Seattle Settles w/ Clay Bennett; Sonics Dead

[crewcrazy]

The City of Seattle is letting Sonics owner Clay Bennett pay $75 million to get out of his lease with Key Arena, allowing him to move the franchise to Oklahoma City. The "Sonics" name and the Green-and-Gold color scheme will be staying in Seattle -- the team will have a new name in OKC.

 

Link: http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3471503

 

Not only does this really suck for the city of Seattle, but it sets a dangerous precedent. I'm scared to think about what will happen with the Bucks once Herb Kohl sells the team -- anyone could conceivably buy the team, buy their way out of the lease with the Bradley Center, and move the team just as easily, couldn't they? Could we lose the Bucks to Seattle as payback for stealing their Pilots?

[Bruce Ciskie]

All involved parties suck.

 

The city got scared off by the NBA's mighty lawyers. The league inexplicably put the screws to a great market in order to allow a new owner to move the team to an unproven market. This is why the NFL is and always will be king. They'd never allow some renegade owner to buy a team and move it like this.

 

(See: "McCombs, Red")

[homer]

Good for the city of Seattle. Key Arena just had a $75 million upgrade 13 years ago. It's about time someone stood up to all these publicly financed luxury suites.

[bucks2281]

I feel bad for the Sonics fans in Seattle. There are probably a bunch of broken hearted people tonight.

[davego]

...well the NFL does let their 'normal' owners move teams around, so I guess they don't need renegade owners to do it. Houston, Cleveland, Rams and Raiders as examples. I'd think this point more to how stable MLB is, save the Expos being taken over by the league, teams just don't move.

[owbc]

It's a shame because the Sonics seemed to be well supported in Seattle. This just shows how important new arenas are to an NBA team's bottom line--that he would be willing to risk moving to an unproven market in order to get a more favorable arena situation.

That being said, from what I saw during the New Orleans/OK City Hornets time, Oklahoma City fans are very excited about the NBA. The team should have a long honeymoon period since there isn't anything but college sports in Oklahoma. I think they will succeed.

Since Kansas City is still begging for an NBA/NHL team for its new arena, I imagine that the NBA won't be coming back to Seattle for a long time.

[Chio151]

I blame David Stern. He and the other owners allowed Clay Bennett to come in there and highjack the team when it was well known he wanted to move them. It's a terrible situation and I really hope for nothing but bad things for that franchise once it moves to Oklahoma.

[fondybrewfan]

Growing up Seattle was always my 2nd favorite team behind the Bucks, For some ungodly reason I had a major mancrush on Shawn Kemp. I still have at least 30 of his cards. They are pretty worthless now, I don't really know why I keep them. I disliked Seattle after the Bucks traded Allen. Man was that a god awful trade.

[Chio151]

Growing up Seattle was always my 2nd favorite team behind the Bucks, For some ungodly reason I had a major mancrush on Shawn Kemp. I still have at least 30 of his cards. They are pretty worthless now, I don't really know why I keep them. I disliked Seattle after the Bucks traded Allen. Man was that a god awful trade.

 

Wait, are you me?

 

I friggin loved the Sonics and Kemp in the 90s. "The Ghetto Jam is about to Slam..."

[Teatoe993]

Same here. Kemp was my man ever since I saw him pull off a crazy dunk on MTV's Rock 'N Jock B-Ball Jam.

[sbrylski]

I had Kemp shoes when I was younger. I'm pretty sure they were these, except in white:

 

[ccbrew]

I had Kemp shoes at one point too!

[RU Rah Rah]

I was in high school in Balto. when the Colts moved out in the middle of the night. I still get a little mad about it whenever I see Indy play. So I can imagine those Sonics fans holding a grudge for awhile.

[fondybrewfan]

I loved the Seattle team, Kemp, Payton, McMillan, Detlef Schrempf, I think Ervin "Not Magic" Johnson was on that team as well.

[olsonnet]

I don't think saving the nickname and color scheme for another team is such a great idea. If the city/fanbase didn't support the team enough, what makes them think another team is going to cause that to change? Sure the first season back there will be some excitement, but after that it'll be the same situation. The Charlotte Bobcats are having the same problem - the fans were excited to get another team after the Hornets left, but attendance has been falling and there is no more interest.

[patrickgpe]

crazy that there are more like me. I liked the Karl led team of the early 90's and made them my favorite western conference team since then. I did love it when the scrapped there "early 90's" crazy uniforms that it seems too many teams did to sell jersey's and went retro. I was hoping to see them stay. It will be interesting what nick name is chosen and its got to be chosen soon. I am sure Clay Bennett has something in mind already.

 

This is a horrible precedent for the bucks and should be a wake up call for milwaukee leaders. Loosing the bucks would be devastating to downtown hotels and restaurants. Marquette would be the only drawing card that plays downtown and they play way fewer home games than the bucks. Personally I like the bucks and would be upset to see them go, only because there is really no sports to watch during the week in the winter besides basketball (and hockey if thats your thing). I won't watch nba games that don't involve the bucks, which means I would have go to watching no nba.

[M Skjellyfetti]

One of the ESPN radio shows had a contest for naming the team, and the best suggestion I heard was the O(klahoma) C(ity) Umenyoras.

[dadofandrew]

Patrick, I agree, but Milwaukee "city leaders" have no understanding of how to get rid of the plethora of abandoned warehouses, I doubt they have a lot of plans on building a new arena.

 

I doubt if they can spell a-r-e-n-a, to be honest.

[logan82]

I think the Bucks will be the team to move to Seattle.

[bucks2281]

I've heard rumors that "Thunder" is the leading nickname. Is it just me, or does anybody hate non-plural/collective team nicknames (Magic, Heat, etc.) To me, it sounds unprofessional.

[homer]

Al,

Every city on the planet with a population over 200,000 has abandoned warehouses.

[dadofandrew]

Not taking up all the prime space off the interstate they don't. Milwaukee is stuck in the 60's, hoping they'll need 'em again soon.

[Glennron]

I always thought the Sonics were the popular team to like in the early-mid 1990s, just like the Indians in the 90s. Detlef Schrempf was definitely my favorite of that team though. Shawn Kemp is phenominal on NBA Jam.

[crewcrazy]

I've heard rumors that "Thunder" is the leading nickname. Is it just me, or does anybody hate non-plural/collective team nicknames (Magic, Heat, etc.) To me, it sounds unprofessional.

The Oklahoman (OKC's main paper) held a fan contest with a bracket of team names, and that's the one that won. As far as the color scheme goes, I heard they were going for Red, White, and Blue. The fans figured that Oklahoma's known for their nasty storms in the summer, so they decided to vote for "Thunder". I think "Tornadoes" or "Twisters" would've been a better choice, but a lot of people have a negative feeling towards tornadoes in that part of the country (although that didn't seem to stop the Miami or Carolina Hurricanes).