Culture
Wim Fissette and Iga Swiatek’s partnership: What to expect and how he coaches players
What happens when you pair the best player on the WTA Tour with one of its most decorated coaches?
That was the question in October, when then world No. 1 Iga Swiatek brought on Wim Fissette as her head coach. Fissette, a cerebral 44-year-old from Belgium, is widely considered one of the top coaches on the women’s tour after achieving so much success with such a range of players.
Fissette, who never cracked the top 1,000 as a player in the 1990s and early 2000s, has excelled as a coach ever since his first job with compatriot Kim Clijsters. At 29, he coached Clijsters when she won the 2009 U.S. Open having only just returned from maternity leave, and was in her corner for three major titles in total.
He has since coached an all-star list of players, taking in Sabine Lisicki, Simona Halep, Victoria Azarenka (twice), Petra Kvitova, Sara Errani, Johanna Konta, Angelique Kerber, Zheng Qinwen and most recently Naomi Osaka. Fissette and Osaka split in September when she replaced him with the other most celebrated coach on the WTA Tour, Patrick Mouratoglou.
Under Fissette’s guidance, Osaka won the 2020 U.S. Open and 2021 Australian Open, taking his Grand Slam total as a coach to six after Kerber’s Wimbledon win of 2018. He also took both Lisicki (2013 Wimbledon) and Halep (2014 French Open) to their first Grand Slam finals. In 2017, he helped Konta win the WTA 1000 Miami Open and reach the Wimbledon semifinals for the first time, achieving a career-high ranking of No. 4.
His first tournament with Swiatek sees him tasked with defending a title and helping to orchestrate a possible return to the top of the world rankings after she relinquished the No. 1 slot to Aryna Sabalenka having dropped points for missing mandatory tournaments. She opens her WTA Tour Finals campaign in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia against Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova, in a round-robin group also containing Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula, the latter of whom Swiatek thrashed to win last year’s event in Cancun, Mexico.
Despite his reputation and glittering CV, Fissette has remained largely anonymous, in one of few sports where it is possible for an elite coach to keep a low media profile. It’s players who conduct post-match interviews and press conferences, unlike football in which, while players will speak, it’s the manager’s opinion and feelings that are sought after every win, draw, or defeat.
Wim Fissette and Iga Swiatek’s first event together is the WTA Tour Finals. (Robert Prange / Getty Images)
Speaking to those who have worked with Fissette and seen him operate up close, as well as sources close to Swiatek, some of whom have spoken anonymously to protect relationships, The Athletic has taken a deeper look at how the Belgian operates to understand one of the most exciting coaching partnerships in recent memory as it moves from the practice courts to a stadium for the first time.
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There is an alchemy in the coach-player relationship that makes it not always so easy to predict, even with someone as experienced and adaptable as Fissette. Players frequently talk about their partnership with a coach in romantic terms, making the point that sometimes you click with someone, sometimes you don’t.
And every player needs a different kind of coach. At the Laver Cup in September, the American world No. 15 Frances Tiafoe explained his partnership with new coach David Witt, who formerly worked with U.S. Open finalist Jessica Pegula and before that Maria Sakkari.
“I’m definitely a unique personality, especially in this sport, and someone needs to push me and hold me accountable but also make it fun for me,” Tiafoe said in a news conference.
“I’m a guy where, if you come at me with a drill-sergeant-type mentality, I’m going to go the other way.”
“So much is about the chemistry,” Daniela Hantuchova, the former world No 5 said in a recent phone interview.
“I always felt that you could never tell how it would feel with a coach until you’d worked with them for a few months and you understood their personality, and how they work.
“He (Fissette) is a very impressive coach but just because it works for someone else doesn’t mean it will work for you. It’s very personal.”
When Swiatek split with coach Tomasz Wiktorowski in early October, well-placed sources within women’s tennis tipped Fissette to replace him, given his availability and Swiatek’s apparent willingness to rip up the formula that won her four out of her five Grand Slams. Since winning a third consecutive French Open in June, Swiatek’s performances and results have been patchy, and she’s spoken a few times of mental and physical exhaustion.
After discussions and analysis with her team, Swiatek approached Fissette for talks which drew her to his keenness to learn and develop.
“Iga was keen on working with someone who is open-minded, a good leader but a team player at the same time,” a member of her team told The Athletic.
“They both are very eager to constantly work on themselves, so they have a similar mindset. That’s why Iga believes they can get along well. His great experience with Grand Slam champions and other players who were ranked No 1 in the world was an additional advantage.”
