In the middle of Bruce Harrell’s State of the City address Tuesday night, the Seattle mayor took an impromptu pause and told the crowd, “Right now, at this moment, I have an announcement to make,” as he pulled out a basketball from under the podium.
Nearly 17 years after their beloved Seattle SuperSonics were relocated to Oklahoma City, the crowd of Seattleites began celebrating and clapping at the suggestion of their team returning.
Harrell let the moment linger for an extended pause as he spun the ball in his hands and then shattered their excitement: “Ah, I’m just kidding, I just … I got you.”
The crowd’s cheers and oohs quickly turned to groans and aahs as Harrell laughed sheepishly at his stunt, telling the residents of his city, “It’s a long speech, I had to break it up a little here.”
Despite the joke, Harrell’s spokesperson Jamie Housen said on Wednesday the mayor is eager to bring the Sonics back.
“While yesterday’s joke may not have been a slam dunk, the mayor referenced the Sonics because of what they mean to our community and because of his commitment to bringing NBA basketball back to Seattle,” Housen said. “Mayor Harrell will continue his work to demonstrate to the league that Seattle is a great basketball town with a wealth of talent and a strongly supportive fan base, an NBA-ready arena, and a city on the rise.”
Tuesday night did not mark the first time Harrell — who did not respond to a request for comment — has talked about the Sonics returning to the Emerald City. In late June, he told KOMO News he was having weekly meetings or discussions about their return and suggested that the finalization of the NBA media deal could accelerate that process.
“I am actively not only creating the buzz but looking at how we build the infrastructure here in Seattle,” Harrell told KOMO. “Let’s signal to the NBA: you have to be here. You’re missing this great market, and I feel very good about what’s going to happen here in the near future.”
At the NBA Finals earlier that month, commissioner Adam Silver confirmed that Seattle was one of the cities the league was considering for a potential expansion team.
“There’s been some discussion about going back to Seattle, potentially,” Silver said in early June. “Las Vegas, no doubt, is very interested in a team. Mexico City one day.”
But while those media rights deals were finalized by August, little discussion about possible league expansion has returned.
No mention of expansion was discussed during the NBA All-Star Game weekend, as it was in 2024. Another recent expansion franchise, the NHL’s Seattle Kraken, could be a key player in the city’s hopes to return NBA basketball to Seattle.
The Kraken have played their home games at Climate Pledge Arena — the Sonics’ former home, which was heavily renovated in 2018.
“It would be an amazing market, and the NBA knows that,” Samantha Holloway, a Kraken executive chair, told Bloomberg in a June interview. “This is an exercise in patience for both us and the fans because we’re all really excited for what could be.”
In 2013, a bid to relocate the Sacramento Kings to Seattle reached a vote of NBA governors but was turned down 22-8 after Sacramento came up with new ownership.
Regarding the potential international expansion to Mexico City, Silver told in November that it “would be more difficult to expand to Mexico City than it would be to expand to U.S. cities that have very publicly sought NBA teams.”
Silver added that he would rather add two teams at once, rather than one, to keep the Eastern and Western conferences balanced.
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