A lawyer for former SuperSonics owner Howard Schultz says he is preparing a lawsuit in which Schultz will seek to regain ownership of the team because the new owners didn’t fulfill their promise to make a good faith effort to keep the team in Seattle.
In a related development, Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire and other political leaders sent a letter on Tuesday to NBA commissioner David Stern and other team owners, asking them to suspend a vote scheduled later this week on whether new Sonics owner Clay Bennett can move the team to Oklahoma City.
Schultz’s lawsuit is based on e-mails that Bennett exchanged last year with partners about moving the team to Oklahoma City.
“The damages that are being sought (are) to rescind, unwind the transaction,” said Richard C. Yarmuth, a lawyer for Schultz who said he has been directed to sue new owner Bennett’s Professional Basketball Club within two weeks. “It’s not money damage, it’s to have the team returned.
“The theory of the suit is that when the team was sold, the Basketball Club of Seattle, our team here, relied on promises made by Clay Bennett and his ownership that they desired to keep the team in Seattle and intended to make a good-faith effort to accomplish that.”
After purchasing the team from Schultz in July 2006, Bennett and his ownership group promised to spend one full year after the purchase was approved to seek a viable home for the Sonics in Seattle. E-mails disclosed last week as part of the city’s efforts to enforce the SuperSonics’ lease at KeyArena shed further light on the situation.
Bennett and ownership partners Aubrey McClendon and Tom Ward exchanged e-mails in April 2007 in which they discussed whether there was any way to avoid further “lame duck” seasons in Seattle before the team could be relocated. Bennett responded: “I am a man possessed! Will do everything we can. Thanks for hanging with me boys.”
Stern fined McClendon $250,000 last August after he told an Oklahoma City newspaper that “we didn’t buy the team to keep it in Seattle; we hoped to come here.”
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