Sonics Death Watch Vol. VI

This is repost from and article written for The Stranger by Sherman Alexie 2/19/08: http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/sonics-death-watch/Content?oid=515365

 

I’m addicted to porn, but not the moist, naked kind. Oh, I enjoy that kind of porn, too, but I am obsessed with another variety of illicit video.

I’ve been sneaking onto YouTube in the middle of the night so I can replay Sonics highlights from 1996.

Go ahead, right now, type “Shawn Kemp” into YouTube, and watch his 10 greatest dunks. I promise that you’ll get aroused. Do you remember Shawn Kemp at his greatest? Do you remember how he almost outplayed Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen in the 1996 NBA finals? I think I might write a poem, a villanelle, whose endlessly repeating question is “Do you remember Shawn Kemp?”

A few months ago, while walking with our sons in our neighborhood, my wife saw Shawn Kemp getting a haircut.

“You see him?” my wife said to our boys. “That guy was an incredible ball player.”

Even if the Sonics leave us, my wife and I will keep telling the stories about the magic and tragedy we witnessed. We’ll probably have to rhyme “Kemp” with “hemp,” or use a pun like “unkempt,” but that’s okay. Robert Frost knew the game: “Nothing gold can stay.”