SOS gave Sonics owners a scrap

Stay or go? Will the team still known as the Sonics play next season in Seattle, or will it move and change its name to something like the Oklahoma City Oilmen?

Everybody has an idea about the Sonics' future. But today, about six weeks before the team's future heads to federal court, nobody knows for sure where the basketball franchise owned by Clay Bennett and friends will land.

Like sands through the hourglass, this has been the NBA's longest-running and most uncomfortable soap opera. But one thing is certain about this case. Without the doggedness of the quixotic citizens' brigade — Save Our Sonics — ennui would have set in a long time ago and Bennett's franchise already would be comfortably settled in its new, hassle-free OKC cocoon.

"Without the efforts of SOS we would be nowhere, I can tell you that," deputy mayor Tim Ceis said.

Save Our Sonics has held Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels to his pledge to keep the team through the final two years of its KeyArena lease. It has cajoled reluctant members of the Seattle City Council to keep fighting. And it has irritated league executives like a heat rash.

The strategy for the franchise has been to pound Seattle into apathy. To put a lousy product on the floor and make an evening with the Sonics as tortured as possible for this city's NBA fans.

By this time, Bennett and the NBA thought Seattle would have cared so little about the league that OKC's Aubrey McClendon could have driven a moving van down Mercer Street and nobody would have noticed.

That hasn't happened.

Two lawsuits — from the city and former owner Howard Schultz — are grinding on Bennett and making his exit as difficult as getting through a season in the NBA's West.

"The argument that we've heard from the Sonics and the league is that nobody in Seattle cares," city attorney Tom Carr said. "But they [SOS] have been very vocal in their caring, and they have shown how much they care."

The lead in this effort to save the Sonics was taken two years ago by Brian Robinson, a 34-year-old real-estate investor, a fan-turned-public-advocate.

He and the members of his group are the voices for everybody who ever came to KeyArena, or the Kingdome, or the Tacoma Dome or the old Seattle Coliseum, to cheer on the Sonics.

"When this all started, Save Our Sonics was a voice in the wilderness trying to get the fan base energized," Ceis said. "Initially they weren't getting a lot of reaction, but they stuck with it. They were determined. I've been really impressed, and they've been invaluable partners."

Truth be told, when Save Our Sonics was established, I figured it was just another shrill bunch of fans that packed all the punch of a washed-out featherweight.

But this group has taken the fight all the way to the league offices in New York. It has met with league representatives. It has made sure that the voice of Seattle's basketball fans has been heard.

"We're a legitimate part of the process," Robinson said Thursday. "Clay Bennett's whole strategy was to make it so that we didn't know the battle was upon us until it was already over.

"So I feel pretty proud of what we did, especially in the first year when some people were telling us it was too early to put up the fight. In the beginning, we legitimately offered our support and the Sonics never took advantage of it. They just wanted to say they never had support. I don't think Clay anticipated we would give him as much trouble as we did."

The fight to keep the NBA has been juicier than anyone could have predicted.

• The unearthed e-mails that portray Bennett as "a man possessed" with the idea of getting out of town.

• The barrage of belligerent comments from commissioner David Stern directed at the city.

• The Schultz suit declaring that Bennett didn't show good faith in his efforts to keep the team in Seattle.

"You've got to be ethical," Robinson said. "And the fact is, Bennett has handled this whole situation in a slimy, dirty way. And now he's paying the price for being unethical."

Bennett never figured on this scrap. He thought, by now, the Sonics would be cold and supine in the NBA's graveyard.

Instead, the fight continues. And because of Save Our Sonics, Bennett has been bloodied.

Steve Kelley: 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com