Why did the Seattle Supersonics move to OKC?

[flash22]

I blame Paul Allen. Guy had the cash to fund his own football stadium but didn't want to. Forcing the tax payers to foot the bill, this stopped any changes of second stadium being built for basketball.

You blame the Sonics relocation on the Blazers owner who was among the only two owners (along with Mark Cuban) to vote against their move to OKC?

Yes I do. Paul allen choose between a new a Seahawks stadium and new Sonics stadium. He choose the Seahawks.

[OlDirtMcBert]

On the day in July 2006, when the sale of the Sonics to Clay Bennett was announced in a PC, Bennett told them they had one year to have a plan in place for a new arena, or he would have to look at his options.

That was reported in every major Seattle news outlet. How that gets spun into Bennett making a promise to build an arena , I've no idea.

Bennett hired an architectual firm to draw plans for a new arena, and it was in the $500 million price tag. Seattle revolted at spending that much money, which they considered exhorbitant. And a few years later, after losing the Sonics, they have plans for a new arena that exceed $500 million.

If Seattle was surprised that he decided to move the team after there was no arena plan in place , then its on them. Evidently , they did not believe him. But he never lied to them, he made it clear from day one.

You would think the threat of losing the team, would motivate Seattle to build an arena. But the support was not there.

Soccer was too big a priority.

[blind prophet]

Most cities show resistance when it comes to paying for a sports arena that will be operated by a private enterprise. The same thing happened in Sacramento and is happening now in Milwaukee. My point was that while in other cases, the NBA does everything possible to not move the team, in Seattle's case, they didn't.

I agree with that. It basically came down to whether or not taxpayers would fund a professional arena, but the NBA has given cities like Sac and Milwaukee far more rope to come up with something. The NBA and Milwaukee been trying to hammer out an arena plan for how long now?

Sacramento said NO to a publicly financed stadium for the better part of 15 years. Then they finally caved in when the threat of their team leaving was staring them right in the face (after all, at this point the Sonics moving from Seattle served as a real example of what would happen to them if they didn't cave).

IMO, it was Seattle taxpayers giving the finger to Stern and the NBA that really did it in. They passed the referendum banning public taxes for private stadiums and basically told the NBA, "Hey, you wanna move? We dare you. Go build a stadium yourselves."

At that point, Stern was pissed and basically wouldn't do anything to keep the team from moving. Then his buddy Clay hatched his sinister plan (no doubt with Stern's help) and we all know the rest. It was basically Seattle taxpayers giving Stern the finger and the "we don't need you" attitude that did it. Sac and Milwaukee, for all the wrangling and resistance they showed to cough up the money, never outright told Stern to go f^&K himself.

The stuff about the Hornets, Katrina, and the move from Charlotte to NO in the first place also rings true.

Any national coverage of the Kings situation is likely wrong.

The Maloofs never in good faith attempted a real solid arena plan. They even made a Carl's jr commercial of them drinking like 5,000 dollar drinks right before financing was going to be voted on.

They were minority owners in 99 and someone got busted talking to Anaheim about relocation, was minority owners of an NBA team.

I'd assume the Seattle situation was just as shady.

Have to go to youtube to watch it.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZow0Enq1vU[/youtube]

[Cactus Jack]

Watch SonicsGate. You can view it online for free. It details what happened. I was a diehard Sonics fan. It was an absolute disgrace what the league did to us fans. Hate David stern. Howard Schultz has yet to apologize to the fans. The guy is a liar and scumbag. I absolutely loathe the Thunder name. Still can't watch that team. The league should have just given OKC an expansion team. But again, David Stern is a stubborn jack***.

[Cactus Jack]

On the day in July 2006, when the sale of the Sonics to Clay Bennett was announced in a PC, Bennett told them they had one year to have a plan in place for a new arena, or he would have to look at his options.

That was reported in every major Seattle news outlet. How that gets spun into Bennett making a promise to build an arena , I've no idea.

