Owners Vote: 28 - 2 For Move

by matthewcc on Apr 18, 2008 1:06 PM PDT

So the owners voted on the Sonics, and overwhelmingly for letting them move. No big shock.

Mark Cuban voted against it like he said he would, and for good financial reasons (which I find to be by far the most convincing argument against the move; its just bad for the league to add another poor, small market team). Paul Allen also voted against, as obviously the owner of the Seattle Seahawks does not want to permanently piss off the entire Washington state sports fan population.

I'd been holding out hope for them, but at this point it looks like all Seattle is going to be able to do is make Bennett squirm a bit, and maybe blow lots of money on lawyers. Good for them.

Again, I think this is just such a dumb move for the NBA. The Sonics are going to become another team that just does not have the resources to keep up. I pity Durant. He does not deserve this.

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Paul read my Email!!!

Lol….I am sure that was it! Way to go PA!!

"Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors... and miss" Robert A. Heinlein

by 92wastheyear on Apr 18, 2008 1:12 PM PDT reply actions

Lame.

Can’t express how much this sucks for Seattle fans. They have a good team in the making, too.

Beyond the revenue issues, Stern and the NBA are missing out on the opportunity for a bonafide I-5 rivalry between Portland and Seattle for many years to come. They’re also losing their second-biggest gateway to Asia behind San Francisco. Simply not a shrewd move by Stern.

by bfan on Apr 18, 2008 1:27 PM PDT reply actions

but oklahoma city is a gateway to.....

oh, wait. Nevermind.

--Dave
Addicted to Quack, SBN's Oregon Ducks blog

by David Piper on Apr 18, 2008 1:30 PM PDT up reply actions

Small market teams...

do fine in the NBA. I present the San Antonio Spurs. Seattle is obviously a better NBA market than OKC, but that doesn’t mean this franchise can’t work.

Boomshakalaka

by jksnake99 on Apr 18, 2008 2:47 PM PDT reply actions

well,

I also present to you our own Portland Trailblazers. Its not that small market teams can’t possibly work, its that it is so much more difficult to make them work, and the more you have the more likely you’ll have more teams not working, and the more owners you’ll have complaining they can’t compete with New York and LA and Dallas unless your Paul Allen-wealthy. If fans aren’t packing the arena in Oklahoma, and the team is losing money, is Bennett still going to spend the money to put a good product out there? Probably not. Its going to be something the NBA looks back on and say ‘what the heck were we thinking?’

The bigger problem is that they’re are taking a successful, popular franchise OUT of a city with 4 million odd people with lots of money, and putting it in a city of a few hundred thousand people with far less per capita income. This is definitely a negative sum move as far as fans and revenue go. Bennett will have his vanity toy to show off to his friends, but everybody else from Seattle to the NBA to basketball fans will be big fat losers in this.

by matthewcc on Apr 18, 2008 4:31 PM PDT up reply actions

Is there more to this than meets the eye?

Behind his lawyerly neutrality, David Stern has seemed so bent on moving the Sonics to Oklahoma that I can’t help being suspicious. Oklahoma City over Seattle? How can that possibly be in the league’s interest?

Even when Bennett was caught red-handed with those incriminating emails, Stern leaped to his defense (while claiming he hadn’t “studied” the emails). I’m sorry, but I smell a fix. I know Stern loves the game, but I think he loves money and power more.

"We don't back down to nobody." --Joel Przybilla

by hurryup09 on Apr 18, 2008 8:32 PM PDT reply actions

If Seattle is nuked within the next few years...

...then perhaps Stern is just privy to inside info and was just trying to avoid Durant getting vaporized.

Is Stern a hero, perhaps? No? Just a ugly weiner face on this issue? Oh.

The Sonics moving makes the most zero sense in the history of numbers and logic. Franchises are supposed to move when they aren’t popular, have no fans, are going broke, or something else negative. NOT when they have been somewhere for 40 years and are still very popular and have always been okay financially. This is plain just not right. A horrible precedent is being set.

Even if it was a calculated act on his part, I am glad Paul Allen voted against the move.

Mortimer

by Mortimer on Apr 19, 2008 1:51 AM PDT up reply actions