SEATTLE — The Seattle Superhawks present an exciting brand of basketball full of Seattle flavor, with local stars lighting it up on the court.
Our local TBL, or The Basketball League Club, is owned by Pierre Crockrell and Jacqueline Yang, longtime players in the basketball community.
Certainly, they have forged this team from the ground up in recent years with a high level of talent—many TBL players go on to the next level with players in the G League and even the NBA. Sonics legend Gary Payton sees it.
“It’s big for them because we don’t have our Supersonics,” Payton told me on Thursday.
“We’re trying to bring them back, which will hopefully happen in the next couple of years, but for them to keep basketball here, people want it. So when you see good talent and good basketball come through, especially with the Superhawks doing that, it makes everyone more and more anxious for the Supersonics and for his team (Superhawks) to be as popular as it is.
At Gary Payton Night, a celebration of “The Glove” the team does every year, the Superhawks fun brand of basketball was on full display. There’s the pride of seeing Seattle guys ball out, there’s the nostalgia of a pro game in our city again—and seeing the name “Polynice” doesn’t hurt that at all as Olden’s son Chayce plays for the Superhawks.
They, along with the Seattle Storm, are carrying the professional basketball torch for the Emerald City.
“This is an avenue for them to get out here and see good basketball and great talent to get prepared for that next level,” Payton said of the competition with the Superhawks and the TBL. A basketball scene that everyone hopes is further enhanced with the potential return of the Supersonics.
One that appears to be close to any basketball observer. That includes Gary.
I asked him if it feels closer than it has, to which Payton replied “It feels real close, I think it’s closer than we’ve been expecting. Everything is falling into place.”
There are a lot of elements to this process, especially in the last couple of years but each of them has gotten Seattle closer to an NBA return, even if it feels like sometimes the process is slow, it’s all necessary steps to have the league come back. Expansion is a complicated process should the league explore that endeavor as expected later this summer.
A lot of layers to it, they just did the TV deal (Media Rights), you gotta figure out where to play, and we did that with the Kraken facility at Climate Pledge,” Gary said. “So it’s a lot of things that have to go. The governors of all the teams have to say, ‘OK, we want this.’ You bring two more teams in. That’s another piece of the pie, a lot of pieces of pie to be given out to two teams. So they have to agree to this.” Gary said, adding, “We just gotta be patient. I think we have. It’s been almost 17, 18 years, and I think it’ll be OK in a minute.
So, on this night, it was about celebrating the teams already here. Payton wore a blue Nike tracksuit courtside at Seattle Pacific University as the Superhawks battled Vancouver in a close game. Fans stopped him, wanting just a minute of one of their basketball hero’s time.
It was a special scene, one forged by the Superhawks.
And one you can imagine taking place at Climate Pledge Arena very shortly, with the NBA.
