Hey Clay, this fight is just gettin’ started
Published 10:59 pm Saturday, November 3, 2007
In times such as these, when Clay Bennett files with the NBA for permission to move the Seattle Sonics to Oklahoma City after 41 years in the Pacific Northwest, we turn to John (Bluto) Blutarski, noted historian and voice of reason of Animal House:
“Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell, no!”
There you have it.
Just because Bennett says there’s no turning back, just because he says he has no choice but to pull up stakes and tear the team away to the Midwest and just because he says he’ll do it as soon as he can get the franchise out of its KeyArena lease, that doesn’t mean it will happen.
The area’s politicos, although they should share much of the blame for aimlessly dinking around with former owner Howard Schultz about a new lease, say they’ll pull out all stops to keep the Sonics here.
As bumbling as Seattle and state government have been throughout this process, they wisely have joined forces with one former Sen. Slade Gorton, who’s been through all this before. It was Gorton who came up with new Mariners owners and then convinced baseball to accept international ownership, thereby preventing the team from moving to Tampa, Fla.
Gorton can get this thing tied up in the courts forever. As cool and single-minded as Bennett appears, the mere mention of Gorton’s name has to put a crinkle in his boxers.
So is the Sonic saga over, as Bennett would have you believe? Just as virtually everything Bennett has said about giving a good-faith effort to keep the team in Seattle, the advice here is to avoid buying it.
The ingredients are there to block a move — or, at the very least, replace these Sonics with an existing, troubled NBA team. It’s a matter of how important it is to Gorton, King County, Gov. Christine Gregoire, Seattle mayor Greg Nickles, the city governments of Renton and Bellevue and Dennis Daugs, who popped up this week as a prospective buyer if Bennett has a change of heart.
From a purely sports-fandom perspective, the motivation to keep the team in place is extensive, if only because of 19-year-old Kevin Durant, who promises to be the most exciting pro athlete in these parts since Shawn Kemp.
The most effective way to thwart Bennett is to keep the lease intact until its expiration in 2010.
It’s a long time, three years. If we are to believe the Sonics, they lost $17 million last season. If Bennett loses in court and the lease is judged irrevocable, would he and the lengthy list of minority owners be willing and able to withstand similar losses for the next three years?
Bennett has shown minimal control over his minions, especially Aubrey McClendon, who let the cat out of the bag when he said, “We didn’t buy the team to keep it in Seattle.”
Bennett already overpaid for the team at $350 million. If it hemorrhages money for three years, is it inconceivable that Bennett would lose at least some of his backing? And we haven’t even begun to factor in the considerable relocation costs.
Gad, after three years of that, I’d think so many would jump ship it would look like another sequel to “Pirates of the Caribbean.”
Does NBA commissioner David Stern, even though he appears to be a recent Bennett bedfellow, stand for that kind of embarrassment? Answer: Stern doesn’t even want players to wear jeans on the team flight.
Even a ruling in Bennett’s favor regarding the lease issue doesn’t end it. Groups can appeal and extend the time Bennett is forced to spend in Seattle with his team — a prospect that surely makes his blood run cold, possibly to the point of selling.
We should be used to this by now. Ken Behring had the moving vans loaded at Seahawks camp. The Mariners are still here.
What makes Bennett believe he can whisk the Sonics away by the end of this season without a lengthy fight?
If he does, he’s got Oklahoma barnyard effluence for brains.
Even Bluto would tell you that.
Sports columnist John Sleeper: sleeper@heraldnet.com. For Sleeper[`]s blog, click on cmg-northwest2.go-vip.net/heraldnet/danglingparticiples.
