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.

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.

This individual has not yet begun to warm up for her act, folks.....

Commissioner Stern, in his own totally unendearing hem-and-haw way admitted at his press conference this afternoon that the NBA and the Professional Basketball Club will be bound by whatever time line the Federal Courts set for the Oklahoma Whatever-Their-Names-Are being able to leave their current identity as the Seattle SuperSonics.

Out of the three litigations currently pending (City of Seattle versus PBC to be heard in June 2008; Howard Schultz (and possibly the balance of the old ownership group) versus PBC (due to be filed within the next 10 days by attorney Yarmuth) to be heard whenever it makes it onto the Federal Civil Calendar; and the season ticket holders class action suit, to be heard in Federal Court in March 2009)), only the first two are liable to have any impact on when (if?) the team leaves Seattle for their intended new home.

Should the city prevail in their action for specific performance of the conditions of the team's lease of the Key Arena (as Mayor Nickels said this afternoon that absolutely NO buyout offers will be entertained from this juncture onward, and that includes after the litigation is resoved), they will be required to play all home games in the Key Arena through the end of the 2009-2010 season.

Should the judge in the Schultz action issue an injunction preventing the team from being removed from the city of Seattle until the conclusion of that action (a reasonable assumption, because it would cost two fortunes to move the team twice if Schultz succeeds in having the sales contract rescinded), they could be playing in Seattle for quite a considerable time after that if the trial is not fast-tracked.

The fans' litigation would not, likely, have any effect on the moving timelines.

What effect is this going to have on the NBA as you know it, and on the PBC?  Could be quite considerable.  Both the city and Schultz' actions will require PBC to pay court costs and attorneys fees should they lose in their bid to flee immediately.  Guessing the number of billable hours in the tens of thousands on both sides, at a minimum of $500.00 per hour (and likely much higher than that), my head is spinning with imagining how many zeroes could be on the end of whatever figure might be at the front.

The Sonics organization has already suspended sales of season tickets (after another broken promise to season ticket holders that they would be available, without price increase, through the end of the 2010 season--hence the class action suit), and they could barely sell for $10.00 tickets that used to go for $60.00 and up this past season without some really creative marketing. They have removed the word Seattle from the team's website some months ago, thus removing any brand identity.  PBC has already estimated that they lost $30MM per year over the past two seasons, despite their fire sale tactics in regards to player personnel and contracts.

The relocation fee that PBC will have to fork over to the league (to be split amongs the owners) will be $30MM.  Aubrey McClendon's fine for letting the cat out of the bag about the fact that PBC never had any intention of keeping the team in Seattle despite their signed contract codicil requiring them to through the end of the current lease was $250K.

Beginning to get the notion that the PBC could be quite cash poor by the time they finally pack up the moving vans and start the trek southeast?  (Probably why they made the good citizens of the state of Oklahoma and the City of Oklahoma City fork over 100% of the cost of the Ford Center renovation and tax incentives for bringing the team to Oklahoma......money that any state can ill afford to lose in these recessionary times). 

Never mind the fact that for many, myself included, the letters N, B and A have ceased to exist in the alphabet when found in direct conjunction with each other and those three letters will be receiving  no more of my hard earned cash in any way, shape or form; nor will any of their sponsors or media outlets (Carnival Cruise Lines, are you listening??  Remember all of those cruises that I've paid you tens of thousands of dollars for?  Well, no more, folks, not as long as Mickey Arison is your CEO).  I'm going to continue to cover the legal actions as appropriate, and as I can, but that costs me nothing but a few minutes of my time.

Just remember, it ain't over til the fat lady sings.

Don't tell me, let me guess.  Somewhere in a dark room, with sunglasses and ear plugs firmly affixed, so that you could not see or hear what was happening on your satellite TV NBA channel in the city of Seattle.  So that you could not see and hear that your oft touted remarks that the city of Seattle doesn't care are far from the truth.

So that you couldn't see Mark Cuban rise from his seat behind the Mavericks' bench to join in the standing ovation for former Sonics greats Gary Payton and Downtown Freddy Brown, when they were introduced from the stands, sitting in support of the team and the city.

So that you couldn't see this year's likely Rookie of the Year Kevin Durant spurring the near sell out crowd on in their chants of "Save Our Sonics" and "Bennett Sucks" at the end of the game.

