Look: Seattle Is Going to Love Russell Wilson Even More After This Major Announcement
Another reason for Seattle to love Russell Wilson.
On Tuesday, the Seattle Seahawks' star quarterback announced that he has joined an investment group to help bring an NBA and NHL team to the city.
The plan is to build an arena in South Downtown Seattle that would host both teams' home games.
The announcement should be especially exciting to the Emerald City's NBA fans, who painfully had to watch their Sonics leave Seattle for Oklahoma City — where they became the Thunder — just before the 2008-09 season.
"I became a SuperSonics fan by playing NBA Jam and watching them on SportsCenter and NBA Inside Stuff," Wilson wrote on The Players' Tribune on Tuesday. "I loved their name. I loved their colors. I loved [Shawn] Kemp and [Gary] Payton, and then in later years, I loved watching Ray Allen swish corner threes with that perfect form."
Kevin Durant, who the Sonics drafted with the second pick in the 2007 draft, played one season in Seattle before the franchise relocated to OKC.
"It's crazy to me that kids growing up in Seattle now turn on NBA 2K and they can't even play as the Sonics. It doesn't seem right that they're gone," Wilson continued in The Players' Tribune. "They were a part of my childhood, and I grew up 2,840 miles away."
He added: "The NBA needs that green and gold back. Seattle needs basketball back. And hockey, too. (The Seattle Metropolitans won the Stanley Cup in 1917, in case you didn't know.)"
For Wilson, who delivered a Super Bowl championship to Seattle in February 2014, he's just happy to put on for the city.
"Sports have a way of bringing people together," Wilson said as part of a press release statement sent to BET.com. "I think that this is such an important time to be involved with projects and movements that bring the community together, especially in such a divisive time. Sports has no race, no culture, no religion."
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