It was hard for Sonics diehards to not smile as the smoke from burning Kevin Durant jerseys rose above OKC in July. The former NBA MVP left the Thunder to sign with the rival Golden State Warriors, and the crumbling of the stolen franchise had begun.

As a new NBA season readies to tip-off in late October, the only thing Sonics fans have to root for is the basketball schadenfreude of Thunder failure. And that’s messed up. It’s the type of rage-building negativity that led some Sonics fans to lash out at female city council members over the arena vote this spring.

But it’s also messed up that the NBA still primarily uses Seattle as a threat to get cities to build unsound publicly funded stadiums. In 2013 and 2014 respectively, the league succeeded in getting Sacramento and Milwaukee to pay for billionaires’ new stadiums by floating the possibility of relocating their teams to Seattle. Nine seasons after the Sonics left, there are still no winners.