‘Emotional intelligence’ is a phrase that sticks to Fissette, who combines it with an appreciation for data and statistics that goes all the way back to his first job as a coach: helping Clijsters win the 2009 U.S. Open in only her third tournament back after giving birth to her daughter, Jada.
Wim Fissette (left) with Kim Clijsters after she won the Miami Open title in 2010. (Clive Brunskill / Getty Images)
John Dolan was Clijsters’ manager at the time.
“Wim is an amazing coach. Very emotionally intelligent, and he can adapt his personality to the player he’s working with,” Dolan, a long-time WTA media liaison who is now the head of media for the British Lawn Tennis Association, said in an interview last month.
“He was a very good listener, and doesn’t talk a lot like some people. When he does say something it carries real importance and over the last 15 years his coaching credentials speak for themselves.
“If you’re a player how can you not listen to him?”
Knowing when to push and when to pull back is a key skill of any coach. Fissette is no hype man, so when he does really try to motivate his players, the effect is greater. With Clijsters, at her first tournament back in Cincinnati, she came to her coach with doubts about whether she was really good enough to compete. In an interview with Essentially Sports in 2018, Fissette said he told Clijsters that “there’s really nobody that is able to beat you when you’re going to be at your best.”
Ahead of her U.S. Open semifinal against Serena Williams, a player Clijsters had only beaten once in eight meetings prior, Fissette focused on not worrying and exploiting Williams’ weaknesses. Clijsters won 6-4, 7-5 in a match overshadowed by Williams being given a point penalty when down match point. Fissette had earlier that season bet Clijsters that if she won the tournament, he would shave his head. Both did their part in the deal.
“It sounds obvious but he knows how to work with tennis players,” Dolan said. “Some other coaches haven’t quite learned that reading the player is such a big part of it and a lot of coaches don’t have that. They focus too much on themselves.”
When Naomi Osaka began discussing who would coach her on her return to the tour after giving birth, reuniting with Fissette was the obvious choice. He did not say yes straight away.
He pushed Osaka on how her comeback would work and why it would be different to previous comebacks in 2021 and 2022 which ended prematurely. In the end, the second edition of Osaka-Fissette lasted just under a year.
An official at the WTA, who requested anonymity to protect relationships, outlined Fissette’s directness.
“He’s absolutely not a cheerleader,” they said.
“He’s very honest, and that is something some players aren’t used to all the time. He’ll say, ‘I have some ideas. If you’re open to that this is going to work — if you’re not going to be open to criticism, then it’s not.’”
“When you put in the effort, I make sure to praise it, while still being critical of errors,” Fissette writes on his website.
“I’m always looking for ways to make you better than the day before. Be positive, be better.”
Fissette undoubtedly has a ruthless streak. He joined up with Osaka in September 2023 having just taken Zheng to her first Grand Slam quarterfinal at the U.S. Open. Zheng said she was blindsided and heartbroken; Fissette told The Athletic in January that he was going to stop coaching Zheng regardless of Osaka. He had nothing but praise for Zheng — “a super nice girl” who always worked hard — but said that they did not click.
Wim Fissette (crouching) with Naomi Osaka in Los Angeles earlier this year. (Matt Futterman / The Athletic).
Similarly, in 2018, Fissette split with Kerber towards the end of what had been a very successful year and reunited with Azarenka shortly after. A terse statement from Kerber at the time read: “Wim Fissette is — with immediate effect — exempted from his duties as coach of Angelique Kerber. In spite of the successful cooperation since the beginning of the season, this step is necessary due to differences of opinion regarding the future of the alignment.”
A year earlier, Fissette and Konta split, with the former saying in an interview with the Times of London: “It was a good match but not a perfect match. We are kind of different and we see things a little different.”
The split was amicable with the now de rigueur posts on social media praising each other; Konta was unavailable for interview for this piece when asked by The Athletic.
Fissette’s willingness to curtail a partnership that doesn’t work — which players will share — stands in apparent contrast to the depth to which he will tailor his approach to a player’s needs. He is “very tour-friendly,” the WTA official said.
“He sees coaching as an art form. He understands how it works and really cares about what he does,” they added.
Fissette would get so nervous during Konta’s matches that he would have to go for a run afterwards to unwind.
In an interview with ESPN.com in 2018, Fissette detailed the spectrum on which his players would understand their own matches, with Azarenka’s desire for large amounts of data contrasting to Kerber wanting “two, three important things.”