So that you couldn't hear Fox Sports Southwest's announcers questioning the sanity of moving a team with a 41 year history from a larger media market to a smaller one (unfortunately, the FSN announcers are on the Sonics' payroll, so they made not mention one of the situation--likely because they were told not to).

So that you couldn't see this:

So that you couldn't read/hear that more than one current Sonics player has followed in WNBA MVP Lauren Jackson's footsteps and said that they may have to go to OKC, but they don't have to stay when their contracts are done. Or how much they are going to miss the fans and the city of Seattle.

So that you didn't have to read what one insensitive OKC resident, seen trolling in a Seattle Times Sonics fan forum, said about the fans of Seattle being so desparate that they would do this as an attempted human sacrifice, in order to implore the basketball gods to keep the team in town.

And so that you didn't have to think, at least for a few hours, about the principals of the Professional Basketball Club, LLC's gaffes in committing their plans to get the team out of town before the good faith period was even one-quarter over to black and white for all to see, thanks to Slade Gorton and his fellow attorneys.

Yes, and so that you didn't have to see and hear the tears and high emotion, both inside Key Arena and in the states of Washington, Idaho, Montana, Alaska and Hawaii (which are the Sonics primary market now), not to mention those of displaced Sonics fans all over the US and the rest of the world.

What do you have to say for yourself and the NBA,  Mr. Stern?  We would like to hear it.

(In a side note, I personally (and I'm sure many of  my fellow fans) would like to let Mark Cuban and (most likely) Paul Allen, who may be the only two owners to vote against this relocation at the Board of Governors' meeting later this week know just how much your sentiments are appreciated, even if it is mostly for business reasons)).

See what Mr. Stern has to say about this today.  What an #@(%*$*.

In today's episode of "As the Stomach Turns," dear readers, we will debate the issue of whether or not lies were told,, to whom and when, and whether or not there will be consequences for the prevaricators who spun the whoppers.

I'm sure most of you are aware that there will be TWO sideshows going on in the National Basketball League in June. 

One of them, the NBA Championship Finals, is an event that the league most fervently hopes that you will watch, enjoy, participate in, and increase their coffers thereby.

The other, the case of the City of Seattle versus the Professional Basketball Club (AKA the Seattle SuperSonics), is one that they would rather no one were aware of, much less interested in, for fear it might take away from sideshow number one, as mentioned above.

In the latest round of pre-trial discovery, it has been determined that at least three members of the current ownership group--Clayton Bennett, Aubrey McClendon, and Tom Ward--were openly exchanging e-mail messages planning to move the team from Seattle to Oklahoma City during the time period that had been established for the city to come up with a viable plan to keep them here, and that, in fact, there was NEVER any intent to keep the team in Seattle, despite all of Bennett's public comments to the contrary.

From the article referenced above, it appears that Bennett not only lied to the citizens of Seattle and our local and state lawmakers, but he also lied to his good buddy, Commissioner David Stern, in this e-mail, when he said that McClendon had strayed from the farm (more or less) when he made his comments that there was never any intention to keep the Sonics in Seattle. Comments for which the commish later fined him $250K.

If the city's team of attorneys, of whom the lead is former Republican Senator from the state of Washington Slade Gorton, are able to prevail in their subpoena for league records, including records of all teams within the leagues (financial and otherwise), one or more of the league's "dirty little secrets" is likely to become a matter of public record in just over two months from now.

Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, is the only member of the NBA Board of Governors to have come out publically to say that he will vote against the request by Bennett to relocate the team to OKC next week.  I wonder, though, how many others of the 30 owners might be inclined to rethink their votes in light of these developments.

Mayor Greg Nickles of Seattle has already said that the city fully intends to pursue this litigation to its logical conclusion, that any further buyout offers will be as summarily rejected as the first (and last) one for $26.5MM, a figure that  looks to be increased as the owners and the league attempt to avoid the potential embarrassment coming their way in court.

My only regret at this stage is that Court TV doesn't exist any more.  This could be a good one, and it would certainly show other NBA cities that they don't have to lie down and take the league's ever increasing demands for public money without a whimper of complaint.

Stay tuned, my friends, for the next episode of As the Stomach Turns, coming soon to a blog near you.