Farewell To The Emerald City
Posted by James Seaman on September 15, 2008
‘1996: Karl and the Sonics’ (Andy Hayt - NBAE/Getty Images)
Recent news that Oklahoma City’s new NBA team will assume the name Thunder made real to me a truth that I’ve been denying for some time now. While the people of that sprawling Midwestern town will undoubtedly cherish their first major, league-level professional franchise, the extinction of the Seattle Sonics should give us all pause. The Jazz have lost one of their truly great and historic rivals.
Four times in the nine year span between 1992 and 2000, the Jazz and Sonics ended one another’s season. Utah used a Game Five win over Seattle in the Second Round to catapult themselves to their first ever Western Conference Finals appearance in 1992. During that series’ deciding game, Jazz fans witnessed not only classic performances by Karl Malone (37 points) and John Stockton (17 assists), but an unprecedented 14 points from big Mark Eaton. The very next year, the Jazz would limp to the regular season’s finish line, ending with only 47 wins and the Western Conference’s sixth seed, before finishing the year with a Game Five loss in Seattle. Gary Payton emerged for the Sonics in 1993, contributing 17 points and seven assists in the decisive contest against Utah. Shawn Kemp added 12 points and nine rebounds. The two budding stars would become a force in the Western Conference for the next several years.
Seattle’s inexplicable choke against Denver in the First Round of the 1994 playoffs allowed the Jazz to avoid a match-up with the feared Sonics and sneak their way into the Conference Finals against Houston. Yet the Jazz and Sonics would meet again in the 1996 Western Conference Playoffs, this time vying for the right to face Michael Jordan’s unstoppable Bulls team. Despite losing the series in seven games, the Jazz produced a breakthrough of sorts with their Game Five win in Seattle. Down 3-1 after blowing Game Four at home, the Jazz fought with their backs against the wall and prolonged the series. Never before had Utah won a playoff game of such magnitude on the road. The experience of that victory, perhaps, helped the Jazz in another crucial road contest a year later, when Stockton’s bomb left Houston fans stunned and sent the Jazz, as Greg Gumbel so sweetly proclaimed, to the NBA Finals.
The Jazz and Sonics last met in the playoffs in 2000, a series that, historically, conjures images of the fall of the Roman Empire. Shawn Kemp and the Sonics had long since parted ways, and Gary Payton found himself captaining a swiftly sinking ship. The Jazz, meanwhile, won what would be their last Midwest Division title in 2000. Utah wouldn’t secure another such crown for seven years, and by then they’d been shifted to the Northwest Division. Despite claiming the second seed, Utah had to travel to Portland to begin its Second Round series in 2000, a battle for which the Jazz found themselves painfully outmanned. With memories of past glories still fresh enough to linger in the mind, Jazz and Sonics fans found their once great empire descended upon and overtaken by a younger, swifter, stronger breed of merciless vandals. Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant, and Tim Duncan would dominate the Western Conference for years to come.
As Thomas Wolfe said, you can’t go home again. Despite the Jazz’s return to contender status, David Stern’s refusal to act as a broker has left us with no chance of restoring the once great Utah-Seattle rivalry.
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Jared Conger on September 15, 2008 said:
did you notice that the picture looks like it has 2 Detlef Schrempfs? Take another look at the top of the page: Number 11 | Number 22.
Isn’t that the same guy?