<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">While it's true that the roster at the moment has older players and better players, the imminent departure of 32-year-old free agent Brent Barry, whose five years in Seattle qualified him as the local sage of the hardwood, means that Lewis' six seasons of trying to figure out what's up with the Sonics has made him the de facto gray eminence. That makes him 25 going on 50. Wasn't it just a few months ago that Lewis was on national TV sniffling an 18-year-old's sniff over the fact that his hometown Houston Rockets passed over him in the draft? Hard to believe it's been six years of floundering and fiddling since Lewis was that rarest of Sonics gems: A quality personnel decision. But the really curious thing is less about Lewis and more about Barry: His departure actually represents a smart move by the Sonics. Which makes two in recent memory. Barry's decision to leave Seattle and sign with the San Antonio Spurs is, pragmatically speaking, a break. While it is never wise to lose a quality player for nothing, the high number of earlier unwise decisions, and the current market, creates forces that describe his departure as a good call. With all respect to Barry, who was at least as good a guy as he was a long-distance shootist, no NBA team has any business guaranteeing a contract to a guard who will be nearing 37 at its expiration.</div> <div align="center">Link</div>
Interesting view. I like to take the positive side of the ledger too, and that to me is no Barry means this team is going to have to learn to win without him, and going to have to learn to adapt to and play with Luke Ridnour's style.
