As usual, the Sonics' roster changed dramatically compared to the previous year. Russell was searching desperately for some magical combination of players. This year the Sonics were known around the league as the craziest team in the league. Their playing style was unpredictable, led by the madcap Watts, and with strings pulled by the enigmatic Russell. The label probably helped shape some good comraderie through most of the season, and the players did basically what Russell wanted them to.

Haywood left to New York with a flurry of complaints about the Sonics and the city of Seattle. Big Jim Fox left to Milwaukee, his body beaten and his career nearing its end. Elder statesman Archie Clark went to Detroit for big Willie Norwood. Wardell Jackson was cut from the team and did not play pro basketball again. Herm Gilliam came from Atlanta. Bruce Seals was drafted in the 2nd round, Frank Oleynick in the 1st round, and Mike Bantom came from Phoenix. Basically, Brown, Burleson, Gray, Watts, and Skinner were the only ones retained from last year's squad.

The starting lineup:

Starting Center: Tom Burleson came off a rookie season that had started badly and ended terrifically. He had played 20-10 ball and looked like the next great center. But his knee surgery over the summer of 1975 left him looking like an odd-shaped slug on the ball court. In other words, he was slow. Even so, his overall stats were clearly better than the previous season: this year he averaged 32 minutes, 15.6 pts, 9 rebounds, 1.8 blocks (6th in the league), and shot much better (48% field goals, 75% free throws.) But it was far from the 20-10 he had accomplished in the previous year's playoffs.

Starting Power Forward: Leonard Gray was having the best year of his short career; but late in the season he tore up his knee and missed 16 regular season games, plus the playoffs. In 32 minutes per game, the second-year tough mobile forward averaged 14 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists, a steal, shot 47.4% field goals, and 74.6% free throws. He fouled a lot -- 3.9 fouls per contest, 10 DQ's in the season.

Starting Small Forward: Bruce Seals was picked in the 2nd round. The 6-8, 210 pound forward had played for Bob Hopkins at Xavier, then played a few undistinguished and drunken years in the ABA. He had come to NBA healthy and sober, and had great mobility. Russell was impressed enough to keep him in for 30 minutes per game, where he averaged about 12 points, 6.3 rebounds, and 0.8 steals. However, he wasn't a very good shot from outside and his defense was a bit wild -- he lacked strength -- and he averaged 3.9 fouls per game (getting 11 DQ's in the season.)

Starting Shooting Guard: Fred Brown was the Sonics' representative in the 1976 All Star game and played well in it, his only appearance. Despite the fact that he never worked as hard as Russell wanted, and the two apparently didn't get along well, Brown survived because of his awesome offensive game. In 33 minutes per game he averaged a career-high 23.1 points on 48.8% shooting from the field and 86.9% from the line. In other words, he was scoring from all over the court -- outside and inside--and doing it with great shooting, not just layups. He also managed 4.2 rebounds, 2.7 assists, and 1.9 steals per game. That year he signed a $200,000 per year, no-cut contract which basically guaranteed he would stay a Sonic for the next three years.

Starting Point Guard: Slick Watts was starting regularly now. In fact this was HIS season -- everything seemed to go his way -- his defense, playmaking, shooting, were all as good or better than ever. He was a bit peeved, though, that Russell left his name off the All-Star Ballot. He was by far the most popular Sonic and would easily have been voted onto the squad. His accomplishments that year merited it as well. Slick was named 1st team All-Defense by the coaches; he was given the NBA Citizenship Award by the press; he was the first player in NBA history to lead the league in both assists and steals. Needless to say, he was the first Sonic to have accomplished any of these things. He played a team-high 34 minutes a game, averaged 13 points on 42.7% field goals and 57.8% free throws, plus 4.5 rebounds, 8.1 assists, 3.2 steals, and only 3.3 fouls (which was low for him.)

