting for.

Unfortunately, there maybe a kink or several kinks in Durant’s armor. Just recently, the NBA Pre-Draft Camp was completed, and Durant was ranked 78th out of 80 partcipants tested. What? Don’t believe it, download it in the My Files page or just click here. One fascinating note is that Durant could not even do one benchpress of 185 lbs. All the other 79 participants did at least one, and Durant did zero.

In my opinion, Durant is only one year out of college, so he’ll have enough time to strengthen up in order to be able to face the pounding NBA schedule. Then again, he might be this draft class’ Sam Bowie. Ouch!