Bennett hired an architectual firm to draw plans for a new arena, and it was in the $500 million price tag. Seattle revolted at spending that much money, which they considered exhorbitant. And a few years later, after losing the Sonics, they have plans for a new arena that exceed $500 million.

If Seattle was surprised that he decided to move the team after there was no arena plan in place , then its on them. Evidently , they did not believe him. But he never lied to them, he made it clear from day one.

You would think the threat of losing the team, would motivate Seattle to build an arena. But the support was not there.

He is viewed as lying about "his good faith effort to stay in Seattle" with said arena. Once the sale was final, he had absolutely NO intentions to keep the team in Seattle, arena or no arena! He simply lied about wanting to stay in Seattle, period! Those emails also did him no favors.

[Thunderhead]

On the day in July 2006, when the sale of the Sonics to Clay Bennett was announced in a PC, Bennett told them they had one year to have a plan in place for a new arena, or he would have to look at his options.

That was reported in every major Seattle news outlet. How that gets spun into Bennett making a promise to build an arena , I've no idea.

Bennett hired an architectual firm to draw plans for a new arena, and it was in the $500 million price tag. Seattle revolted at spending that much money, which they considered exhorbitant. And a few years later, after losing the Sonics, they have plans for a new arena that exceed $500 million.

If Seattle was surprised that he decided to move the team after there was no arena plan in place , then its on them. Evidently , they did not believe him. But he never lied to them, he made it clear from day one.

You would think the threat of losing the team, would motivate Seattle to build an arena. But the support was not there.

He is viewed as lying about "his good faith effort to stay in Seattle" with said arena. Once the sale was final, he had absolutely NO intentions to keep the team in Seattle, arena or no arena! He simply lied about wanting to stay in Seattle, period! Those emails also did him no favors.

The sale was announced in July 2006. The sale closed in Oct 2006 . In Nov 2006, the citizens of the City of Seattle passed a public referendum known as I-91, which effectively ruled out any public financing of an arena in Seattle. Here is the Seattle Times on I-91

http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/I ... 219229.php

Seattle voters likely doomed the Sonics' future in the city Tuesday -- but don't count the suburbs out yet, the team's new owners said.

"The team fully intends to honor its lease at KeyArena until 2010 and then hopes to relocate to a new facility outside of Seattle, but within King County," Clayton Bennett, chairman of the Oklahoma-based ownership group, said in a statement.

Initiative 91, which aimed to slap down taxpayer-funded subsidies for professional sports teams, was leading by an overwhelming margin Tuesday.

I-91 would prohibit Seattle from supporting teams with city tax dollars unless such investments yield a profit on par with a 30-year U.S. Treasury bond, currently about 4.75 percent.

Chris Van Dyk, who headed the campaign, called any claims that state lawmakers legislators might now authorize a publicly subsidized arena in elsewhere in Western Washington "baloney."

"With this kind of vote in the city of Seattle, it's extremely unlikely that any tax subsidy would make its way through the Legislature, particularly one without a public vote," as Bennett has called for, Van Dyk said. And "on the outside chance that one did, we would work to block it."

With no help from the City of Seattle, Bennett then employed an architectural firm from Kansas City, to design an arena. And he took the plans to the Washington state legislature, where he had help from a state senator named Margarita Prentice, who introduced his plan in a senate committee. It never got out of committee, primarily because the most powerful state legislator , Speaker of the House Frank Chopp, had already declared the plan dead before the committee ever voted.

This took place in Feb and Mar of 2007. Seattle had till July 2007 to come up with a plan for an arena. Without the City or State providing any financing, the issue was dead and done at that time.

Bennett waited till July 2007, then began making plans to move the team to OKC. He fulfilled his obligation.

And if anyone thinks an owner of a team from outside a community, is going to get a vote to raise taxes for a facility without much much help from those in that community, they're dreaming. Getting a new arena was futile and after July 2007, Bennett did not have to lift a finger.

