Seattle Mayor fires back at Stern

The Seattle city govmt is such a joke. What a bunch of clowns.

They got Seattle in to this mess and everything they’re doing now is just a smoke screen to cover their political rears once the Sonics are gone.

Key Arena was designed for the Sonics to their specs and approved by the NBA. The city of Seattle wanted a bigger arena for hockey but the nba/Sonics didnt want competition. Seattle did the right thing and built what they were told to build..It looks like Seattle is doing the right thing again by having a new building ready when the lease runs out.. Sitting here in the Bay Area it looks pretty clear whats going on….the sonics want to be in okc and the nba/bennett didnt figure the City of Seattle and its fans would fight back…. man this is going to be good…. I cant wait for the court date….. the only argument the Sonics/bennett have made so far is “We dont want to be in Seattle, please let us move……..

When you put emotion aside and look at sound business practices there is not one good reason for the NBA to approve the move.

Does OKC have a good case for becoming an NBA city? Yes. They have done what they need to do to join Las Vegas, Kansas City, San Jose, and others as an “NBA ready” city.

It is important to put smack talking losers like Phillip aside and look at the issue the way the NBA owners will, from a business standpoint, and the one thing they all have in common is that they want to make as much money as possible. Bringing OKC in to the league would be a good thing, at the expense of giving up the #12 market and turning down a $300 million upgrade to a newer facility and rejecting an ownership group worth more than $35 billion just doesn’t make any sense.

To date the only people talking are Bennett and his BFF Stern and between the two of them they have one vote out of 30. Other owners are starting to step forward and say this is not a good idea and no one seems to be supporting it.

Clay and OKC can do everything in the world to make the city look ready but that isn’t going to cause the league to go brain dead when it comes time to vote.

You really need to pull your head out, Andy. The only people that think the NBA can’t live without Seattle, live in Seattle.

From a business standpoint, Seattle has been a mediocre NBA market for many years. The team has lost money every year in this decade. The average paid attendance for the two years the Hornets were in OKC was better than the Sonics have drawn in 25 years.

Seattles arrogance has cost them their team. It’s over. Deal with it.

Real class act. It is easy to see why OKC doesn’t have major league sports.

No one is saying the NBA can’t live without Seattle, what they are saying is that no intelligent businessman would give up Seattle for OKC.

If you would have finished High School you would be able to do the math, Seattle sold out every game for most of the 90’s. Yes, with Schultz and Bennett, the two worst owners in the league, they lost money since Ackerley sold, but that is because they are poor businessman not because of the market.

Face it, Andy…..you’re a loser. You’re a Seattle troll getting owned on a OKC message board.

You’ve lost your team and your too stupid to stop coming to this site and getting your nose rubbed in it.

Now run along home with your tail tucked between your legs, like a good little troll.

ROFLMAO

Owned?

Dude you couldn’t even rent my jock.

You got schooled so bad you had to resort to insults and smack talk because you don’t have a single fact in your favor.

Heres a fact Andy. Bennett owns the Sonics and all the Billionaires in Seattle can’t stop him from taking HIS team and moving them to OKC….

….and jock Andy??? didn’t you mean your frilly little silk panties……loser.

Nickels is just shedding light on the truth of where the NBA is headed with all this garbage…uprooting teams with lots of history and clear financial/fan support and relocating them to mid-size areas where the NBA is the only game in town. Stern gave up long ago on his ability to market the NBA in areas with baseball and football (except for large markets like NY,LA, Chicago where any media publicity is big publicity, or Detroit, which gets 22,000 a night), and now is resorting to, although maybe not actively, at least complicitly allowing teams to move to where they’ll have no pro competition. You listen to people like those in OKC who are chomping at the bit for a team and are willing to take ownership of the sonics before the court case even happens (hence how do you know they’re even going to move one mile), and there’s no need to wonder why the wheels are turning on this.

The whole situation is just sad, sad, sad. Stern’s time is done and should just resign, and I hope Bennett knows he’ll never be welcome in Seattle or the NW without bodyguards.

To have a COMMISH who’s all about moving a team despite decades of history and fan support, just because we won’t build him a palace and he thinks he can get a few years of boom in another town (and who’s to say they wont move again a few years after that?) is just pathetic. Boy is this turning into a bottom-line business or what.

I’ve been wondering why Stern is pushing teams into smaller and less successful markets.

I wonder if this has anything to do with his expansion plans in Europe? We all know there isn’t enough talent in Europe to field enough teams for an NBA Division and there is not enough talent in the US to add to it to make a competitive Division in Europe either. Not without seriously diluting the product at any rate.

Is Stern planning on moving all the small market teams to Europe at some point? Who would make more money for the owners and the NBA, Charlotte or Barcelona, Memphis or Milan, OKC or Rome, Portland or Paris?

Would there be any interest in a European watching a game between Madrid and OKC? Would they know where OKC is? How else to build up a new European Conference than to just move NBA teams from small cities that already exist?

