Will The Super Sonics Return to Seattle?
story by Quin Ford
Who remembers the Seattle SuperSonics? For those who do, certain emotions may have just overwhelmed your psyche, but for those who aren’t familiar, for 41 years, this was Seattle’s one and only National Basketball Association team.
In devastating fashion, the Sonics were sold to Oklahoma City in 2008, thanks to a man named Howard Schultz. After promising to keep the team in Seattle, but failing to find the funding to renovate the out of date KeyArena (now Climate Pledge Arena), former chairman and CEO of Starbucks bailed out and did the unthinkable. In 2006 Schultz sold the Sonics for $350 million to Oklahoma City businessman Clay Bennett --- just two years later the team officially relocated.
Fast forward 18 years, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is now fully open to the possibility of bringing a team back to Seattle --- ideally with the same name. Silver and the NBA are in the works of making an announcement this year to determine whether or not the league will be adding another two teams to the NBA --- the top two candidates are Las Vegas and Seattle.
Seattle Governor Bob Ferguson has been a long time supporter of the Sonics and on Feb 5, 2026 he held an introductory Zoom meeting with Silver about wanting to bring the team back to Seattle. According to Ferguson's communications director Brionna Aho, “they had a good conversation and the governor offered to be helpful.”
Silver commented on the fact that for years, news has circulated among Seattlelites about the possibility of getting their team back and wanted to make it known that, “I'd say I want to be sensitive there about this notion that we're somehow teasing these markets, because I know we've been talking about it for a while.”
Despite news and false hope over the years about the possibility of the Sonics coming back home, this is the first time a definitive timeline has been laid out for NBA expansion teams. While some remain skeptical, this is the closest Seattle has gotten to regaining a team.
The History of the Seattle SuperSonics
Founded in 1967, the SuperSonics were Seattle’s first major professional sports team. Despite early struggles of consecutive years with losing records, the Sonics found their first winning season in the 1971-72 season.
The Sonics won their first and only championship in the 1978-79 season with the help of three-time Hall of Fame Inductee Lenny Wilkins. Wilkins can be credited to a large portion of the team's success, as a player and a coach. Considering Wilkins was inducted into the Hall of Fame as a player, coach and assistant coach for the 1992 Olympic ‘Dream Team’ for men's basketball, that made him the only person to be inducted three separate times --- solidifying him in the history books.
The 1995-96 season was another one of the Sonics best seasons. Led by All-Stars Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp, the team made a deep playoff run, landing them in the NBA Finals against arguably the best team of all time --- the Chicago Bulls. After finding themselves down three games to zero in a best to seven game series, the Sonics regained some much needed momentum winning the next two games. The team ultimately fell short in game six in Chicago and the Bulls won their fourth NBA title in six years.
The 2007-08 season was of course the last year the Sonics were a part of the city of Seattle, but this was also the year that they drafted a one of a kind player in Kevin Durant. Despite the team ending the season with a 20-62 record, Durant will forever be the one and only rookie to win the Rookie of the Year award on the Sonics --- what a way to capitalize their final year in Seattle.