This week, I don't really feel I have enough of a thought on a single issue to flesh out a full column. Instead, I'll take the opportunity to address a number of different thoughts I've had and tie up some loose ends. . . .

The New Breed of Sonic
Calvin Booth. Peja Drobnjak. Peter Fehse. Vladimir Radmanovic. A trend is clearly evident from these four players, who have formed the Sonics' most prominent additions to their frontcourt over the last year or so. Unskilled 7-footers like Jim McIlvaine need not apply to the Sonics anymore. In their place are big men who can handle the ball and shoot from outside. Now, it is true, Jerome James does not fit this trend, but keep in mind that he was signed for the minimum because the team thought -- correctly, it would seem -- that he could be a bargain. James and Drobnjak are not as athletic as the other players, but an ability to run the court would also seem to be at least a plus in favor of big men the Sonics are looking at.

Overall, a key virtue emphasized under Nate McMillan -- and even before -- has been versatility. Many of the Sonics' top players -- Radmanovic, Rashard Lewis, Desmond Mason, Brent Barry, and Gary Payton -- have the ability to play at least two positions. This helped the team mix and match to survive injuries last season.

Another idea I see as being emphasized by the Sonics' moves is the ability to put together a lineup in which any two players can switch off of a screen and not create significant mismatches. If you look at a lineup of Payton, Barry, Lewis, Radmanovic, and Booth, this is generally the case. At 6-6, Barry is not completely overmatched in the post against the big man -- and Payton is never overmatched. Radmanovic shouldn't have any trouble defending guards on the perimeter, and Booth -- when healthy -- can at least do a fair job of chasing littler guys. On a team that switches virtually every screen, this one makes all too much sense.

Another way of looking at this is the Sonics attempting to, in some way, replicate a lineup they might have thrown out there during their mid-90's glory days. My guess at McMillan's ideal grouping would be he and Payton in the backcourt, sharing ballhandling responsibilities -- we've seen him play first Emanual Davis and then Barry alongside Payton; both are good ballhandlers with good size. The forwards are, without question, Detlef Schrempf and Shawn Kemp. Kemp ran the floor as well as any power forward in this league's history during his heyday; unfortunately, the team has no one on its roster with anything even remotely resembling his post skills. Then at center is Sam Perkins, spreading the offense with his shooting and good passing ability. . . .

Organization-Fan Relationship
Nearly two months into this off-season, as a fan I can't help but wonder if we'll ever see a summer like 2001. Of course, not having a first-round pick and the likelihood of using any exceptions in free agency to merely return players receiving raises naturally makes things less exciting. Additionally, it's taken away some of the team's opportunities to connect with the fans, like last June's Draft party. That said, by this time last year, I had attended a season-ticket holder Q&A session after the team's second-to-last home game, a community forum held at Ingraham High School, the Draft party, a second season-ticket holder Q&A session the evening after the Draft that was extremely revealing, and an open pre-summer-league practice (okay, that was in early July a year ago, but my point stands). This year? Nothing. No official idea what the team is going to do, no opportunity to connect with the front-office personnel or coaching staff. Was last summer just a one-year thing as the team attempting to win back the fanbase? Will we ever see anything like it again? I understand, of course, that for many of my readers this is entirely unimportant as they don't have these opportunities living outside Seattle, but to me these were extremely important things that did help pique my interest in Sonic basketball and were, to one extent or another, factors in the creation of this website. If, by chance, the organization is reading this, know that this change is noticed . . . and not particularly appreciated. . . .

A Modest Proposal
I've shared this theory briefly before, but I want to take the time to put it in writing. I was struck by inspiration on December 3, 2000. That night, as the Sonics took on the Golden State Warriors, I watched then-Warriors rookie Marc Jackson outplay two other Warrior centers who had been first-round Draft picks and possessed hefty contracts, Erick Dampier and Adonal Foyle. I knew that, more than any other position, centers were unpredictable in their transition to the NBA, and many of the most overpaid players in the NBA (you can take this opportunity to grumble bitterly about Jim McIlvaine) played the position. At the same time, surprises like Jackson and then-Minnesota starter Reggie Slater are not uncommon.

