Stern = Slime.

In A few years they will want out of Oklahoma too. NBA business model is too flawed for anything to survive in the 50th largest market... Knock yourself out ClayDOH!

PLEASE,SOMEONE HELP THIS CITY!!! save our sonics. SEATTLE NEEDS ITS SUPERSONICS. This is getting to close to happening; I cant fathom the idea. PLEASE ;SAVE THE SEATTLE SUPERSONICS!!

Howard Stern is a piece of crap! Too bad that ESPN doesn't think so they did a story on how great Stern has been for the NBA, NOT IN MY EYES. This hurts bad for the true die-hard fans who can't even imagine the NW without the Sonics. It seems that most people have just come to the conclusion that there isn't much that we the fans can do! I will say this much though, please stop fueling them by buying tickets and going to the games why should you? You can watch them for free on t.v. but when they make their announcement then boycott them!

David Stern is an A 1 Ass Clown! The NBA product is so watered down and diluted I can't imagine why anyone would want to watch it. Folks in Seattle should be upset with their elected leaders and the stuffed shirts in Olympia. Obviously it is a lot of money to keep the team but it is good for business and helps keep a lot of other organizations a float in the Seattle area. The Hawks and Mariners seemed to negotiate deals. It comes down to perception and the perception is that the NBA is full of gansta thug degenerates. Who wants to support them? Certainly not the rich white crowd making the decisions.

Stop buying Starbucks. That may help as well. That clown sold the team to bubba gump. He's the true devil if you want to get right down to it. Things got tough in negotiating and he just flat out sold them to the first hick that came a long with enough money.

David Stern is an A 1 Clown! The NBA product is so watered down and diluted I can't imagine why anyone would want to watch it. Folks in Seattle should be upset with their elected leaders and the stuffed shirts in Olympia. Obviously it is a lot of money to keep the team but it is good for business and helps keep a lot of other organizations a float in the Seattle area. The Hawks and Mariners seemed to negotiate deals. It comes down to perception and the perception is that the NBA is full of gansta thug degenerates. Who wants to support them? Certainly not the rich white crowd making the decisions.

Stop buying Starbucks. That may help as well. That clown sold the team to bubba gump. He's the true devil if you want to get right down to it. Things got tough in negotiating and he just flat out sold them to the first hick that came a long with enough money.

Well, what do you expect him to say? Nothing has changed. To stop buying tickets and supporting the team is exactly what clay's big red ass wants. keep hope alive.

bonesbarry; im a hope`n and a prayin!!! save our SEATTLE supersonics.

The real evil ones are the elected officials in Seattle. They are the true ass clowns. They came riding in at the last minutes to try to make themselves look good when they knew the team is headed out of town. You know they will settle, but it won't matter if they don't. The team is gone, just a matter of time. The city had many chances to keep the team, they didn't care. Time to vote those ass clowns out of office.

Certainly time to keep these politicians in Office! These are the Politicians that finally had enough Smarts to tell the NBA and Bennet to Pony up for their own team and quit expecting Taxpayers to bail them out. After all if he can't afford to pay for an arena to play his team in, then maybe just maybe he can't afford the team at all. I'm happy are politicians except for the obvious idiots that supported a new arena with everybodys money but the owners had the smarts to tell them that if they did not have enough money to pay for an arena themselves to take the team elsewhere. This is the way politicians should be with taxpayers money FRUGAL. Besides from what I understand the City of Seattle would have built the arena with Taxpayers money but Bennet would have had to pay the money back with a returned investment to the Taxpayers, and of course Bennett wanted nothing to do with a deal that he would have actually had to pay back. He wants a new arena for free. So with that said let's all see the fools of Oklahoma shell out money for these guys with no return, basically free money. You go Oklahoma! Seattle folks are happy you will get those honors of giving this sorry ass bunch free money. Oh and thanks to all the Politicians who finally woke up and smelled the Starbucks (oop's I mean Coffee).