He just had to find a way to get out of the lease, which really was not hard.

And actually, Bennett was in a no lose position. If a new arena was not built, he gets the move the team to his hometown. If an arena is built, the value of the franchise skyrockets, and he doubles his money.

[nomansland]

There’s a lot of players involved, but at the end of the day the city didn’t care about the Sonics. That was the year the Seahawks were going to the Superbowl, the Mariners were untouchable, abandoning the Washington Huskies would cause politicians to lose their jobs, and the people in Seattle are more interested in hiking, kayaking, snowboarding more than team sports.

Seattle has only 650,000 people, it’s smaller than San Fran and it was trying to support 3 major pro teams and a very expensive college team in the Huskies. Just the renovation to Husky Stadium cost $280 million…the Sonics as a franchise were sold for $350 million….with Kevin Durant.

TLDR: The city of Seattle only had enough money to pick 3 of four teams, and they chose the Seahawks, the Mariners, and the Huskies.

If Seattle had chosen the Sonics and renovated Key Arena, Stern would not have moved the Sonics and found another team for OKC.

I'm a Seattle resident and lived here when the whole fiasco went down. This opinion is ridiculously misinformed.

[nomansland]

I blame Paul Allen. Guy had the cash to fund his own football stadium but didn't want to. Forcing the tax payers to foot the bill, this stopped any changes of second stadium being built for basketball.

Paul Allen footed a good part of the bill for the stadium and he agreed to pay for any cost overruns. He treated the city pretty fairly. The NBA had no interest in treating the city fairly, Stern wanted the team sold to Bennett and the arena gave him an excuse to pick a fight.

There are a lot of parties to blame and I don't really want to rehash it all, but Stern orchestrated the whole thing, certain legislators shortsightedly took Stern's bait and escalated the animosity, Schulz was an idiot for selling and believing Bennet's lies, Bennett was a dirty liar all along, and the mayor was a chump for buckling at the last minute.

[JayMKE]

You can point fingers and cast blame but it's as simple as Seattle refusing to finance a new arena, nobody in Sacramento or Milwaukee are under the illusion that we'll be able to keep our teams without a new arena and fair or not these owners will not foot the entire bill. If Seattle paid for an arena then they would have a team right now.

[eagereyez]

There are about a million different versions of why it happened on the internet (Seattle was greedy, Stern was a liar, Bennett was a greedy liar, etc.). So what's the real reason behind their relocation?

Basically what happened was that because of Hurricane Katrina the Hornets were forced to temporarily leave New Orleans and move to Oklahoma City. OKC was very supportive of the Hornets but Stern didn't want the bad publicity of having the team leave New Orleans permanently, so when the Hornets returned to Louisiana, he tried to find another team to move to Oklahoma.

The Sonics were looking for a new arena because the Key Arena is considered too small for modern NBA standards. Seattle however had only recently built stadiums for their baseball and football teams and the people didn't want to pay for a third very expensive facility. Stern then arranged for Schultz, the Sonics and Starbucks owner to sell the team to a group of Oklahoma businessmen who while claiming they would do everything they could to keep the team in Seattle, all they were really interested was getting a team and moving it to OKC.
Did Stern know what the Oklahoma businessmen were planning to do? Of course he did. Did Schultz know? He claims that he didn't, but I don't believe him. Stern simply wanted to reward OKC for supporting the Hornets, and he did everything he could to rob Seattle of a team. We saw that in Sacramento or now in Milwaukee, cities who also have an arena problem, the NBA is doing everything they can to keep the teams where they belong.
If the NBA really wanted to keep the team in Seattle, they would have arranged for Ballmer, a life-long Sonics fan and season ticket holder, to buy the team.

