Don't look now ... okay, now look: Your Seattle SuperSonics, which is to say, their Oklahoma City Thunder, were just four games back going into the eternity of this NBA some-star-game weekend. The Thunder could be on a track to be renamed the Wunder. The club, 30-21, takes the break in third place in the Northwest Division (Oklahoma City apparently qualifies for the division because it'ês in the northwest part of the South Central region). Its current six-game win streak is second best in the league.
This portends playoffs for a club that took a long time getting started last season. The franchise is led, of course, by Kevin Durant, who is within two-tenths of a point of tying for the per-game league lead in scoring. He'ês at 29.7, a tick behind a guy named LeBron something.
Franchise fans from the actual Northwest (some showed up sporting the Sonics green-gold regalia at a recent Thunder-Blazer game in Portland) had anticipated that the team was well-positioned to re-emerge as a force in the NBA. One imagines that few believed it would (apparently) happen so fast.
But Durant is supported by other credible starters, who probably are confident every game that their lead guy will get between 25 and 35 points (Durant is remarkably consistent on this, ahem, score). One hesitates to guess how deep the franchise would go in the playoffs this season. But fan support in the new home has been, well, pretty OK. And no one should be surprised if Greater Seattle contributes significant TV viewership when and if the one-time Sonics reach the post-season.