As Starbucks is a multi-national, a partially successful boycott in Seattle would have almost 0 impact. I really wish that wasn't the case, but......

If any attorneys are reading this, I'm wondering if Stern or the NBA have opened themselves up to a successful tampering lawsuit in anyway with this?

The only justification I can see from the NBA's point of view is they're terrified to lose the 100% success rate that the 3 major sports have had with bullying cities into unnecessary new arenas in the last 20 years. OKC, New Orleans, & even Portland are very shaky markets compared to Seattle. I'm still hoping that by some miracle Bennett will buy the NO/OKC Hornets from George Shinn & sell the Sups to local ownership; or even better: a 3 team swap with Bennett, Shinn & Paul Allen. I'd love to see Allen as owner of both the Hawks & Sups.

Last year, I wrote my legislature. Alot of good that did. I could not even learn how my legislature voted. There was no vote. I felt it was a shame. The housing market is down. So I may be stuck in an area that has no NBA team. The summer will be nice the Seattle Storm will be here. But, wintertime with no NBA.. Portland is mostly sold out. Where is a good location to move to? Texas, Georgia, Boston? The Puget Sound LOST! Seattle should except the $26 million and use it on the Alaskan Way project. With the matching money from Jump Start America it will be a done deal. At least something will be completed. Why was there no vote last year?

I'm with you Nardbuster...it's going to suck living in a market with no NBA team. I hope the extra tax proposal in OKC fails then has Bennett stuck in limbo. He then realizes he is up the creek without a paddle and sells the team back to local ownership. Then he becomes the laughing stock of the NBA and goes down as one of the most bungling owners ever.

I have no emotional bond to the Sonics, because the Sonics are no longer a group of young guys balling, but rich men (not the ones balling) trying to plunder my community.

A sad comment on the state of the Sonics is this thread about them moving to OKC has 15 replies including this one.

Over on the Seahawks blog, an off season post about signing a left guard has over 200 replies.

Methinks CB has already won, no one cares. I don't bother to turn the tv on when the Sonics play anymore. Truth is the team is god awful with one of the worst coaches in basketball.

I'd be glad to place a bet as to whether PJ ever coaches in OKC (he won't).

I can't believe anyone is surprised by this. Am I being too cynical? It seems to me the plan was always to move the team to the Flatlands (one of Bennett's less-circumspect partners came out and said so), and that Stern is playing along with the charade of going to Seattle and Washington leadership and trying to extort public money to help apparently-impoverished basketball players and team owners.

Another bit of evidence that this was the plan all along is the fact that they have traded off most of their talent, except Durant whom they obviously hope to build around in OKC, and seem to be trying to play their way into a lottery pick. The worse the team does, the less people will howl as they load the moving vans. They'll start over in OKC with two lottery picks to build around.

I don't think they ever planned to stay, and if our leadership had expressed any willingness to pony up taxpayer money to fund a PRIVATELY-OWNED basketball franchise, said franchise would have found a way to raise its demands. Maybe if they could have extorted enough money from us, they would have stayed, but should we pay to keep a team in town, AND pay for tickets? (Not to mention the facilities tax they would have added on).

First of all, it's a direct violation of the State Constitution (Art. 8, Sections 5 and 7 - the language is not tricky. No lending or gifting of public funds or credit to private enterprises). Granted, this has been completely ignored by our courts, but there it is. Also, is it really such a good idea to put Bennett, et al on the dole? If you encourage them, won't they ask for even more? The same principles that apply to regular welfare apply to corporate welfare too. Let Bennett take some responsibility for his own life.

Not surprised at all (I'm pretty sure I've previously posted a similar opinion to what you share in the 1st 2 paragraphs, I totally agree with you on that), but not happy.

I guess I've been assuming that somehow new local ownership would step up. I didn't expect Stern to be such a jerk, & I didn't exxpect the strategy of making sure the team was awful to work so well. And now there's talk of trading Wally, who's the best player on the team & is already on the bench.