This was partly a determination of style: Kerber’s at-times scarcely believable ability to turn defense into attack was reliant on knowledge of an opponent’s preferred attacking shots and patterns, allowing her to be strategically proactive rather than merely reacting to the ball in front of her.
When he was coaching Konta, Fissette was more prescriptive than usual. She liked clear messaging and so Fissette would have her recite the gameplan and a few key thoughts to him and herself before she went on court. But Konta was more lighthearted before matches than some of the players he’d worked with, so Fissette lent into that too. “We all tell jokes. Everybody is different,” Fissette told the Press Association during Konta’s run to the Wimbledon semifinals in 2017.
This is true of Fissette himself, who modelled his game on counter-punching as a player but has since made aggression one of the key tenets of his coaching. On the way to Kerber’s win at Wimbledon in 2018, he told her to up her aggression more than usual in moments where she would feel compelled to be safe; he used a similar strategy with Osaka when she came within a point of knocking Swiatek out of this year’s French Open.
“The way you think about tennis and play tennis trickles down into how you coach and how you play tennis,” Filip Dewulf said in a phone interview earlier this month.
Dewulf, 52, is a former French Open semifinalist and world No. 39; he was playing when Fissette was trying to make it on the ATP Tour. They got to know each other then and live near each other in Belgium, sometimes meeting for a drink and a catch-up.
Wim Fissette and Angelique Kerber celebrating victory at Wimbledon in 2018. (Clive Mason / Getty Images)
“He’s very data-driven. Both about his own player but also the opponent. He is preparing himself really well every match, and every practice, looking at the numbers every day,” Dewulf said.
Fissette would use an iPad between sets when coaching Kerber, and his use of data combined with the emotional intelligence that Dewulf, like most people interviewed for this article, cites as key to his success results in a drive to improve and develop, but with a real end result. Developing but losing is not Fissette’s goal.
“We had three nice years, we won two slams, and it was really good. But I was, in some ways, disappointed,” he told The Athletic in January of his first stint with Osaka.
How these coaching philosophies will translate into Swiatek’s game, mentality, and team will unfold over time, but those who have worked with him offer perspectives on where he fits into her way of approaching tennis. Dewulf has labelled Fissette as a “good organizer” with the ability to analyze an existing partnership from a removed perspective, appreciating its strengths while looking into its weaknesses.
Konta and Azarenka worked with a mental coach and psychologist respectively while Fissette coached them; at the very start of their first partnership in 2020, Osaka was in a dark place. She had lost to Coco Gauff in the Australian Open third round as the defending champion, and then lost her good friend Kobe Bryant, who died shortly after. The COVID-19 pandemic led to tennis being stopped a couple of months later, but Osaka found the equilibrium to win that year’s U.S. Open in September 2020 and then the Australian Open the following year.
“If they have been the same way for a long time, he works out what the weakness are and he gets other people in to get a better team around them,” Dewulf said.
This will be an interesting sub-plot with Swiatek, who has a number of longstanding team members including psychologist Daria Abramowicz. Fissette has been known to experiment: he and Osaka’s team brought in ballet dancer Simone Elliott to help her improve her movement.
Swiatek has said that tactical and technical adaptations to her game will come in the off-season, with too little time between hiring Fissette and the Tour Finals to implement meaningful changes, but she has already discussed what is coming.
“I for sure want to improve my serve, as I’ve been doing for past years,” she said in a news conference in Riyadh. “I think tactically there are many ways I could go and have more variety on court. Wim has some nice ideas.”
Swiatek has added more speed to her serve and abbreviated her motion in 2024, but recent defeats have been marked by an inability to change the momentum of matches, too often trying to hit through opponents in the way that usually wins her matches, instead of changing tempo or adding margin with topspin — one of her great strengths — to earn an easier ball back. This simplification of her game, introduced by Wiktorowski, brought her great success and continues to do so; it still needs an alternative for when it isn’t quite working.
Fissette worked with Kerber and Azarenka extensively on their serves, and spent time with Osaka trying to develop an aggressive open-stance backhand — a shot that a handful of players, including Swiatek, can perform reliably.
As Swiatek heads into defending her WTA Tour Finals title, Fissette’s generally quick starts may prove a boon. Clijsters is the most obvious example but Konta won Miami, the biggest title of her career, within a few months of working with him. Lisicki was a shock Wimbledon finalist after an even shorter time working with Fissette, while Halep reached her first Grand Slam quarterfinal in her first major with Fissette, before reaching the French Open final in her second.
