NBA Opening Night in the Year 2 A.S. (After Sonics)

Hoops fans, we bring you live to Seattle Center on this, the first night of the NBA season. Let's take a walk around the grounds and get a sense of the excitement.

Here, at Memorial Stadium, we have...a rec league soccer game. How about the EMP? Hmm...two teenage girls sitting on a heating grate. And at Key Arena? Nothing.

Well, maybe Seattle's premier sports bar, the Sport Restaurant and Lounge, at Fisher Plaza, will be packed with hoops aficionados. Let's see.

Okay, walking past the Jamal Crawford, Nate McMillan, and Todd McCullough jerseys to the bar, and here, for tip off of Cavs/Celtics, the first game of the season, we have...me. And my friend Nathaniel, who has to file a story about the game for The Sporting Blog.

(Nathaniel, who under the pen name Bethlehem Shoals is co-author of the mind-alteringly awesome Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac, is one of two nationally-respected NBA writers who, oddly, live in this the largest American metro area without an NBA team. The other, stats whiz Kevin Pelton, has chosen to travel to Portland for opening night (here's his story).)

This can still be a basketball event! First, though, perhaps management wouldn't mind turning up the game audio, and down the Crosby, Stills and Nash song? Thanks.

Midway through the game, we have expanded our numbers almost to double-digits! Four other NBA fans have shown up at Nathaniel's Twitter invitation. Down the bar, a Cavs fan arrives with his (clearly bored) girlfriend just in time to watch his team collapse against the Celtics.

Let's have some food, shall we? Sport has a pretty sweet happy hour if you don't mind cheap-style food: $3 22-ounce domestic drafts and $3 8-inch pizzas. Their regular menu is fantastic--Nathaniel, who earlier sang the praises of Sport's gumbo, orders a reuben, stacked high with pastrami.

My tomato and cheese pizza comes on...a basketball plate! Thanks, Sport!

Game 2 is tipping off--with the Wizards facing the Mavs and Seattle schoolboy legend Jason Terry. Terry drives into the lane, dishes to Erick Dampier, who is fouled on a dunk attempt. Franklin High grad Terry won't get his 3,902nd assist (6th among active players) on that play, but he should.

Midway through the first half of game 2, I'm off to watch a movie with a friend. I hear from women's hoops writer Quentin McCall later that by 9:30 p.m. only two people remain, though "some Portland fans did show up and make noise for Rudy Fernandez for a while."

Should be a great NBA season here in the nation's 13th-biggest media market!