The team formerly known as the Seattle SuperSonics might (and might is the right word) be packing the moving vans tomorrow morning for their trip to OKC.  Then again, if Richard Yarmuth managed to beat feet down to the Federal Courthouse before they closed at 5:00 pm, the injunction that will hold the team here until Howard Schultz' litigation is completed could be announced tomorrow morning.  Otherwise it will likely be a few hours later.

It was announced at 5 pm local this afternoon that "Cash Us" Clay Bennett has agreed to pay the City of Seattle $75MM for the privilege of being allowed to leave town with the team, but without much else.  He doesn't get the name, he doesn't get the history (including the divisional and championship banners, retired jerseys and what all).  He gets Kevin Durant and Jeff Green, but may not be able to keep them for long, as top tier free agents are not likely to want to play in OKC (the 45th largest media market in the US), where their endorsement dollars would be far less than they would be in Seattle (13th largest media market) or any of the large markets such as LA, NYC, CHI or the like; and they are due to become free agents at the end of the 2009-2010 season.

By destroying the team this past year, leading to a total of 20 wins for the entire season, he's not taking a very good team with him.  He already overpaid by some $50+MM when he bought the team, lost money this past season, and doesn't really have the cap room left to be able to replenish it any time soon with decent players.

How will that go over in OKC, where the taxpayers have 100% funded the arena in which the team will play if they ever make it there; where they surely know that Bennett has already publically said that the Ford Center will only be "adequate for a short time" and he will be asking them for $500+MM for a new arena very soon, or---God forbid--threatening to move the team to KC when they don't meet the attendance benchmarks that he had written into the OKC lease, allowing him an early out on that 15 year promise.  And surely the taxpayers know that PBC, LLC gets the lions' share of all revenues from the Ford Center and the city gets only small crumbs/morsels.  The team is paying ZERO toward the renovations to the arena, and they are also feeding at the taxpayer trough for the $60MM in payroll tax offsets that the OK legislature promised them for the salaries of..........*tada* the players.

I'm sure that Commissioner Stern had his fingers crossed behind his back this afternoon when he said that the league will do everything in its power to ensure that Seattle gets a replacement team, hopefully within the next five years, if a finance plan is in place by the end of 2009.  And, big surprise, he did a 180 on Key Arena, too--it will be perfectly acceptable to the league as an NBA venue.  (Which side of our mouth are we talking out of now, Commish????)

I'm guessing certain city officials could find themselves in the fight of their political lives come election time, in view of the fact that they kept saying there would be no settlement, then admitting this afternoon that the two sides had been talking for quite some time.

There will be a special place in the eighth ring of hell (CIRCLE 8 FRAUD: MALEBOLGE OF FRAUD)  levels 7 (thieves) and 8 (evil councillors) for Clay, David and all of the rest of them.   Hope you enjoy it fellows.......

In the mean time, I will be just one more of many who will ignore the NBA and not provide them with any financial support unless they get Seattle a replacement team as quickly as they did Charlotte when the Hornets left.

Good luck with that OKC, enjoy the team while you've got them, but don't count on it being indefinitely.....

THIS JUST IN:  FRIDAY, 3 JULY 2008 AT 2:59 PM:  I cannot believe what I just heard.  Bennett and his OKC Raiders are taking the division championship banners, the NBA Championship banner, the retired jerseys and all of the trophys to OKC with them, and claiming that "their" team won them.  They are making duplicates to leave here as "Keepsakes".  I'm seeing red and I think I may puke.  The stupid son-of-a-sea-barnacle certainly does have delusions of grandeur.  Maybe the eighth ring of hell is too good for him.