This instant impact is something a few observers have pointed to as a Fissette trademark.
Ultimately, it’s Fissette’s record of success that sets him apart, says his coaching rival Mouratoglou, who won 10 Grand Slams with Serena Williams between 2012 and 2017. “I judge the quality of a coach on the results,” Mouratoglou said from France via a Zoom interview this week.
“There are some guys who make results and some guys who don’t, and some who do it sometimes. It’s the same if you look at the football, there are a few coaches every time they take a team — success. Of course, they’re great teams, but with other coaches, they wouldn’t make that success.”
“I have a good relationship with him, he’s one of the guys that I’m always happy to see even though we are in competition,” Mouratoglou said.
“I think we have very different personalities but it’s good that there are different options for the players.”
One undoubted advantage is how intimately Fissette knows a number of Swatek’s rivals from working with them. Coaching Osaka at the 2020 U.S. Open final, Fissette felt as though he could predict every shot that Azarenka was going to hit. He will now be able to tell Swiatek precisely what her opponents will be anticipating from her because he was in the role of anticipator for Osaka only a few months ago.
Fissette’s expertise on the WTA Tour leads to the inevitable question about why he has never coached a male player, but the answer is that the opportunity hasn’t come up. He is open to doing so but his early success with Clijsters led to job offers on the women’s side and that’s how it’s been ever since. It’s hard to imagine he wouldn’t be a success there, given what he’s achieved in 15 years on the WTA side.
It feels difficult to envisage a situation where the partnering of two such elite practitioners won’t equate to success either in the medium term or more immediately, like some of Fissette’s previous partnerships. What makes tennis so exciting is not quite knowing how things will go — even if this feels like the closest thing to a sure bet.
(Top photo: Robert Prange / Getty Images)
FAU football, which rose to national relevance under Lane Kiffin, has backslid over the last five seasons under Willie Taggart and the recently fired Tom Herman. The Owls’ new coaching search, though, might be the most interesting one of this year’s coaching carousel.
And it got a little more interesting this week, as Miami great Ray Lewis has made it known that he really wants to be the Owls’ next coach, a source briefed on Lewis’ thinking said Wednesday.
The 49-year-old Lewis, a 13-time Pro Bowl linebacker, has observed the model of what Deion Sanders has done transforming Colorado football in the past two years and is expected to present a plan to the Owls’ leadership in the next week for how he’d do something similar at FAU.
Lewis’ old buddy, fellow Pro Football Hall of Famer Cris Carter, is the Owls’ executive director of player engagement and is expected to be a good resource for Lewis. A big hurdle for Lewis is, unlike Sanders, he doesn’t have any previous college coaching experience.
“Ray wants it bad,” the source briefed on Lewis’ thinking said. Lewis lives five minutes from the FAU campus. “He really wants it.”
Lewis, however, is not considered a serious candidate at this point, according to a source involved in the coaching search.
The frontrunner for the FAU vacancy, according to multiple sources involved in the search, is Ole Miss offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr. The 31-year-old son of former Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis, who lives a half-hour from Boca Raton, is the play caller at a hot Rebels program and runs the nation’s No. 2 offense, putting up 7.58 yards per play.
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The younger Weis was Kiffin’s former offensive coordinator at FAU and knows the program well. He has a lot of support from some key FAU people, according to sources involved in the search. Kiffin has strong influence back at FAU and will push Weis for the job, those sources said. Financially, Weis — who makes $1.65 million at Ole Miss — might have to take a pay cut to go back to FAU but a source briefed on the matter said he doubted that would stop Weis from wanting this job.
Other expected candidates for the FAU job
Georgia Tech offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner might make more sense for the Owls. The 43-year-old helped turn Tech from the ACC’s No. 11 offense to No. 3 last year. In 2022, the year before he was hired in Atlanta, Georgia Tech ranked last in the ACC in red zone offense. His offense is No. 2 in the ACC in red zone TD percentage.
Penn State assistant head coach/co-OC Ja’Juan Seider is a well-regarded coach with deep local ties and is expected to get some consideration. The 47-year-old Belle Glade, Fla., product was a star quarterback at Florida A&M and is well-connected around South Florida. Players really respond to him. He also has been a key assistant in Happy Valley, at Marshall and West Virginia.
