Notebook | Durant is putting on weight

You can't tell to look at him, but Kevin Durant has gained weight. Twelve pounds, to be exact.

He weighed 215 pounds at the NBA predraft camp in June, but the 6-foot-9 Sonics rookie said he's up to 227.

"I gain weight, but people just don't see it," said Durant, who said he'd like to add 10 to 20 pounds before the start of the 2008-09 season.

This season, he's just hoping to maintain and perhaps increase his strength. At the league combine, Durant couldn't bench press 185 pounds, but he said he has improved in the weight room.

Coach P.J. Carlesimo said he believes Durant is best suited at shooting guard because he lacks the strength and girth to play small forward. Eventually, as the 19-year-old gets stronger, he might move to the three position.

"You go back and look at pictures of Michael [Jordan] when he was first in the league, and he looks like a scrawny little guy compared to what he looked like later in his career," Carlesimo said. "A lot of that dealt with physically maturing, some of it had to do with working out and the exercise.

"The biggest thing with Kevin is just going to be the years. You can't accelerate that. Two years from now, he's going to be a lot bigger and stronger than he is right now."

Still, the question is when.

"I've been asking myself that for a while," Durant said. "I've been eating, I've been lifting weights and I just try to tell myself it's going to come when I get older."

No one knows what Durant is dealing with better than Sonics center Robert Swift. He was a 225-pound 18-year-old when he was drafted in 2004, but has added about 60 pounds to his 7-1 frame in three years.

Feeling positive

Brian Robinson, co-president of the group Save Our Sonics and Storm, is optimistic about the teams remaining in Seattle even though chairman Clay Bennett has filed for arbitration to break the final two years of his KeyArena lease.

"I feel better about it than I've felt in a long time," said Robinson, who is expected to fly to New York to meet with NBA officials. "You hear movement behind the scene and you get confirmation but nobody wants to come out and champion this. I'm waiting for [a] public champion in the public sector, in the media and in the private sector."

Bennett, who watched the game from a suite with general manager Sam Presti and assistant GM Scott Perry, is expected to address the arena situation today, although team officials said he will not hold a news conference and just issue a news release.

Note

• Musician Kid Rock, who's a Detroit Pistons fan, Hall of Fame quarterback Warren Moon, UW men's basketball coach Lorenzo Romar, UW women's basketball coach Tia Jackson and former NFL standout Eric Metcalf were in attendance. Several Seahawks, including Rocky Bernard and Julian Peterson, were also in the building.