I don't know if amused or perplexed is the right word for what I felt when I read this article from the San Antonio newspaper with regard to Seattle Sonics owner Clay Bennett.
Maybe it was more of an "aha!" moment.
People don't generally change their personalities overnight, any more than leopards change their spots or tigers their stripes (unless, of course there is some organic/medical cause for it). Therefore, it was, to my way of thinking, highly unlikely that Clayton Bennett just woke up one morning and decided that he was not going to honor the side agreement that he had with Howard Schultz' ownership group (a sale that would not have been approved had the PBC, LLC not agreed to its terms with regard to good faith efforts to keep the team in Seattle).
In fact, it seems that he made up his mind in that direction at a point in time before the Sonics were even a gleam in his eye, so to speak. Having attempted, (and been unsuccessful in the effort), to convince the Spurs to move to a ####lord family arena in Nashville TN, after which he was removed from the ownership group for other reasons, he set his sights elsewhere; though not for more than 10 years.
Seems to me that San Antonio got lucky that they aren't the ones presumed soon to playing in Ford Center. And it also seems to me that this angle, if followed up on by the legal teams for the city of Seattle and Howard Schultz, might add a bit more smoke (or remove a few more mirrors, not sure which one) to their litigious arsenals.
Whether or not Howard actually thought, in his mind and in private, that Bennett wanted to move the team or not, he and his co-owners/partners refused to sell the team to Bennett (after already refusing a higher $ offer from a San Jose group who admitted up front that they wanted to move the team to NorCal) unless Bennett and his partners became signatories to a side letter/contractual codicil that stated that they would commit to honoring the current lease agreement (runs til 2010) and making a good faith effort to negotiate with city, county, state and/or private investors in the Seattle area exclusively for a period of twelve full months for arena financing and locale prior to making any plans for a possible relocation effort.
Bennett materially breeched that side letter and the contract when he and his partners began negotiating with the cities of OKC and KC well less than the 12 month time period, which has been proven in "black and white" both by their e-mails which were obtained by the city's attorneys in the discovery process, and by Aubrey McClendon's published statement (again well before the end of the 12 month period) that "we didn't buy the team to leave it in Seattle, we always planned to bring it here (OKC)", a statement for which he was fined one quarter of a million dollars by Stern and the league, because Stern knew it was a violation of the sales contract.
Whatever Howard did or did not think really doesn't matter, because of the breech of contract. A court is as likely as not to find that the material breech is grounds to rescind the entire sales
entire sales contract and return the team to Schultz' control. Even if they do not, Bennett and his cronies, as well as Stern and the League are in for a very long and public court battle, as well as the loss of millions of dollars in legal fees, team revenues and good will when their dirty little secrets are exposed to the public eye.
Can we say "Goodbye NBA as we know it?"
My guess is that the BOG forces Bennett to just sell the team back before the cases come to trial in an attempt to save the playoffs this year and their own embarrassment. (Of course, if they are silly enough to go ahead and approve the move before the litigation is resolved and Bennett signs the lease in OKC, he is going to be facing litigation for non-performance of the lease there, TOO, if he loses the team ultimately). Bad stuff...
It might be an interesting test case to see if a league can actually dictate to an owner where he can locate a team after they approve him as owner or not.
They've approved the move, as we knew they would, but it could still be years before he is allowed to run away with the team. The state of Washington is contemplating adding their name to the long list of litigations from what I hear. If the courts issue an injunction preventing the move, they could be here til the infernal regions freeze over, what with the long delays in court dates.
Oklahoma can want all they want to. If the courts determine that Bennett did not perform the conditions of the side letter, and/or colluded with Stern and the NBA, the sale will be rescinded and he will be left with nothing (other than another potential lawsuit from the city of OKC for failure to perform on the lease he signed with them when he did not yet have a free and clear team to move there).
Appeals will be made in Federal Court. Your district might support the State of Washington. However, if it goes beyond that, and I think it would, given Oklahoma is involved, I can't see the Supreme Court keeping a franchise in a city where the owner doesn't want it. It is probable that the Government and NBA may have applied pressure that exceded the law on the owner to sign a legal agreement. Said pressures could be considered extortion by a Court.
I am a 50 something health care professional transplanted to Seattle from SoCal in 2001 (and, before you ask, no, I don't want to go back). My tastes in sports are pretty eclectic, but in order of preference, I guess they would be baseball, hockey, basketball, football--col lege and pro/men and women alike. Teams I "HATE": USC (I went to UCLA); University of Michigan (born and raised in Columbus OH to a large family of OSU alumni/alumna e), and--probably most of all--the d***ed Yankees. I have worked in a variety of capacities at the MLB, NBA and NFL venues here in Seattle and at UW (hey, what true sports fan could pass up the possibility of getting paid to do something you would have done anyway (and had to pay for it)?)