This is pretty much exactly how it went down, not even mentioning the emails Bennett had discussing plans to relocate the Sonics prior to his purchase of them. /thread

[Effigy]

I think the nba really likes having Seattle as the boogie man to threaten every city with to get a new stadium. Don't know if that was the plan all along, but it worked beautifully.

[Cactus Jack]

On the day in July 2006, when the sale of the Sonics to Clay Bennett was announced in a PC, Bennett told them they had one year to have a plan in place for a new arena, or he would have to look at his options.

That was reported in every major Seattle news outlet. How that gets spun into Bennett making a promise to build an arena , I've no idea.

Bennett hired an architectual firm to draw plans for a new arena, and it was in the $500 million price tag. Seattle revolted at spending that much money, which they considered exhorbitant. And a few years later, after losing the Sonics, they have plans for a new arena that exceed $500 million.

If Seattle was surprised that he decided to move the team after there was no arena plan in place , then its on them. Evidently , they did not believe him. But he never lied to them, he made it clear from day one.

You would think the threat of losing the team, would motivate Seattle to build an arena. But the support was not there.

He is viewed as lying about "his good faith effort to stay in Seattle" with said arena. Once the sale was final, he had absolutely NO intentions to keep the team in Seattle, arena or no arena! He simply lied about wanting to stay in Seattle, period! Those emails also did him no favors.

The sale was announced in July 2006. The sale closed in Oct 2006 . In Nov 2006, the citizens of the City of Seattle passed a public referendum known as I-91, which effectively ruled out any public financing of an arena in Seattle. Here is the Seattle Times on I-91

http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/I ... 219229.php

Seattle voters likely doomed the Sonics' future in the city Tuesday -- but don't count the suburbs out yet, the team's new owners said.

"The team fully intends to honor its lease at KeyArena until 2010 and then hopes to relocate to a new facility outside of Seattle, but within King County," Clayton Bennett, chairman of the Oklahoma-based ownership group, said in a statement.

Initiative 91, which aimed to slap down taxpayer-funded subsidies for professional sports teams, was leading by an overwhelming margin Tuesday.

I-91 would prohibit Seattle from supporting teams with city tax dollars unless such investments yield a profit on par with a 30-year U.S. Treasury bond, currently about 4.75 percent.

Chris Van Dyk, who headed the campaign, called any claims that state lawmakers legislators might now authorize a publicly subsidized arena in elsewhere in Western Washington "baloney."

"With this kind of vote in the city of Seattle, it's extremely unlikely that any tax subsidy would make its way through the Legislature, particularly one without a public vote," as Bennett has called for, Van Dyk said. And "on the outside chance that one did, we would work to block it."

With no help from the City of Seattle, Bennett then employed an architectural firm from Kansas City, to design an arena. And he took the plans to the Washington state legislature, where he had help from a state senator named Margarita Prentice, who introduced his plan in a senate committee. It never got out of committee, primarily because the most powerful state legislator , Speaker of the House Frank Chopp, had already declared the plan dead before the committee ever voted.

This took place in Feb and Mar of 2007. Seattle had till July 2007 to come up with a plan for an arena. Without the City or State providing any financing, the issue was dead and done at that time.

Bennett waited till July 2007, then began making plans to move the team to OKC. He fulfilled his obligation.

And if anyone thinks an owner of a team from outside a community, is going to get a vote to raise taxes for a facility without much much help from those in that community, they're dreaming. Getting a new arena was futile and after July 2007, Bennett did not have to lift a finger.

He just had to find a way to get out of the lease, which really was not hard.

And actually, Bennett was in a no lose position. If a new arena was not built, he gets the move the team to his hometown. If an arena is built, the value of the franchise skyrockets, and he doubles his money.

You can try to justify Bennett all you want. But the fact is, the dude wanted no part in owning a team in Seattle long term. He and the investors had EVERY intention of moving the team to Oklahoma, from day one! Don't try to argue otherwise, cuz it's BS and you know it!