UCF offensive coordinator Tim Harris Jr. has spent his whole coaching career in the state. He was a four-time NCAA All-American in track at Miami and then spent five years as a successful high school coach in South Florida at Miami’s Booker T. Washington High before spending seven seasons at FIU. Since then, he’s coached at Miami and UCF, where he has produced the Big 12’s most prolific offense at 6.76 yards per play.
UNLV offensive coordinator Brennan Marion, a former Miami Dolphins wideout who lived in Boynton Beach, not far from the Owls’ campus, might be an intriguing option. He has proven to be a terrific offensive coordinator in two stops at the FCS level before an excellent two-season run of transforming the Rebels into a winning program. Last year he led the Rebels to No. 6 in the country in third down offense and No. 8 in red zone offense despite his starting QB going down early and having to turn to an unproven freshman in Jayden Maiava, who went on to win Mountain West Freshman of the Year honors. This year, the Rebels, with Maiava having left for USC, are No. 6 in the nation in scoring at 39.9 points per game.
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FSU defensive backs coach Pat Surtain could be in play at his alma mater Southern Miss, but he also has strong ties here. He played a decade in the NFL before becoming a top high school coach in South Florida. The 48-year-old spent one season with the Miami Dolphins as an NFL assistant before joining FSU’s staff in 2023.
Georgia assistant head coach Todd Hartley, 39, spent three years coaching in South Florida on the Canes’ staff. He is someone Kirby Smart has leaned on in elevating the program since Hartley’s return to Athens in 2019. Southern Miss also has a lot of interest in Hartley for its head coaching vacancy.
Duke defensive coordinator Jonathan Patke, a Manny Diaz protege who was on the staff at Miami, is a rising star at defensive coordinator. He’s had a strong debut season in Durham and also could be in play.
Miami defensive ends coach Jason Taylor. The Pro Football Hall of Famer, who had been a high school assistant for five seasons at powerhouse St. Thomas Aquinas, is a legendary figure around South Florida. In 2007, Taylor won the NFL’s prestigious Walter Payton Man of the Year honors and has been an excellent addition to the Canes staff the past two seasons.
— Chris Vannini contributed to this report
Required reading
(Photo: Rob Carr / Getty Images)
SEATTLE — When the SuperSonics left here in 2008, Brent Barry felt it in his gut. There was an emptiness, a sadness so pronounced that he was moved to put pen to paper.
At the time, Barry was preparing for training camp with the San Antonio Spurs, but part of his heart was still in Seattle, a bond forged through his five seasons as a wing with the Sonics. Now the team was no more thanks to an abrupt transaction that uprooted the franchise to Oklahoma City.
Barry’s mind was numbed with a blur of memories he captured in his poem, “When It Rains.”
“… and here I sit in my office space and think of my career
And what to say to my two sons, did the team just disappear?
I played in KeyArena, I live on Queen Anne Hill
I played pinball at Shorty’s after games, and ate burgers at both Red Mills
I would have some chowder down at Dukes, and watch Sea Planes take their flight
And find myself in Fremont if I needed a beer that night
I saw Star Wars at Cinerama, tossed a pitch at Safeco Field,
Drove all the way to Bellingham to see Pearl Jam and Yield …”
Sixteen years later, a collection of Sonics jerseys extends wall-to-wall inside the Simply Seattle store downtown. From Detlef Schrempf to Gary Payton to Ray Allen to Kevin Durant, the jerseys of Sonics legends are still a hot commodity.
“We get people from New Zealand, London, from all over,” store manager Kate Wansley said. “The Sonics are a big thing, and now everyone is excited about what could happen.”
What could happen has many in this Northwest metropolis tense with anticipation. In September, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said the league would address NBA expansion at some point this season, which prompted an already simmering movement in Seattle to bubble over.
Since 2008, Seattle has been waiting, expecting a franchise to return. And now, with overtures of the NBA’s first expansion since 2004, there is an overriding sentiment that Seattle is due.
“There’s just too much karma that says put a team back in Seattle,” says George Karl, who coached the Sonics from 1992-98, leading them to an NBA Finals appearance in 1996. “I don’t know more than anybody else, but my feeling is … that it can happen. It should happen.”
Karl is sipping iced tea and soaking in a picturesque view of Seattle’s Elliott Bay on a sun-splashed Thursday. He lives in Denver but is in town to help promote, support and encourage Seattle’s candidacy should Silver and the NBA Board of Governors decide to proceed with expansion.
