Seattle SuperSonics majority owner Howard Schultz was bouncing all around ARCO Arena before the team's regular-season opener Tuesday night, telling anybody that would listen that his underdog team was going to pull off an upset of the Sacramento Kings.
For the record, Schultz is 0-1 in prophecies.
The Sonics played an extremely good game against the Kings, one of the contenders to win the NBA championship this season, but in the end the Sonics' deficiencies were exposed in a 101-95 loss before a raucous sellout crowd of 17,317.
Before the game, even Sonics coach Nate McMillan admitted he did not really know what to expect from a team that admittedly is building toward the future.
But after an extended pregame ceremony that included a message from President Bush and the teams exchanging pregame handshakes and hugs, McMillan discovered what everybody else has been saying about his team: It lacks experience and an interior presence.
Both factors were responsible for the Sonics' ultimate doom, dropping them to 0-1 for the second consecutive season. Things certainly don't get easier, either, with San Antonio and then Utah coming to KeyArena to finish out this week.
There certainly were positive aspects of Seattle's game, including a nice outing by Vin Baker, who started alongside Calvin Booth after a few days of questions about whether either would play because of injuries.