[DavidSterned]

I blame Paul Allen. Guy had the cash to fund his own football stadium but didn't want to. Forcing the tax payers to foot the bill, this stopped any changes of second stadium being built for basketball.

You blame the Sonics relocation on the Blazers owner who was among the only two owners (along with Mark Cuban) to vote against their move to OKC?

Yes I do. Paul allen choose between a new a Seahawks stadium and new Sonics stadium. He choose the Seahawks.

Huh? Paul Allen made no such "choice". There really wasn't demand in Seattle or from the NBA for a new Sonics stadium at the time that Century Link was built in the early 2000s. That was literally years before Clay Bennett bought the Sonics and demanded a new arena for them.

In fact, Key Arena had been extensively renovated in 1995 and many local politicians were taken by surprise to even hear that the city already had to foot the bill for a new massive arena upgrade.

[Cactus Jack]

I think the nba really likes having Seattle as the boogie man to threaten every city with to get a new stadium. Don't know if that was the plan all along, but it worked beautifully.

Unfortunately, this is the sad reality.

[Goudelock]

The sad thing is, for Seattle to get another team, another city would probably get Bennett'ed for that to happen. Barring expansion, which I don't see happening any time soon.

[ThumbsUpBaby]

From what Seattle fans here in Cali told me, initially the Supersonics was supposed to stay in Seattle based on Bennett's "promises". But David Stern had a shady plan with Bennett to move the team to OKC. Apparently Stern had a little beef with Supersonics.

[Thunderhead]

He is viewed as lying about "his good faith effort to stay in Seattle" with said arena. Once the sale was final, he had absolutely NO intentions to keep the team in Seattle, arena or no arena! He simply lied about wanting to stay in Seattle, period! Those emails also did him no favors.

The sale was announced in July 2006. The sale closed in Oct 2006 . In Nov 2006, the citizens of the City of Seattle passed a public referendum known as I-91, which effectively ruled out any public financing of an arena in Seattle. Here is the Seattle Times on I-91

http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/I ... 219229.php

Seattle voters likely doomed the Sonics' future in the city Tuesday -- but don't count the suburbs out yet, the team's new owners said.

"The team fully intends to honor its lease at KeyArena until 2010 and then hopes to relocate to a new facility outside of Seattle, but within King County," Clayton Bennett, chairman of the Oklahoma-based ownership group, said in a statement.

Initiative 91, which aimed to slap down taxpayer-funded subsidies for professional sports teams, was leading by an overwhelming margin Tuesday.

I-91 would prohibit Seattle from supporting teams with city tax dollars unless such investments yield a profit on par with a 30-year U.S. Treasury bond, currently about 4.75 percent.

Chris Van Dyk, who headed the campaign, called any claims that state lawmakers legislators might now authorize a publicly subsidized arena in elsewhere in Western Washington "baloney."

"With this kind of vote in the city of Seattle, it's extremely unlikely that any tax subsidy would make its way through the Legislature, particularly one without a public vote," as Bennett has called for, Van Dyk said. And "on the outside chance that one did, we would work to block it."

With no help from the City of Seattle, Bennett then employed an architectural firm from Kansas City, to design an arena. And he took the plans to the Washington state legislature, where he had help from a state senator named Margarita Prentice, who introduced his plan in a senate committee. It never got out of committee, primarily because the most powerful state legislator , Speaker of the House Frank Chopp, had already declared the plan dead before the committee ever voted.

This took place in Feb and Mar of 2007. Seattle had till July 2007 to come up with a plan for an arena. Without the City or State providing any financing, the issue was dead and done at that time.

Bennett waited till July 2007, then began making plans to move the team to OKC. He fulfilled his obligation.

And if anyone thinks an owner of a team from outside a community, is going to get a vote to raise taxes for a facility without much much help from those in that community, they're dreaming. Getting a new arena was futile and after July 2007, Bennett did not have to lift a finger.

