The closest things Sonics and Blazers have had to Linsanity

Neither the Sonics, during their 41-year stay in Seattle, nor the Portland Trail Blazers has enjoyed a phenomenon like Jeremy Lin.
No franchise other than Lin’s New York Knicks has.
The Sonics, however, had Donald Earl “Slick” Watts in the 1970s while the Blazers had Billy Ray Bates in the early 1980s. They were the closest things to Linsanity either city has experienced.
Watts was a 6-foot-1 point guard who endeared himself to then-Seattle coach Bill Russell and fans at the old Seattle Center Coliseum with energetic play and charismatic behavior.
Beneath a sweatband the encircled his shaved head — hence the nickname Slick — was a seemingly perpetual smile.
And Watts, who got a tryout with the Sonics as a free agent from Xavier of New Orleans because his college coach, Bob Hopkins, was both Russell’s cousin and assistant coach, could play some.
During the 1975-76 season he led the NBA in assists and steals and was named to the league’s all-defensive first team.
Lack of an effective jump shot, however, proved to be Slick’s demise.
When Hopkins succeeded Russell to start the 1977-78 season, Watts was an opening-night starter (along with Fred Brown, Paul Silas, Mike Green and Bruce Seals). When Hopkins was fired after a 5-17 start and replaced by Lenny Wilkens, the lineup was revamped to eventually include Marvin Webster, Jack Sikma, John Johnson, Gus Williams and Dennis Johnson, and Watts’ playing time dwindled as Seattle surged toward the NBA Finals.
He was traded to the New Orleans Jazz that season and played his last NBA game for the Houston Rockets in 1979, the year Seattle won it all.
Slick has been a genuinely good guy, though, and in 1976 won the NBA’s J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award for outstanding community service.
He later coached at Seattle’s Franklin High School and also became an accomplished tennis player.
And his son, Donald, was a star hoopster at Washington and, later, played for the Sun Kings.
Bates, meanwhile, was a high-flying 6-4 guard who was a 1979 third-round draftee from Kentucky State. He wowed Blazermaniacs at the old Glass Palace (Memorial Coliseum) but frustrated coach Jack Ramsay with his propensity for missing things such as team meetings, shootarounds, and sometimes February.
He once slept through the first half of a home game, arriving at intermission. On another occasion, when the Blazers were heading out on a road trip, Bates was so late for his flight that Ramsay told the pilot to leave without him.
As the jet was taxiing into takeoff position, however, Bates was seen sprinting down the runway. The plane stopped, lowered its cargo door and Bates climbed aboard.
Though Bates once scored 40 points in 32 minutes against the San Diego Clippers and 35 points in 25 minutes against the Dallas Mavericks, the Blazers cut him in 1982.
Bates then played in the Philippines, averaging 54.9 points a game one season for Ginebra San Miguel.
In 1998 he was sentenced to seven years in prison for robbing a Texaco station in New Jersey, has been released and is said to be living in the Camden and Trenton areas.

FROM THE QUOTE FILE
“I can’t hear my ears!”
— Slick Watts, doing broadcast commentary during an especially loud Sonics playoff game in Seattle