NBA Board Of Governors Rejects Seattle Bid To Relocate Kings; Blazers Owner Paul Allen Voted In Favor Of Move

Sam Amick of USA Today Sports (here) and Aaron Bruski of NBCSports.com (here) both report that the NBA's Board of Governors has voted in Dallas on Wednesday to reject a bid to relocate the Sacramento Kings to Seattle for the 2013-14 season.

NBA commissioner David Stern confirmed the decision and noted that the vote went down 22-8 against the bid.

Here are some quotes from Stern.

Vote

"We are able to report to you that the NBA Board of Governors voted to reject the relocation of the Sacramento Kings to Seattle. The vote was 22 against relocation and eight for."

Next steps in trying to negotiate new deal with Sacramento group

"We will talk to the Maloofs and see in the next 24 to 48 hours to see if we can help facilitate an agreement to be signed between the Ranadive group and the Maloofs for the sale of the franchise in Sacramento."

...

"The [relocation] committee recommended to the board and it was adopted that if the Sacramento community could produce a site, a construction team, a financially strong ownership group and the kind of support by the city and the region that Mayor [Kevin] Johnson has galvanized that the appropriate outcome was to keep the team in Sacramento and that's what they did."

Seattle group's bid

"The Seattle presentation was brisk, firm, excellent and reflects the efforts that have been put into this and the extraordinary ownership group they have put together. We look forward to continuing the dialogue of some type with the citizens and potential owners in Seattle but we don't have anything concrete to support with respect to an NBA franchise in Seattle at this time."

The Portland Trail Blazers were represented at the meeting by Vulcan CEO Peter McLoughlin, who is also the president of the NFL's Seattle Seahawks.

Chris Daniels of King 5 in Seattle reports on Twitter that McLoughlin said that Allen was one of the eight votes in favor of the relocation effort. Allen voted against the Seattle SuperSonics' move to Oklahoma City in 2008. David Aldridge of NBA.com also reported the vote on Twitter.

Allen tweeted his thoughts on Wednesday.

Feeling for Seattle basketball fans today, would have been great to have an NBA team once again

Allen wouldn't commit to his vote when he met with reporters in Portland back in April...

I think it's a tough call. While I supported the Sonics staying in Seattle when they ended up leaving, I think in general there's some feeling that if there's good fan support and there's good political support sufficient to have a state of the art facility, that's more than enough reason to keep a franchise in the same place.

Then you can get into all the parameters of who has made the best offer, who hasn't made the best offer. It's a very difficult thing. Steve Ballmer is a very good friend of mine and I think he would be a great owner. I reserve my final decision.

Back in April, the NBA's relocation committee voted unanimously to recommend that the Kings not be relocated to Seattle for the 2013-14 season.

Back in January, a group of investors reached an agreement to purchase the Kings from the Maloof family with the goal of relocating the franchise to Seattle and re-branding it as the SuperSonics. The original SuperSonics were relocated to Oklahoma City and renamed the Thunder in 2008.

For full coverage, head over to SacTownRoyalty.com, SB Nation's Kings site which has fought valiantly to keep its team. Also, check out SonicsRising.com, SB Nation's new Sonics-themed site.

This post will update later this afternoon.

-- Ben Golliver | benjamin.golliver@gmail.com | Twitter