He just had to find a way to get out of the lease, which really was not hard.

And actually, Bennett was in a no lose position. If a new arena was not built, he gets the move the team to his hometown. If an arena is built, the value of the franchise skyrockets, and he doubles his money.

You can try to justify Bennett all you want. But the fact is, the dude wanted no part in owning a team in Seattle long term. He and the investors had EVERY intention of moving the team to Oklahoma, from day one! Don't try to argue otherwise, cuz it's BS and you know it!

What do you mean " justify " ????

Heck yes, he wanted a team in OKC. You really believe he just wanted to own an NBA team and he did not care where it was ??? Bwaaaahahaha , that's so naive .

Of course , that's why he bought the team. Duh !! It was obvious to anyone with a brain.

The question, is did he fulfill his fudiciary responsibility to Howard Schultz, who had entered into a side agreement on the sale of the Sonics, that Bennett would give Seattle a chance to build a new arena. The thinking was, that the fear of losing the team would be greater, if an outsider owned the team. Seattle was not afraid of local guy Schultz moving the team.

But Seattle was not gonna build a new arena, for anyone. Bennett was charged with a futile task. There's nothing , short of him building a new arena out of his pocket, that would have gotten a new arena there. And he already told you, he was not gonna do that in the PC announcing the team sale.

All those emails among the owners, they were passed around in March 2007 , after the arena was pronounced dead in the legislature. Heck yes , they were celebrating, they knew it was over at that time. And they were looking to get the team to OKC.

Schultz was looking at selling the team to the Ellison group, who were going to move the team to San Jose, without even giving Seattle another shot. Seattle was lucky to get another chance.

And then they pass I-91 with a 75% vote in favor , immediately after the close of the sale to Bennett. Yeah, they really were afraid of losing the Sonics.

Justify Bennett ????? What ??

[Thunderhead]

From what Seattle fans here in Cali told me, initially the Supersonics was supposed to stay in Seattle based on Bennett's "promises". But David Stern had a shady plan with Bennett to move the team to OKC. Apparently Stern had a little beef with Supersonics.

That's just a bunch of sour grapes from fans. They don't have a clue about the problems the Sonics had in Seattle.

There was nothing shady bout this . Schultz and Stern had worked for years trying to get a resolution, not only for a new building but to change a terrible lease that was hamstringing the team. It goes all the way back to 1995 when Seattle remodeled the KeyArena and they financed it , by dedicating some ticket, suite, concession, and parking sales to pay off the construction bonds.

That was robbing the Sonics of money they needed to be competitive. Schultz was having to pump millions of his personal money into the team just to keep it afloat.

And Stern was treated badly by the Washington state legislature on a trip there in the spring of 2006. Here's the reporting from this trip

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2407965

It was at this point, that Stern began looking for new ownership that would move the team, and solve the NBA's problem in Seattle. That franchise was a drain on the other owners, as it was losing money .

Shady ?? No, this is just chatter from fans who are looking for excuses for the City's failure.

[Thunderhead]

The sad thing is, for Seattle to get another team, another city would probably get Bennett'ed for that to happen. Barring expansion, which I don't see happening any time soon.

As we've already seen, other city's are going to value their NBA teams more than Seattle did.

Did you know that the NBA sent Bennett to Sacramento to help work out their arena problem ? Yeah, Sac Town really got " Bennett'ed " .

The sour grapes out of Seattle, are getting really old. And Seattle has YET to build a new arena .

The old KeyArena was an outdated building, the new arenas being built in NBA cities had tons of amenities that allowed the team to generate revenue. That started with the Palace in Detroit. Heck , our arena in OKC has seven restaurants. The KeyArena's footprint was too small for to add that kind of amenity.

In the 2005/06 season, acccording to Forbes, the Hornets playing in OKC due to Katrina , generated more revenue than the Sonics in Seattle.

Justify that !!

