Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Another reason to be mad at Clay Bennett



Kevin Durant recently signed a long term contract extension with the Zombie Sonics. He did it with little apparent fanfare, reminding Sonics fans of the quality we are missing since Clay Bennett and David Stern #*(%ed Seattle over.

Meanwhile ... LeBron James is now going to face what ARod faced in Seattle. Only worse. ARod was not a Seattleite, LeBron probably should never go back to Ohio.

There are fantastic players and there are franchise players. Franchise players are fantastic players, but not all fantastic players are franchise players. Part and parcel of being a franchise player is a competitive need to win and pull a team along by the sheer force of the competitiveness and talent of the player. There are not a lot of franchise players in sports.

Kevin Durant is a franchise player. By choosing to remain the man in a franchise that is building around him for the long term KD has shown us his character. He is The Man for the USA this summer as well.

LeBron James is apparently merely a fantastic player. The way LeBron handled his situation has been beaten to death, but it is a part of the problem. He went from being the most popular player in the NBA to the second most popular player in Miami. No one is saying he couldn't do it, just how he handled it tells the world all it needs to know. LeBron has told us himself that he is not a franchise player.

LeBron has decided you can't build a team around him and Durant has said Bring It On. OKC will win a lot by keeping KD and it hurts the Sonics fan in me in excruciating ways.