eagereyez wrote:The city of Seattle was still paying for two new stadiums for the Mariners and Seahawks at the time Bennett demanded a new one for the Sonics. It was ridiculous to expect the city to cover most of the costs for a new arena during a recession, while still paying off two other arenas. You can't ask us to throw the entire city into even greater debt when our public utilities needed revamping as well. Seattle is a very sensible and environmentally conscious place. The only way a new arena would be approved at this time in Seattle is if a group fronted most of the costs, which is what Hansens group has promised. We have enough billionaires in Washington that finding someone to do this shouldn't have been difficult, going back to 2008. It wouldn't have been hard for Bennett to find other investors to help him meet the costs for a new arena, but he had every intention to move the Sonics to OKC and never gave anyone else a chance. David Stern seemed to be compliant in that as well. As much as I loved our Sonics my hate for the NBA is almost equivalent in scale. If the Kings didn't come to Seattle I wouldn't be sad for a second because **** David Stern and Clay Bennett, it should be Durant and Westbrook leading the Sonics to the NBA finals, not the Thunder.
Bennett showed up to state legislation with an arena offer that was laughable and incomplete. There are high schoolers who work harder on their homeworks than what Clay Bennett was offering up. Basically it said you build us a 500mil state of the art arena". As owner(s) of the team we will put in ZERO dollars for a new arena and cover ZERO percent of any over costs.
Well hell, where does the general public sign the dotted line on this great bargain? His offer and effort was laughable in keeping the Sonics in Seattle. There were plenty of options up here if he was willing to work with someone, ANYONE. Not once did he ever make contact with a group who was committed to keeping the Sonics in Seattle called "Save Our Sonics".
In fact if you watch the first interview where he buys the team someone asks ""what is going to happen if you can't get a new arena deal"? He replies with, "well then we'll m.... ah look at other options in keeping them here".
He fully caught himself from letting the cat out of the bag.
Any as much as I want a new NBA team I do hope you guys can figure out a way to keep your team in Sacramento. It's sucks to lose you team.