Sonics make a trade, only not the one we all wanted

The Sonics are blowing it up, and I don't like it. In fact, I smell a rat.

Ray Allen has been shipped to the Boston Celtics, and Rashard Lewis is as good as gone in what likely will have to be a sign-and-trade deal. In return, we get a team that features Kevin Durant (unbelievably awesome), Jeff Green (underwhelming), Wally Szczerbiak (terrifically bad and under contract at $12 million per for the next two seasons) and Delonte West (a crappier version of Earl Watson).

I know we're probably only getting part of the picture right now -- I'm sure GM Sam Presti will be making other moves to remake the roster -- but it sure seems like this is part of a plan to get the team to suck just long enough to get out of town, then blossom into a winner somewhere else.

I hope I'm wrong, but the original talk was that adding Durant to the original cast of characters would catapult the Sonics into playoff relevance.

Now, it's looking like they're following the Portland plan, which sounds nice, until you consider this: How many of the championship teams from the last 20 years built their squad by blowing it up and starting over at some point? None. San Antonio came closest, but their pick of Tim Duncan came after a 60-loss season in which David Robinson and Sean Elliott were hurt.

Yes, Portland has a nice nucleus of players, but there's no guarantee that team is going to become championship caliber. Keeping Ray Allen around -- a guy who's far and away better than anyone on Portland's roster -- would have made a lot of sense to help this team not stay in the 50-loss range. Now, it will be awful difficult to keep that from happening.

And once you start losing, it's awful tough to stop. The NBA is littered with franchises that started losing and are still losing.

Anyway, I'm rambling, so I'll check in later after we see how the rest of the night shapes up.