Will NBA basketball soon return to Seattle?

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As a basketball loving boy growing up in the Pacific Northwest, I had two choices: the Blazers, or the SuperSonics.  I picked the team in Seattle because they weren't the closest local team, but they were close enough for me to call myself a real fan.  When I relocated to Southern California in the late 80s, my fandom followed me there.  The subsequent years saw the Sonics have a great deal of success - even an NBA Finals appearance in 1996.  After that, they had some up years and down years, but you stick by your team as a fan through thick and thin.  And I did.  Even when the hordes of Lakers fans living around me gave me grief for it.  All of that changed in 2008.

In 2001, when I first heard that Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks, had bought my beloved Sonics franchise, I was ecstatic.  Here's a guy, a regular fan of the team like me, who just happens to have a boatload of money.  And when you've got hip owner who has loads of cash, good things can happen.  Mark Cuban is an example of such a guy...but alas, this was not the type of owner that Schultz was to be.  Schultz wasn't (and presumably still isn't) a "basketball guy" and it was quickly apparent that he wasn't into owning a team as a fan would be...he was into being an owner for the business side of things.  And you really can't run an NBA franchise the way you run a corner coffee business.  As the team began to suffer and it was more and more obvious that Howard wanted out, the rumors began to surface of the sale of team to another group of owners - a group based out of Oklahoma City.  When you own something, you've bought the right to sell it too, to whomever you want for whatever you want.  And that's just what Howard Schultz did in 2006, to a group headed by Clay Bennett.

I could spend the next 20 pages telling you how much I hate Clay Bennett.  How he lied and manipulated and swindled the people of Seattle out of their NBA franchise, and had a smile on his face while he did it.  I could tell you about how it was done with not only the permission but the encouragement of the NBA and Commissioner David Stern (who happens to be a close friend of Clay, and meets with him regularly since Clay sits on the NBA's Relocation Committee).  All of this would be a waste of my breath and your time though.

The truth of the matter is that there was loads of blame to go around...blame for the city officials of Seattle as well as Bennett and the League.  If the city officials hadn't wanted to make a fast buck instead of actually caring about a professional sports franchise, none of this probably would have happened either.  But in 2008 after one last lame duck year, the perfect storm of an apathetic fan base, greedy local politicians, unscrupulous ownership, and desperate, morally bankrupt businessmen caused the NBA franchise that had resided in Seattle for over 40 years to relocate to Oklahoma City.

I'm not going to lie...I was in shock, then hurt, then numb, and finally just bitter.  I was a fan without a team.  I decided to follow this upstart team from Oklahoma City; at least I knew all the players.  And as I watched them, this team in blue, orange, and black instead of my beloved green and gold, I saw something crazy happen - they got good.  Not at first...at first they stunk every bit as bad as they had in Seattle.  But there were signs...at first it was Kevin Durant and Jeff Green.  Then came Russell Westbrook, and then James Harden.  Then Ibaka came and Green left.  And the team got good.  I mean really good.  Good like you can see it and think "these guys are finally putting it all together."  First the playoffs.  Then the conference finals and the NBA Finals.  And what Oklahoma City is now is one of the best basketball cities around, and why not?  The team they inherited is loaded with talent and will probably contend for championships for the immediate future.  And I sit and watch it all and ask myself why it was that this couldn't have happened in the Pacific Northwest instead.

So when I hear now that there are rumors that a group in Seattle wishes to buy the Sacramento Kings and relocate them to Seattle (see the ESPN article, first reported on by Yahoo Sports, here) it fills me with mixed emotions.  As part of the "arrangement" that Clay Bennett had with the city of Seattle, the name of the SuperSonics and their history, colors, and NBA champion banner (yes they won it in '79, and were in the Finals in '78 too) all stay in Seattle.  So if the Kings were to head north to the Emerald City, they would in fact become the franchise I grew up with as a kid.  There's a part of me that fills with happiness and pride.  I'd love to see the green and gold hit the hardwood again.  There was a time I'd have done anything to see it just one more time.  But there's another part of me that dreads seeing this happen, because I know at what cost it would come.  Its very likely that there is some kid in the Northern California area that, even as I write this, dreads the thought of his beloved Sacramento Kings leaving town.

Now I'm not going to pretend that Sacramento has as deep and rich a basketball history as Seattle does.  But sure as shooting there are folks in Sactown that love their team as much as I loved my Sonics.  Is it right of me to wish for my hoops happiness at the expense of other honest fans?  Whether or not the Kings are sold and subsequently relocate has nothing to do with me in the slightest.  But I can't help but feel that it does.  Because if me, and people up in Washington state like me, didn't love our old team so much, maybe we wouldn't be considering doing to some other town what was done to us.