It’s time for the owners to stand up to Stern before he drives this bus into the ditch. The NBA under Stern has been a sinking ship since Jordan retired. With alll the praise cast on Stern during the Jordan-era has become apparent that the NBA surge in popularity is owed more to the presence of the greatest player ever to step foot on the court. It’s time for Stern to go. He doesn’t seem willing to step down on his own so he must be pushed out.

I think that the BOG vote will be a test of confidence in Stern. If he loses he will have little choice but to retire gracefully or get pushed out. The vote has a lot to do with Stern’s vision of the NBA.

You will notice he is becoming more and more strident in his rhetoric. Some would read a bit of panic or at least a lack of confidence in the outcome from it. He made a plan with Bennett to reward OKC with an NBA team. He is finding much more resistance from Seattle than he ever thought would happen and more negative comments from his own BOG than he expected.

We could be seeing the end of David Stern in the NBA after April.

People in Seattle need to swear off Hempfest. All that weed is effecting their ability to think rationally.

The only people that think the NBA can’t live without Seattle, live in Seattle…….and most the people there don’t care about the Sonics. The politicians there are following the will of the people in not committing any money to keeping the team.

SOS plans this big rally at the capitol and in a metro of 3.5 million people, 250 people show up…….pathetic.

This isn’t a big deal like the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn or the Colts leaving Baltimore. When the Sonics move to OKC it will pretty much be a non-event nationally.

David Stern is a very well respected commish. and it’s just plain stupid and incredibly arrogant for people in Seattle to think they can take him down.

Pot smoking idiots.

if you think moving to okc is a wise move, that leads me to believe that your the product of in-breeding. phillip, seattle will prevail. we always do.

Everything you’ve written up to this point has been stupid, joey and with your last post, that streak continues.

The Sonics play in the smallest arena with the worst lease in the NBA, They have lost money every year for a decade.

No great loss for the NBA.

apparently, your unfamiliar with your own posts.

wow, i’m so glad that the dialogue between OKC and seattle consists of intellegent references to ‘in-breeding’ and ‘weed is effecting their ability to think.’ as an oklahoman who loves basketball, i’d love to have a team. i wish we could get one in a way that makes everyone happy, but if seattle fans don’t go to games and name-call on the internet, they don’t desereve a team either. supporting your team will do more for the sonics than (trying) to be clever and insulting. and okies, chill out. we’re probably going to get them, so why call them names because they’re upset and don’t know how to handle it. (other than name-calling.)

i’m sorry seattle, i wish you could keep the sonics and OKC would get the hornets or grizzlies. but what’s done is done.

was it messed up of bennett to buy your team and then want to move them? yes. but, was your team for sale? yes. an owner can do what he wants. was it annoying to ask for more money to keep the team? yes. but you showed him! you voted no. that’s your right, just as it’s his right to kick rocks out of seattle.

principles vs. emotion. you chose your principles towards the money and owner over the emotion of keeping the team you love(d). would it be a pain to pay another sales tax for the NBA? yes, but you’d have your team. do i want to pay more taxes here? no, but i will if i’m going to get a team. seattle made it’s decision. no taxes/no NBA. i hope you realize it’s not oklahoma city’s fault. is it clay bennett’s fault? partly, but it’s partly your own.

nobody in the state of oklahoma has the right to say whether or not we deserve a team! it makes no differrence where your at. if the club loses, attendance will dwindle. and considering the circustances i think were doing pretty well! and when you have a team for forty years then lecture me on how to support a franchise. the bottom line is this, if you do get a franchise you will certainly lose it within ten years. okc does not have the money,size, or the resources to support a team, for any length of time. you will need a brand new arena within 5 years. good luck with that. and can you support them when the initial fervor dies down? or if the club is struggling? like i said before, you wont have them long!

i would have to agree with joey on his last post. lately, though, ive strayed away from the mouthing off, UNTIL JUNE!! that is when the whole state of oklahoma will realize the whole picture. as far as attendance phillip, okc subsidized 30% of all Hornet tics. that means alot of golden corral employess could afford to go. with GM gone, you guys wont sell out after the first month. even with a stripped down club that is on its way out of town, we here in seattle, are still averaging over 13,000. could you imagine if they were winning!! the team will leave seattle, no problem for us, because they suck, but, we will get another team, and, we are hoping for the Hornets! the ownership group has made the sonics the laughinstock of professional sports, and, we still support the team after getting beat by 40. i attended a AAA baseball game in okc once, they had about 1000 there, and, when the team got down 4 runs, the attendance dropped to around 400, and, you guys think you will fill an NBA arena night after night. see ya in june D.M.!!! its looking like a long 2 years for the okies!!!

love, mike u.

you’ve had the sonics for 40-odd years, but you “are hoping for the Hornets!” what kind of fan are you? the sonics are STILL THERE and you’re thinking of OTHER teams? my god. i hope a REAL sonics fan hears you say that in person. as a sports fan in general, I’M offended by that crap. if that’s how it is, i will say again, people like you don’t deserve a team. sorry.

you baffoons know nothing!!