As the Seahawks played host to the San Francisco 49ers at Lumen Field, Karl and former Sonics players Dale Ellis and Rashard Lewis attended a social event on the 75th floor of the Columbia Tower that included Seattle mayor Bruce Harrell, Seattle Sports Commission president and CEO Beth Knox and several business leaders.
“It’s a lot of anticipation; I feel like we are hanging on the edge of our seats, waiting,” Knox said. “We are ready.”
The event was important enough for Harrell that he postponed plans for his 66th birthday (he was quick to note he shared his birthday with Sonics legend Gus Williams) so he could spread what he calls “the buzz” about Seattle’s viability for expansion.
“We need to make sure the decision-makers — the NBA commissioner, the administration and co-owners — realize this is a very attractive market, and we have the fan base,” Harrell said. “They sort of know it, but this was 2008 when we lost the team, and we have a whole new generation of people in town, so we need to assure them we have that kind of spirit.”
Climate Pledge Arena has hosted NBA exhibition games each of the last two seasons. (Steph Chambers / Getty Images)
In September, Silver tempered expectations when he said the league “is not quite ready” to discuss expansion before adding that eventually it will be broached. “What we’ve told interested parties is: ‘Thank you for your interest, we will get back to you,’ ” Silver said. “That’s certainly the case in Seattle.”
Still, hopes haven’t been this high here since 2013, when a bid to relocate the Sacramento Kings to Seattle reached a vote of NBA governors but was turned down 22-8 after Sacramento came up with new ownership.
Ellis, who played for seven NBA teams, said the city’s diversity, food and fan base kept him in Seattle for 20 years after his career ended. The 41-year history of the franchise, which includes the 1979 NBA title, is why he believes so passionately that the league should return. It’s why he flew to Seattle to support Thursday’s movement, a movement that he says stands more than a chance of landing a return of the Sonics.
“Chance? No, it’s going to happen. It’s going to happen,” Ellis said. “They just haven’t made the announcement yet. There will be two franchises, one here in Seattle, and one in Las Vegas.”
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Like so many former Sonics players and coaches, Barry felt he didn’t just play in Seattle, he felt he was part of Seattle. So losing the Sonics felt like losing part of himself.
It is that player-community connection that has made this movement to revive the Sonics unique. Other cities have lost NBA franchises — Vancouver, San Diego, Kansas City — but none have had former players and coaches campaigning for a return like Seattle.
Lewis, who played his first nine NBA seasons with the Sonics, flew into Seattle from Houston motivated by two factors: the history and the fans.
“Seattle has a part of me; I became a man here,” Lewis said. “And the fans … I still remember Big Lo (super fan Lorin Sandretzky), and fans pulling up to the airport when we arrived. There’s history, so much history here, and that’s why they have to have a team here.”
The 1990s in particular were a magical time for Seattle. Microsoft was booming. Bands from Seattle — Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, Soundgarden — were leading the grunge explosion. “Singles” and “Sleepless in Seattle” hit movie screens. Ken Griffey Jr. was a superstar. And Payton, Kemp and the fiery Karl were headlining SportsCenter highlights.
“It all had this mystical essence to it,” Barry said. “Because nobody wanted to go to the Pacific Northwest. It was so far away, the weather was bad … but there was a lot of cool stuff happening in and around that place. So it had this mystical quality to it.”
Added Karl: “The city was blossoming, the music was blossoming, the city was growing, the Mariners were good … everything was just in rhythm. There was a rhythm that Seattle was cool. Pearl Jam, Starbucks, (Microsoft’s Steve) Ballmer … and (the Sonics) were good.
“Unfortunately, Michael (Jordan) was in the league.”
The electricity between the Sonics and the Seattle scene made for lasting bonds. For fans and the players.
“Spilling out from KeyArena after a game meant that you were in the bloodstream of the city,” said Barry, now an assistant coach with Phoenix. “You got out of the arena and you could walk across the street to Lazy J’s (Jalisco’s) and do karaoke with a bunch of fans who were just at the game. You could go to First Street and hop into a steakhouse and have a meal with fans who just left the game.
“To lose all that … it was a gut punch to a city that loved basketball, loved its team and had a relationship with the team that was unique.”
Portland Trail Blazers play-by-play announcer Kevin Calabro, who announced Sonics games for 22 years, said fans still ask him regularly if and when the Sonics will return, which is attributed to the connection formed during those memorable years in the 1990s.
