Yesterday was marked by the 2006 NBA draft. For the third year in a row the Supersonics drafted a raw, unskilled center in the first round. Robert Swift in 2004, Johan Petro in 2005, and Mouhamet Saer Sene in 2006. This continues the long trend in Sonics basketball of playing four man basketball with an utterly worthless man in the middle.

Before these young wonders Seattle fans were wowed by Jerome James and his amazing ability to have three or four good games a year to go along with seventy-plus games where he was an utter non-factor. Before that was some other stiff whom I can't even remember. Then there was the year of Patrick Ewing who had calcified into utter immobility by the time he made it to Seattle for a year.

Even when the Sonics were successful under George Karl the true center was Ervin Johnson, a raw player with little basketball skills. In fact Sam Perkins took most of the center duties as a 6' 9" converted forward who evolved into a finesse player camped on the three point line. In 1996, arguably the Sonics most successful season since 1979, Nate McMillan led the team in blocks with 0.33 per game. That's just pathetic considering McMillan was the backup point guard, and his knees gave out that season.

There have been so many poor to horrible centers in Sonics history that I can't even begin to remember them all. Some stuck around for awhile, contributing nothing, like Vitaly Potapenko. Others were in town for a season or less. None were memorable in a good way. Some would even argue that the Supersonics haven't had a real center since the championship days with Jack Sikma.

It is utterly amazing just how poor Seattle is at drafting centers. Their signing of free agent stiffs is the stuff of legends. Does anyone remember Jim McIlvaine? I know I didn't until doing research for this rant. Now I wish I didn't remember that waste of millions of dollars. The decades of proven ineptitude at the five position are disheartening to say the least. That doesn't even get into how that affected the rest of the team. McIlvaine's stupidly huge contract was a large part of Shawn Kemp's dissatisfaction with management that resulted in his trade for Vin Baker. Trades like that didn't exactly sit well with fans or do the team much good.

With the Sonics track record of poor decision making, is it any suprise that the public is apathetic to their "woe is me" attitude about their lease. The current owners purchased the team well-aware of the team's lease structure and revenue stream. If they weren't aware then that is just poor business on their part. The average Seattle fan doesn't see a good return on their investment with a team like the Sonics. I know I am not interested in bailing out a team financially who makes foolish decisions on a regular basis and who is attempting to hold the city over a barrel when they have a valid lease through 2010.