Reserve Players:

Forward/Center: Mike Bantom, 6-9 and 200 pounds, backed up the starters at center and both forward positions. Russell obtained him from Phoenix early in the season. When his short time with the Sonics ended, he would go on to start for several years for the Indiana Pacers. This year Bantom played 23 minutes a game and averaged 8.4 points, 5.6 rebounds, and a rather high 3.2 fouls per contest. Basically, he was a solid player who played at a consistently decent level on both offense and defense. His main defect was his lack of strength, which he worked on.

Power Forward: Willie Norwood, 6-7, 220 pounds, was a tough forward who had come over from Detroit. He shot well (48.4% from the field) because he didn't take stupid shots and didn't go outside much; in 16 minutes per game he averaged 7 points and 3.6 rebounds. He was smart, too -- in one game (I don't remember which) he faked an injury as the opponent dribbled toward him; then he reached up and stole the ball from the shocked player!

Small Forward: Tab Skinner, 6-5, 210, had been used heavily last year. But now the youngster saw fewer minutes and missed 10 games as well. He played good defense but provided few points: he averaged 4.3 points, 3.7 rebounds, and 0.7 steals per game.

Guard: Herm Gilliam, 6-3, 190, had started for the Hawks for several years, for part of that time with another "wild" point guard, Pete Maravich. So he fit in well with Watts. Plus, he could play the point as well. He played 20 minutes per game and averaged 8.5 points, 2.7 rebounds, 2.5 assists, and a steal per game.

Guard: Frank Oleynick, 6-2, 190, was all muscle, mobile, a terrific scorer, and a local favorite, having played his college ball at Seattle University where he had put up tons of points. Russell told the press once that he had the skills to become the next Oscar Robertson. He was Seattle's first-round pick and given a hefty contract. Unfortunately, he was never given much playing time. Mostly he rode the bench, but when he did get significant playing time he was wildly inconsistent: some times he would play like the next Big O, other times he would play more like a cheap imposter. He played in only 52 games -- he suffered a knee injury and went home. His injury -- and his going home after it -- hurt team morale, and eventually helped derail the team's chemistry. Oleynick averaged 12.5 minutes per game, about 6 points, and chipped in a rebound, an assist, and a foul per contest. His shooting was pathetic for such a highly-touted shooter (40.2% field goals, 68.8% free throws.)

The Regular Season:

Attendance was great: 13,600 per game, second best in the league. It was truly Slick's best year: in one game against Detroit, Watts stole the ball three times in 34 seconds and hit the game-winning shot.

The Sonics went 43-39 and ended up second in the Pacific. At home they were a blistering 31-10, and on the road a miserable 12-29. At the end of the season they started a 17 game home regular-season winning streak and a four game road losing streak, both of which would continue long into the next season.

They started the season 3-1, then went 1-7, then 6-0 -- this trend continued throughout the season, attributable mainly to whether they were on the road (losing) or at home (winning.) Their late-season winning streak dated back to an overtime loss to the Phoenix Suns on February 8, 1976.

They averaged 106.4 points (fifth best in the league), shot 45.8% from the field, were second highest in steals, average in turnovers, but third worst in rebounding and 3rd highest in personal fouls. On defense they gave up 106.7 points (third worst in the league), allowed 46.7% shooting, and while they allowed the most assists in the league, they also generated the most turnovers. Certainly, they were willing to take risks. Watts, in particular, tended to roam on defense -- something akin to what Russell had done as a player, I suppose -- so that no one quite knew where he was on the court; with a noisy Seattle crowd it might have been hard to hear a coach warn you of where Watts was. Like Russell, Watts was exceptionally quick, with great timing; of course, Russell had a better sense of players' tendencies, of where the ball would go, and where everyone on the court was, and Russell was a shot-blocker not a thief, but Slick certainly did disrupt teams. On the other hand, if he or Brown missed a steal opportunity, rotations did not always come quickly, and the player might have an open shot (or make a pass to someone who was wide open) -- thus, opponents got a lot of assists, turned the ball over a lot, and shot a decent percentage.

Seattle played well against Boston, tying the season series 2-2. Boston (54-28) won the NBA title that year.

