The Sonics, who haven't done anything right on the court this year, apparently made a big mess of a fan promotion off the court.

Last Friday night, after a match-up with the Houston Rockets (in which the Sonics lost 76-66), six Sonics players were supposed to go into the locker room after the game, remove their shoes, and walk through the tunnel to hand them to hundreds of fans who waited for a post-game souvenir.

But it didn't happen that way.

The six players took several minutes to return- getting a shower and getting dressed- before deciding to do their duty.

The first player out- Robert Swift, who only played eight games for the Sonics this year. He walked out, tossed his shoes at a fan, and then walked back into the tunnel stone-faced.

Minutes later, while fans tried to figure out what was going on, Sonics management ran into the locker room and reminded the players of the promotion.

Finally, four other players came out of the tunnel and handed their shoes to fans. The fifth and final player, tried to leave the Arena without participating in the event, and was stopped by a marketing staff member. An irritated Earl Watson apparently then said, "Don't yell at me unless you're my parent."

You can try and blame the players for this, but they are just following the lead of their careless owner, Mr. Clay Bennett.

When the Oklahoma City businessman bought the team, he proclaimed he was going to do everything in his power to keep the NBA in Seattle. Just a few years later, he wants to bolt to Oklahoma City, and the NBA is applauding his efforts. The only way he wanted to keep the team here was by making taxpayers foot the bill for a new arena- something he knew wouldn't happen.

The Sonics are 17-58 and headed toward their worst season in the team's 41-year history.

So, the question for the NBA and Mr. Bennett is, why would we want to keep the Sonics here? So we can have more terrible basketball? So we can finance another arena and watch you laugh all the way to the bank? So we can watch players and Sonics marketing staff basically tell fans to buzz off? So we can pay hundreds of dollars just to attend one game?

As far as I'm concerned, the sooner the Sonics leave to the Sooner State, the better. This team, its management and its players are a disgrace to the Northwest and to the city of Seattle.

What do you think?