The City of Oklahoma City's rampant desire to obtain a National Basketball Association Team, in order to turn themselves into a "Big League City" (their term,, not mine) took another bizarre turn yesterday when an Assistant City Attorney (though I think they use the term Counselor there for whatever reason) sent this letter to Howard Schultz' attorneys who are representing him in his litigation to have the sales contract for the Seattle SuperSonics rescinded on the basis of fraud and failure to perform conditions of the terms of sale agreement.

Immediately following that, the Oklahoman (the local daily owned by Clay Bennett's wife's famly, the Gaylords, and the partial source of some of the monies used to obtain said team, I'm fairly certain) published this article with the endearing headline of "City Says NBA Team Must Move Here" (all they forgot was the typical five year old's ending taunt of "OR ELSE" (or else what, I'm gonna tell my mom on you????)

If the city of OKC wasn't worried, at least a little bit, that all of the pending litigation against him was not going to go in Mr. Bennett's favor, do you think this letter ever sees the light of day?  After all, what has he done that might make them have any concern....

Well, let's see:  there are the by now famous e-mails proclaiming to the world that he is "a man possessed"  (though he later backpedaled to say that he was possessed to keep the team in Seattle, despite the very clear language in the e-mail to the contrary); there is his signature as the managing partner of PBC LLC on the side letter where he agrees to give his best faith effort, for a term of no less than twelve months, to negotiate a means to keep the Sonics in Seattle in perpetuity; followed within a few short weeks of his opening negotations with the city of OKC to relocate the team there and Aubrey McClendon's ill thought out comments that "we never bought the team to keep it in Seattle, our intention was always to move it here (OKC); and on and on ad infinitum, ad nauseam and (I suspect) the attorneys fighting the cases against PBC have only shown a little taste of what they have to share with the Federal Court judge beginning on 16 June 08.

Now the city indicates in this letter that they don't care WHO the owner of the team is, the team just has to come to OKC to play their home games once the lease in Seattle is discharged (after the 2009-2010 season).  They merely insist that the team make their way to OKC on that date and take up residence.

I suppose that it hasn't occurred to them that, once the city of Seattle's trial date begins in June, Mr. Schultz' legal team will likely file a request with the judge (she will be hearing their case as well, once it comes up on the court's calendar) to enjoin the team from leaving the city of Seattle until such time as ALL pending litigation has been totally resolved (which means that any appeals that would need to be heard in the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and/or the US Supreme Court would have to be heard and adjudicated, as well).  And Richard Yarmuth, Schultz' lead counsel, has already basically laughed this letter out of town, so to speak, by stating that it will have "absolutely no effect on Mr. Schultz pending litigation or it's ultimate outcome."

As any reasonably skilled attorney knows, if the sales contract is rescinded and the Sonics are placed into federal receivership until such time as a local Seattle ownership group takes over, Mr Bennett will have had no standing whatsoever to have ever signed the lease with the city of OKC (and will have wasted the $850,000.00+ that he pumped into the "Big League City" MAPS tax campaign to ensure that he got his free $121MM for renovations to the Ford Center (the subject of the letter referenced above), because he will never have legally owned the team.  Any agreements/leases/contracts that he signed as the "owner" of the team will be solely on he and his business partners to resolve (in English, that resolve translates into "pay for out of their own pockets").

So, the city of OKC would have to file suit against PBC LLC for specific performance of the lease (oooh, deja vu all over again.....they'll have to do what the city of Seattle did.....bet that will put their knickers in a bit of a twist, no?).

And, after Mr. Bennett has helped to drag the NBA's "good image" through the mud during the 2008-2009 league championship series, and since they apparently doubted his good faith motives early on as well, maybe they will file suit against him, too, not to mention blackballing him from ever coming near a third NBA team (the first having been the Spurs, and we all know about his having been asked to leave THAT organization and why. (You don't?  Well, it's a matter of public record.  See my earlier "Snake in the Grass" post) for the rest of his life.  Not mention the high crime of making David Stern look like an idiot,, and the other high crime of potentially making life difficult for the rest of the NBA owners when other cities decide to follow Seattle's lead and stand up to their robber baron tactics (build me a $1BB arena without any financial input from me, or I take the team and walk).

By the time the scales of justice stop their gentle swaying on this one, I picture Messrs Bennett et al as having lots more grey hair than they currently do, and having spent a good portion of their lives in and out of various federal courtrooms in Seattle, OKC and NYC.  Sorry, gentlemen (and I use that term loosely), you brought it on yourselves.

And, as for you Mayor Mick (Cornett), maybe you should give up politics and go back to your previous job as a sportscaster on local OKC TV.