The Sonics also swept Spencer Haywood's New York Knicks (along with aging stars Walt Frazier, Earl Monroe, and Bill Bradley.) In the first game against the Knicks in Seattle, the fans booed Haywood so loudly and for so long that the game was delayed several minutes. The fans certainly remembered at the end of last year when Haywood had unfairly trashed the city, the team, and everything else connected with it, basically blaming it all for his unhappiness and complaining about how he had been mistreated. I guess they were slightly irritated by his words.

The Playoffs:

The 43-39 Sonics had home court advantage against the Phoenix Suns (42-40). The Suns had beaten the Sonics in the regular season series 4-3; the Suns were the last team to beat them at home too; but that didn't seem to shake the Sonics' confidence. Late in the season they had looked unbeatable at home.

Game 1. Seattle 102, Phoenix 99 (at Seattle)
Game 2. Phoenix 116, Seattle 111 (at Seattle) Not much intensity on defense. So much for the homecourt advantage. . . .
Game 3. Phoenix 103, Seattle 91 (at Phoenix)
Game 4. Phoenix 130, Seattle 114 (at Phoenix)
Game 5. Seattle 114, Phoenix 108 (at Seattle) It was more of a let-down by the Suns than it was a good Sonic effort.
Game 6. Phoenix 123, Seattle 112 (at Phoenix)

The Sonics played like they were looking ahead to the next round -- they just didn't play as hard as they could have. By the time they woke up, they were too far down; so they lost their composure and fell apart as a cohesive team. Phoenix went on to beat Golden State and advance to the NBA finals, where they had a memorable series with Boston. Boston won the series, including a legendary 4-OT game.

For Seattle, there was little ball movement, and rotations on defense were slow in coming. But there were some memorable Sonic performances: Fred Brown, in 39 minutes per game, averaged a blistering 28.5 points on 51.1% shooting, plus 5 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 steals per game. Tom Burleson played little more (35 minutes per game) than he did in the regular season, but averaged 20.8 points on 60% shooting, plus 9.5 rebounds; on the negative side he blocked few shots and generally could not stop 6-9 Alvin Adams from stepping out and firing a jumper. Bantom was given little playing time as Burleson's backup. Norwood, meanwhile, stayed at power forward, since Gray was out with knee problems; Willie fouled out three times in the series. Slick Watts seemed less aggressive than usual on defense, and he turned the ball over more then usual. Slick averaged 12 points, 3 rebounds, 8.2 assists, but only 2 steals per game and a hefty 4.7 fouls per game (with one DQ).

As a team, the Sonics had terrible defensive rebounding (about 25 per game; terrible considering the relatively fast pace of the game.) They did not share the ball (only 19.5 assists per game), fouled too much (29 per game) and turned the ball over more than in the regular season (23 per game.) They gave up 113.7 points per game to Phoenix and allowed 50.6% shooting from the field.

Phoenix featured short but mobile Alvan Adams at center, Curtis Perry and former Sonic Gar Heard at forward, and at guard, Paul Westphal, Ricky Sobers, and veteran Dick Van Arsdale. Westphal shot the lights out against Seattle; Adams was too quick for Burleson to guard; Gar Heard averaged double figures in scoring and rebounding, plus had lots of steals and blocked shots too. Ricky Sobers, a small but strong guard, knocked Burleson around, lured him into a fight, and got the center to foul out of one game. In general, it was a humiliating performance by the Sonics. Russell was disgusted, and even more so when the Sonic players met to divide up the meager playoff earnings.

A block of players denied shares to office workers and injured players, and gave half to some bench players -- clearly given the small amount, the players were being petty; fans were disgusted when the news leaked to the press. Russell was so furious he had them vote again, but the outcome was little different. He knew at that point that he was through with them, that he didn't respect them, didn't like them, and didn't even want to be around them, but for some reason he didn't quit -- the biggest mistake of his life, as he later admitted. Next year, as Russell related in his book, Second Wind, would be the hardest and most unpleasant of his adult life.