The problem in Seattle, was Seattle .... it was not Stern, not Bennett, not the NBA .... it was Seattle's problem and if you want to point fingers, then point them at your fellow citizens who were not willing to tax themselves to support the team.

[NekiEcko]

The sale was announced in July 2006. The sale closed in Oct 2006 . In Nov 2006, the citizens of the City of Seattle passed a public referendum known as I-91, which effectively ruled out any public financing of an arena in Seattle. Here is the Seattle Times on I-91

http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/I ... 219229.php



With no help from the City of Seattle, Bennett then employed an architectural firm from Kansas City, to design an arena. And he took the plans to the Washington state legislature, where he had help from a state senator named Margarita Prentice, who introduced his plan in a senate committee. It never got out of committee, primarily because the most powerful state legislator , Speaker of the House Frank Chopp, had already declared the plan dead before the committee ever voted.

This took place in Feb and Mar of 2007. Seattle had till July 2007 to come up with a plan for an arena. Without the City or State providing any financing, the issue was dead and done at that time.

Bennett waited till July 2007, then began making plans to move the team to OKC. He fulfilled his obligation.

And if anyone thinks an owner of a team from outside a community, is going to get a vote to raise taxes for a facility without much much help from those in that community, they're dreaming. Getting a new arena was futile and after July 2007, Bennett did not have to lift a finger.

He just had to find a way to get out of the lease, which really was not hard.

And actually, Bennett was in a no lose position. If a new arena was not built, he gets the move the team to his hometown. If an arena is built, the value of the franchise skyrockets, and he doubles his money.

You can try to justify Bennett all you want. But the fact is, the dude wanted no part in owning a team in Seattle long term. He and the investors had EVERY intention of moving the team to Oklahoma, from day one! Don't try to argue otherwise, cuz it's BS and you know it!

What do you mean " justify " ????

Heck yes, he wanted a team in OKC. You really believe he just wanted to own an NBA team and he did not care where it was ??? Bwaaaahahaha , that's so naive .

Of course , that's why he bought the team. Duh !! It was obvious to anyone with a brain.

The question, is did he fulfill his fudiciary responsibility to Howard Schultz, who had entered into a side agreement on the sale of the Sonics, that Bennett would give Seattle a chance to build a new arena. The thinking was, that the fear of losing the team would be greater, if an outsider owned the team. Seattle was not afraid of local guy Schultz moving the team.

But Seattle was not gonna build a new arena, for anyone. Bennett was charged with a futile task. There's nothing , short of him building a new arena out of his pocket, that would have gotten a new arena there. And he already told you, he was not gonna do that in the PC announcing the team sale.

All those emails among the owners, they were passed around in March 2007 , after the arena was pronounced dead in the legislature. Heck yes , they were celebrating, they knew it was over at that time. And they were looking to get the team to OKC.

Schultz was looking at selling the team to the Ellison group, who were going to move the team to San Jose, without even giving Seattle another shot. Seattle was lucky to get another chance.

And then they pass I-91 with a 75% vote in favor , immediately after the close of the sale to Bennett. Yeah, they really were afraid of losing the Sonics.

Justify Bennett ????? What ??

First of all, I think you need to understand what is going on because I know in fact that Seattle did want to keep the team here but the taxpayers would be the one that footing the bill while Bennett will give little to nothing into it. That is the reason why he came up with that crazy idea about Renton and Olympia. At that time, Seattle was not thieving like it is now and paying for two stadium because both teams threaten to leave if they did not. I-91 was designed so the future owners will not do the same thing and concede on things that is much important than sports (like education).

At the end of the day, Schultz never did his homework, Bennett should been honest about it, NBA should have work together not against the City of Seattle and Mayor Nichols not to give up at the end is the reason why the Sonics is no more. Besides, Seattle is playing the "LA of NFL" role now, bumping up cost and threaten every city with to get a new stadium. To me, I tell the NBA to "beat feet" and find another sucker to play that role.