"I haven't studied them but my sense of it was that Clay, as the managing partner and the driving force of the group, was operating in good faith under the agreement that had been made with [previous owner] Howard Schultz," Stern said on a conference call Monday. "His straight and narrow path may not have been shared by all of his partners in their views, but Clay was the one that was making policy for the partnership."
"I think it's fair to say that extraordinary efforts were made to seek ownership interests when Howard sold the team, including from people who became involved in the effort -- the recently unsuccessful effort -- to get the state to extend the sales tax for the purposes of retiring the arena debt," Stern said.
"It happened already. There was no one who was interested in buying the team, including the very people who stepped forward at the last minute."
"I would say that we don't ever like to leave a city," Stern said. "We don't like to leave a city as robust as Seattle, but the Asian cities that we're tending to focus more on have names like Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong and Guangzhou.
"It's disheartening simply to leave the city, as it would be to leave any city."
Stern: Bennett made 'good faith' effort to keep Sonics in Seattle
So he's not studied those e-mails but still believes everything his buddy Clay Clay tells him.
What a tool that guy is.