“You had this great amalgam of cutting-edge technology with the internet coming to life and this great music scene and the Sonics bursting at the seams,” Calabro said. “And it all came together on winter nights at The Barn, as we used to call KeyArena. Jeff Ament (Pearl Jam bassist) was down in the baseline seats all the time, Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam singer) was around, Screaming Trees … all these bands would show up.
“And when George Karl took over, it just lit a fire. There were so many great characters … and they were all involved with the community. You could feel them, touch them, see them at the clubs, hang with them. It was special.”
Wansley, the store manager who hangs the Sonics jerseys from wall to wall, is a lifelong Seattle resident. She said her deepest bonds are with the Sonics because she experienced them in everyday life. She saw Nate McMillan and Sam Perkins at Bellevue Square, Kemp and Gary in the store, Dana Barros here, Schrempf there.
“It was something that just connects you to them,” Wansley said. “You would go to the game, then see them out … and I don’t know how it is in other cities, but they were just out in the community so much. It would be like, ‘Hey, I just saw you play …’ ”
Seattle has been down this road of anticipation before. The 2013 bid to relocate the Kings to Seattle was so close to happening — and so ugly in its particulars — that its downfall left some scars.
But the overall sentiment today is that Seattle is well positioned, if not a leader when expansion becomes a reality. Much of the optimism stems from Climate Pledge Arena, the refurbished KeyArena, which now houses the NHL’s Seattle Kraken.
“There literally hasn’t been a week where I haven’t been asked about the Sonics or the NBA or how we got screwed,” said Bob Whitsitt, who was president and general manager of the Sonics from 1986-94. “And for years, I said to them — right or wrong — that Seattle was not in a position to even be considered for a team until they have an NBA-ready facility.
“And that giant hurdle has now been cleared with Climate Pledge Arena. As a city, we know we have a facility that works. That doesn’t guarantee you a team, but you can be guaranteed not to get a team by not having a facility. So, the biggest thing has been taken off the board.”
Whitsitt still lives in Seattle and said he is encouraged by a potential ownership group led by Kraken owners David Bonderman and his daughter, Samantha Holloway. Bonderman also is a minority owner of the Boston Celtics.
“My support is behind them,” Whitsitt said. “They are the right ones. They are the perfect people to lead the thing. And the Seattle market is not only great, it is ready.”
Last month, more than 18,000 sold out the LA Clippers and Trail Blazers exhibition game at Climate Pledge Arena, which more than caught the eye of coaches Chauncey Billups of the Blazers and Tyronn Lue of the Clippers.
“I mean, everybody talks about it,” Billups said. “This is obviously a desired city, a market that people love … it makes the most sense. It’s already been very successful, the market has, so it makes a lot of sense. We just have to wait on it.”
Added Lue: “It’s a great environment, a great place to play … they’ve done a great job with this arena.”
Brian Robinson, a Seattle real estate investor, heads Seattle NBA Fans, the group that hosted the event with Karl, Lewis, Ellis and the mayor. He has 250 community leaders and 50 CEOs behind his movement. He also headed a 2010 group that tried to find an arena solution to lure the Sonics back. He said then, it was difficult to get business leaders and companies behind him.
“Now, no one ever says no,” said Robinson, 51. “People see the change in tone from the commissioner and they see a path. Everyone wants to be a part of it. I just feel like the people of Seattle are over the negativity and they are ready to have this journey be something meaningful.”
Mayor Harrell and Knox, the CEO of the Seattle Sports Commission, are envisioning a future where Sonics players become role models and inspire youth to not only participate in basketball, but dream. Seattle has a long history of producing NBA talent, including Brandon Roy, Jason Terry, Jamal Crawford, Paolo Banchero and Dejounte Murray. Barry thinks the Sonics can help inspire others.
“How do you dream bigger if you don’t see it in front of you?” Barry asked. “I was thinking if I never went to Golden State games as a kid to watch Chris Mullin, Tim Hardaway and Mitch Richmond, how much of my devotion and love of the game would have been depleted by not having the touch, the autograph, the memories? The impact can’t be overstated.
“There’s almost 20 years of kids in Seattle who never saw one game in their city of LeBron James, one of the greatest players who ever played. Twenty years of kids, and parents for that matter, who haven’t had that community, that environment, that experience. It hurts.”
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Last month, Barry thought back to the day when he penned the “When It Rains” poem. He rifled through his files and found it.
