Sonics headed to OKC, money headed to Seattle

[slappy4428]

Re: UPDATE: Sonics headed to OKC, money headed to Seattle

Maybe OKC deserves a franchise, maybe it doesn't.
Seattle, just like Cleveland and Baltimore in the NFL, didn't deserve the fate it got.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

Re: UPDATE: Sonics headed to OKC, money headed to Seattle

Seattle, just like Cleveland and Baltimore in the NFL, didn't deserve the fate it got.

Exactly right.

 

[wannabeu]

Re: UPDATE: Sonics headed to OKC, money headed to Seattle

OKC is a great place. Not at good as Seattle, but it is still a great place. I just have my reservations about it supporting an NBA team. After the luster of having a team wears off comes the realization that Oklahoma is a football crazed state and OKC is a minor league city. I hope the new OKC team does great and that Seattle gets a new team down the road. But I doubt either will happen in the long run.

 

[ArnoldBabar]

Re: UPDATE: Sonics headed to OKC, money headed to Seattle

Damaramu, you're just too close to this. I understand that you love your town, but that's not the point. OKC is growing, but so is everywhere else. It probably seems to you like it's getting huge, but in the broader scope it's still a small market and will be for the foreseeable future.

Well, we proved we deserve an NBA team. We have one now and will continue to prove we deserve it. This doesn't make us bad people and the venom and the trashing of the city needs to stop. Schultz won't win his lawsuit no matter how many times anti-OKC ESPN paid Lester Munson tells you otherwise. (seriously espn has bashed OKC every chance they get)
The NBA is here in OKC for the foreseeable future. We deserve it, people need to get over it. Sorry you lost your team Seattle, but you can basically have it back in the future.

Let's be honest, the only thing you proved is that you have some rich guys. "Deserve" ain't got a thing to do with it.

Sorry people are trashing your town. Hopefully we haven't been doing it here, which i don't think we have.

Uh, I'm pretty sure I just did.

Eh, I wouldn't call that trashing. I think he's talking about the nasty stuff (and believe me, my paper has been responsible for plenty of it).

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]

Re: UPDATE: Sonics headed to OKC, money headed to Seattle

Let's see. You own Starbucks and you want to sell the Sonics. A guy from Oklahoma City, a city which recently gave strong support to the displaced Hornets offers you a bunch of money and you're surprised he wants to move the team to his hometown? I think if Schultz sold the Sonics to a local person they might have gotten that new arena. Seattle has no one to blame but themselves.

If you believe for one minute Shultz didn't know what's going on you're crazy, blind, or blindly crazy (speaking in generalities, Dan. Not specifically to you). Shultz knew and, like a "good" businessman (read: arch criminal) didn't give a flying fork. He didn't give a flying fork that Bennett would, not mght, move the team to his stomping grounds. He wanted a return on his investment, nothing more, nothing less. And this lawsuit by him, alleging that he was betrayed and didn't know that Bennett would move the team his posturing, bullshirt and attempting to save face. He damn forking well knew they'd move, he didn't care.

 

[linotype]

Re: UPDATE: Sonics headed to OKC, money headed to Seattle

If nothing else, those Oklahoma City NBA fans at least are knowledgeable about the league.

Why, I was just checking the fan comments at newsok.com and one scoffed at the notion that the NBA would place an expansion team in Seattle because the league would prefer to expand internationally. He suggested a great site for a team -- Toronto.

 

[ondeadline]

Re: UPDATE: Sonics headed to OKC, money headed to Seattle

Yet another American city that has an NBA team as its only major pro team? (I'm counting MLB, NHL, NFL and NBA).

It's got Portland, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, Memphis, Orlando, Sacramento, and now Oklahoma City.

The NFL only has Jacksonville and Green Bay (and the latter is really in the Milwaukee market.)

The NHL only has Raleigh, Columbus and San Jose (which is really part of the Bay Area market.)

The MLB has none.