Hence, my theory: Never sign a free agent center to a contract significantly larger to the minimum, never trade players or picks of value for one, and never select one in the first round of the Draft. My experimental team would be stocked with replacement-level players at the center position, second-round Draft picks or free agents signed for the minimum. By not risking an expensive bust (more bitter grumbling about McIlvaine), my team would be freed up to spend more money on the other four positions (actually, I would probably extend the theory to all but one power forward) as well as draft more talented players over those being drafted only because of their seven-foot height.

Little did I know that the Sonics would actually put my theory to the test the next off-season. Except for signing Booth -- and, after all, he didn't contribute anyway -- the Sonics fit my plan to a t. With their first-rounder, they eschewed players like Brendan Haywood and Steven Hunter in favor of Radmanovic. Throughout the course of the season, they filled the center position with a player acquired for a second-rounder (Drobnjak) and two minimum salary free agents (James and Art Long). Amazingly, they formed a rotation that was clearly as effective as those of Golden State, Milwaukee, Minnesota, Phoenix, and Utah -- all teams that featured first-rounders and/or large contracts at their center position.

If this all means anything other than that I have one very interesting theory just in case I ever become an NBA general manager, I guess it would mean that I would argue against willingly forking over a pile of cash to James. I'm not going to play it quite as hard-line as my theory would, but if James gets an offer close to the median exception, the Sonics should let him have it and look for another unheralded talent they can milk for all he's worth. . . .

A SonicsCentral.com Year in Review
In all my columns, I've reviewed the year for the Sonics, but never for this website. Since I sorta feel like this is a changing-over period from the 2001-02 season to the 2002-03 season (officially, we are in transition between the two, and I'm also basically updating the website for the new season), I suppose this is as good of a time as any to address those fans that don't visit our message boards.

A year ago today, SonicsCentral wasn't even a cohesive idea. I had previously entertained some thoughts of starting a Sonics website -- dating all the way back to the fall of 2000, when my brother suggested such a thing, even though we wouldn't have had the faintest clue what we were doing -- I never really seriously thought about making one until early August of last summer. That's when I came up with the name, began working on the original design, and began discussing my plan with most of the initial columnists.

11 months later, I have to say that I consider the first season of SonicsCentral an unqualified success. Before the site opened, I truly believed that I was putting together a website I could be proud of and one that would triumph all challengers as the best Sonics fan website on the internet. However, there were the typical doubts. What if nobody came? What if those who did didn't like it? What if I failed? I think I can stand here today and say that I have succeeded. SonicsCentral is now fairly widely recognized as the best Sonic fansite on the internet and the place to go for some of the best and most active discussion of the team on the net. Initially, I considered one of the selling points of the message board that posters wouldn't have to worry about fans of other teams visiting and talking smack. Now, I'm proud to say that a number of Spurs fans visited our site during the playoff series, and we were quoted on several Spur fan websites. To me, this is a validation of what we have put together here. We have had the occasional troll, but for the most part I think people recognize that this is not a place that is interested in petty bickering of that nature, but is interested in seriously -- and respectfully -- discussing Sonics basketball.

In life, there is no finish line, no end of the game. (Also, I've been repeatedly telling myself as I've busily worked on Draft analysis over the past week that for websites there is no off-season.) Just because I feel we've succeeded at SonicsCentral so far does not mean we will be standing still. In April, we redesigned the look of the site's frame to make it more attractive (in our opinion) and also address the concerns we'd heard about the size of the frame. Now, I'm redesigning many of the other pages to follow the pattern and improve their look.

As well, today I'd like to introduce a new idea I came up with during some insomniatic hours last evening. While following the Seattle Storm of the WNBA this summer, I was naturally drawn to their unofficial fan site, StormFans.org (which is a fabulous site, let me take this chance to say). One of the intriguing things I noticed was dramatically different between StormFans and SonicsCentral was the emphasis on the game experience/atmosphere. In lieu of recaps, for example, their website discusses the crowd noise and the national anthem, along with the general thoughts about the game that I would usually save for the message board. Their posts discussing the game also tend to focus on what is heard and seen at the games far more than ours. Now, this is basically natural. Amongst our vocal message board posters, only a handful are Seattleites, and even fewer still attend games on a regular basis. However, that seems to me all the more reason to try to give the rest of you throughout the country and the world an idea of what the game atmosphere is like.

That's why I'm introducing a new feature, "The View from the Key". After every home recap next season, I plan to attach a few notes about what things were like at the game and my thoughts during it. As you recall, an earlier column of mine went into great detail about my experience at a Sonics-Bucks game. This obviously won't be as detailed, but should give some of the same insight. I also plan to carry over "The View from the Key" where applicable. For example, I plan to write a little bit about my personal feelings on each player and their reception from the crowd in their scouting reports. Basically, I hope that this will emphasize the fan part of fan website to distinguish us from the professional media.

Another change that will take place next season is an extension of the SonicsCentral chat that began during the playoffs last season. I'm hoping that we can make game nights an event and experience some of the same lively discussion that we had in game two of the playoff series -- a memorable night for me and, I'm sure, everyone else who was chatting -- and last Wednesday during the Draft, when we had between 10 and 15 people chatting from about 4:30 to 8:30. (Sadly, this still pales in comparison to ClutchCity.net, the Houston Rockets' fan site, which had 300 people chatting. Easier when your team has the first pick, I suppose.)

As well, thanks to a suggestion from one of our newer posters, jssonics, I'd like to officially mention that if you have any type of Sonics media you'd like hosted, I'm happy to do so -- as long as it won't get us in trouble with the team or the league because of rights. He sent me a background for your computer, and I've also whipped one up myself. There was some discussion earlier of a screensaver. Doing this with pictures that aren't stolen might be something of a challenge, but we'll see what we can do. I plan to start a 'sticky' thread (meaning it always stays at the top) in the message boards with links to anything we do get.

Beyond that, any changes that occur must come from you, the readers. If there's something you'd like us to try -- other than our own box scores from the games; I've looked into it and determined it wouldn't be worth the effort because, in the end, there's no way to do it better than it already is in countless of other locations -- feel free to shoot me an e-mail about it and I'll be happy to see what we can do.

In general, I think any intelligent feedback you the readers have to offer is beneficial. I think I generally have a feel for what our message board posters think of what we're doing. However, one thing that I have concluded based on the number of guests around during the past week and the number of unfamiliar names in the Draft chat is that there are probably more regulars who read the work posted on the site and/or the message board without any participation. I'd like to encourage those of you 'lurking' like that to e-mail me or join our message boards and give us feedback. This site will only be as good as you make up.

One other plea, while we're on the subject of participation and feedback. Within the last week or so, we've had two guest columns and another column from a columnist who had been idle for the better part of this site's history. It really pleases me to see these other voices; with some of our columnists not so active during the summer, it worries me that this site might become simply my opinion. I don't want that. It's just my opinion, and I'm not about to claim that it is any better or more important than anyone else's. If you've got something on your chest you'd like to get off, I encourage you to send along a guest column (as a matter of course, I'm obligated to notify you that I do reserve the right to edit them for grammar and to fit the style that we generally use on this site).

I'd also like to take a brief moment to do what I don't do nearly often enough and thank those who have helped make this site what it is. First off, my cousin, who I forgot in my thank-you after the playoffs and is responsible for a great deal of the look of this website; there would be no SonicsCentral without her. To all of my columnists, thanks for the time you essentially donate to me. You've done so much to advance this website. To everyone who posts in the message boards, thank you for doing so in an intelligent and respectful manner and putting up with my 1100+ posts. Lastly, to everyone who reads, thank you for indulging a 20-year-old who has received invaluable experience in his desired field over the last nine months and is simply glad to have somebody reading his crackpot opinions.

In conclusion, it's been a very good year for the SonicsCentral family. Let's make next year even better.

Got an opinion on this column? Discuss it in the SonicsCentral message boards

Kevin Pelton serves as beat writer, columnist, editor, copy editor, and webmaster for SonicsCentral.com. He can be reached at kpelton@sonicscentral.com