“Even reading it again, I was like, ‘Man, I still feel this way. It sucks,” Barry said. “I was sad. Legitimately sad. But right now, I don’t think there has ever been more sentiment or momentum than right now. And I hope it’s not another carrot in front of the rabbit situation. I hope this momentum is true and honest and there is potential for the green and gold to be back there.”
It was the same thought he had 16 years ago, in San Antonio as he closed his poem.
“… A chapter left unwritten, a generation with a gap,
Forty-one years of NBA action and now no one can clap
But here is a silver lining … above every cloud’s a sun
And the possibility is something we hold on to even if slim to none
For faith and hope and love are tenants
Of the days as one grows old
And for all at stake, those clouds will break
And we will see the green and gold.”
(Illustration: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; photos: Steph Chambers, Tim DeFrisco, Otto Greule Jr, Andy Hayt, Jeff Reinking, Terrence Vaccaro / Getty Images)
There doesn’t have to be a milestone moment or viral play for an NHL player’s phone to be flooded with notifications in the wake of a game. Maybe there’s a text from a parent, a reminder from a partner, a few messages of congratulations or condolences. Not to mention the usual spate of emails and push alerts that inevitably pile up when you’ve been away from your phone for a few hours.
But these days, as sports betting becomes more and more prevalent in the hockey world, there’s a new app jockeying for space atop players’ home screens.
“I’ve been sent Venmo requests before,” one NHL player surveyed in The Athletic’s player poll said. “Like, ‘Hey, I bet on you guys to win and you blew it. So give me back my 50 bucks.’”
That player said he found it “comical.”
“I think I paid one guy back once,” he said with a laugh. “Sent him like 20 bucks.”
Of course, the Internet being what it is, it’s not always terribly funny. Almost one-third of the 161 players polled said they’ve been getting more harassing messages from fans since sports betting has become legal in more states.
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“Oh, almost every day,” one goaltender said. “Honestly, I’d say 75 percent of them are them being mad about something. ‘How did you let in that late goal? I had the under. Thanks a lot. You f—ing suck.’ Things like that constantly. I feel like, as a goalie, we’re a little bit more exposed to it, too.”
“Together with a couple death threats and a few other things,” another player added.
Perhaps the biggest revelation from The Athletic’s anonymous player poll was how common the Venmo requests are.
“They’re demands, not requests,” one player clarified. “’You owe me $200 because you were on the ice when …’ and it’s insane. It’s really bad when you play against Toronto because it seems like everybody is betting on Leafs games. But that’s Toronto for you.”
Apparently, NHL players need to do a better job of masking their identities on cash apps.
“Yeah, that’s real,” another player said. “When you ruin a guy’s parlay or something? Hundred percent, that’s real. I got one last game where some guy bet on my number of shots or something and then he’s DM’ing me: ‘You f—ed my parlay!’ Pardon my language, but that’s what he said.”
“Yeah, 100 percent,” said another player. “I’ve gotten plenty of them show up in my inbox before. Like I kept them from hitting some parlay or something or, ‘Here’s my Venmo. Send me $100.’”
“Oh, yeah,” one player said. “People on social media are way crazier now because they have more skin in the game. I think that’s for all sports.”
“I get messages all the time, and these are people probably betting $1.50,” said another.
Some such requests are obvious gags. But other messages carry a more sinister tone.
“Not here, but to be honest, mostly in Russia,” one player said. “Like it’s getting crazy. You’re up 2-0 and lose, you get messages, like, ‘You f—ing asshole, I’m gonna f—ing kill you.’”
One player said he gets at least one or two such messages every day from gamblers. But two-thirds of the players who responded said they don’t get any. It could depend on how high-profile a player is. Not a lot of fans are betting on fourth-liners and third-pairing defensemen. As one player joked, “I don’t think I’m the betting favorite.”
Unsurprisingly, many players have done their best to unplug entirely. That also could explain the two-thirds who said they don’t get such messages.
“I used to know that I got harassing messages,” one player said. “Now I don’t know. Who would read these f—ing idiots? I don’t anymore.”
“That’s why I turned everything off,” another said. “You get some scary messages out there.”
Another: “Good thing I’m not on social media.”
Another: “No one can find me, so I don’t know.”
Death threats and profanity-laced tirades aside, sometimes the players feel the bettors’ pain.
“Sometimes they bet on me to score and I don’t and they want me to give them money,” one player said. “I’m like, ‘I want to score, too!’”
(Graphic: Meech Robinson / The Athletic, with photos from Gary A. Vasquez, Katherine Gawlik and Andre Ringuette / Getty Images)
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