 

[RossLT]

Re: UPDATE: Sonics headed to OKC, money headed to Seattle

Let's see. You own Starbucks and you want to sell the Sonics. A guy from Oklahoma City, a city which recently gave strong support to the displaced Hornets offers you a bunch of money and you're surprised he wants to move the team to his hometown? I think if Schultz sold the Sonics to a local person they might have gotten that new arena. Seattle has no one to blame but themselves.

If you believe for one minute Shultz didn't know what's going on you're crazy, blind, or blindly crazy (speaking in generalities, Dan. Not specifically to you). Shultz knew and, like a "good" businessman (read: arch criminal) didn't give a flying fork. He didn't give a flying fork that Bennett would, not mght, move the team to his stomping grounds. He wanted a return on his investment, nothing more, nothing less. And this lawsuit by him, alleging that he was betrayed and didn't know that Bennett would move the team his posturing, bullshirt and attempting to save face. He damn forking well knew they'd move, he didn't care.

I thought this was common knowledge

 

[Oz]

Re: UPDATE: Sonics headed to OKC, money headed to Seattle

Yet another American city that has an NBA team as its only major pro team? (I'm counting MLB, NHL, NFL and NBA).

It's got Portland, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, Memphis, Orlando, Sacramento, and now Oklahoma City.

The NFL only has Jacksonville and Green Bay (and the latter is really in the Milwaukee market.)

The NHL only has Raleigh, Columbus and San Jose (which is really part of the Bay Area market.)

The MLB has none.

I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing for the NBA, of course. With only pro sports team in town, they're going to hog all the attention, all the media, all the ad revenue, etc. OK, so there's Sooners football, which is close to a pro sports team, but that's it.

And look at that list for the NBA -- Portland, Sactown and Salt Lake City are always among the most enthusiastic fan bases in the league, and San Antonio and Orlando don't seem to have any problems. Memphis ... that's another story. Point is, I do think the old Sonics will work there.

I just feel for Seattle's fans, though. I wonder if this experience would make them want another NBA team, if Stern siding with this weasel might make the NBA kryponite in Seattle.

 

[Lester Bangs]

Re: UPDATE: Sonics headed to OKC, money headed to Seattle

More bashing on the city. Yes the city of OKC, not Clay Bennett, went and stole the team. Let's blame them. <b>Everyone in the city should die. Why don't we just bomb every building like the federal building!? That'll teach those dirty thieves!</b> Seriously, that's how a lot of people are acting with the venom directed at OKC.

As for the free agents leaving, yeah sure. People have a negative (and flat out wrong) stereotype of Oklahoma probably based off the Grapes of Wrath. I doubt any free agents are going to run away, heck the Hornets loved it here. Anytime he's asked Chris Paul goes on and on about how great it was in OKC. Sorry but the stereotype isn't right and NBA players don't exactly hate it here.

I'm thinking hard, but I cannot think of a dumber more off-base mischaracterization of an argument ever on SportsJournalists.com. Considering some of this board's luminaries, that's impressive.

Everybody involved in this shirt is a moron, from Howard Schultz, Clay Bennett, Aubrey McClendon, the City of Seattle, Slade Gorton, Margarita Prentice ... the list could go on for days but I am pretty sure -- now mind you I have not read everything -- that nobody has suggested the good folks of Oklahoma City deserve another bombing. Maybe that's coming when Jemele Hill weighs in.

heck, if anything those people have suffered enough and should not be forced to watch the Sonics for 41 games next year -- Viva La Serge Ibaka! But seriously, you know the first sign that you're not living in a big-league city? When you start a campaign called Big League City. That said, I have seen next to no animosity toward the people of OKC. It's all been on Stern and Bennett, who deserve every inch of it.

 

[Mystery_Meat]

Re: UPDATE: Sonics headed to OKC, money headed to Seattle

Seattle should get another team, but if they do, it'll probably be a moved team. