http://wizbangsports.com/2008/04/nba_approves_sonics_move_to_ok.
In a vote that surprised no one, NBA owners approved a move of the Seattle Sonics to Oklahoma City by a margin of 28-2. The two dissenting votes came from Dallas owner Mark Cuban and Portland owner Paul Allen.
As a current resident of the great city of Seattle (it's great, really...save for the liberal loons who are currently running the asylum), I feel compelled to say something, even though I've been to exactly 2 Sonics games in the nearly 9 years I've lived here and watched maybe 2x that many Sonics on TV.
There's one person for latte-sippin', pseudo-intellectual, Jim McDermott-supportin' Seattle-ites to blame for the Sonics likely move to the hot wasteland of halter tops, fishnet football jerseys and rusty pickup trucks that is Oklahoma City: Starbucks' CEO Howard Schultz.
You see, former Sonics owner Schultz sold the team to a group of Okie investors back in 2006 with the written promise from the investors that they would, in "good faith", pursue a new arena for the Sonics and keep the team in Seattle. Well, anyone who thought that was going to happen is clearly as dumb as box of rocks. Apparently that person was Schultz.
Schultz doesn't run the world's largest coffee retailer because he's dumb. He's not. But selling the Sonics to outside-the-city investors and expecting the rest of Seattle to believe that those investors would only genuine attempts at getting a new arena before moving the team to OKC, now that was dumb.
Worst of all, it's turned into a massively bad local PR move for Mr. Schultz. (Or, Local Public Asshat #1 in Seattle as he's known now.)
Yet earlier this week, apparently realizing the rash error of his ways, he tried (and is still trying) to play savior by suing the current owners for breach of contract in the sale of the team, claiming that the owners failed to live up to their "good faith" pursuit of a new arena. This is particularly interesting in light of some of the Okie Owner emails uncovered by the Seattle TImes earlier this week shortly after the sale of the team that show how the Okies had no intention of making a 'good faith' effort to pursue a new arena and keep the Sonics in Seattle. Schultz may just have a pretty good case to nullify the sale of the Sonics to OKie owners.
Then again, St. Howard may be a little too late, too.
NBA Commissioner David Stern, the Hugo Chavez of major sport commissioners, has made it clear the Seattle franchise is bound for OKC. No. Matter. What. Well, with the Schultz lawsuit and another city lawsuit involving the Sonics finishing out their Key Arena lease that runs through 2010, we'll just have to wait and see about that, Commissioner Chav...er, Stern. But for now, one foot is one the gas pedal and the truck's pointed south on I-90.
As usual, though, the biggest losers are the fans. And I feel for them, I feel their pain, I really do. I've been there, in the early 1980's when Al Davis moved the Raiders out of a Oakland and to Los Angeles, and it sucks. It really, really sucks. The fans don't deserve to be jerked around like this. Yet the city, the fans and non-fans don't deserve to be held hostage and forced to pay for an arena, either. And I don't want to get into a whole "who pays for arenas: the taxpayers or the team" discussion because, at the moment, this is about the fans.
So I have just a couple of final words to say on behalf of Sonics fans:
Fuck you, Howard Schultz. For so rashly selling the team in the first place.
Fuck you, Clay Bennett. You give Southerners a bad name.
And most of all, fuck you, David Stern. You're the biggest reason the NBA is failing as a corporation and this is Exhibit A.
