Early Season Report Card: Sonics

Grade: C+ The Seattle SuperSonics have actually played fairly decent of late, winning their past 2 games to pull their December record to 5-4 and 1 1/2 games behind Minnesota in the dissapointing Northwest Division, all after starting the season with a 1-5 record. The problem is, they are one game below .500 with a 11-12 record going into tonights game. Thus, the C+ grade. Rashard Lewis looks like he should make the All-Star game for the second straight year averaging 22.2 PPG and 5.8 REB, while Ray Allen's shooting has been down at 42% from the field, he's still scoring almost 25 per game and is 1st in the NBA in 3pt FG Made.
Tonight the Sonics travel to Arizona to play the Amare-less Suns, and they'll probably lose, after losing twice in the preseason and both pretty handily. I just can't see them making the playoffs this year. They don't have the depth of last year, after losing their bench players, Radmanovic playing like shite, and their off-season signings being two Clippers (who were terrible last year) in Brunson & friggin Mikki Moore (who weighs as much as me, 225 lbs, but is 7 ft tall = bad combo.)... not good.

They should make a play for Ron Artest and shake things up. Sure, he's crazier than Carl Everett and Danny Fortson combined -- but he's a defensive stopper (something the Sonics desperately need) -- and they aren't getting it done with the current squad. Plus, who wouldn't want to go see if Ron-Ron would flip out? I can see it now. Artest decking a trash-talking Baron Davis, then tagging Danny Fortson from the ropes, high-fiving Howard Schultz as he leaves the court.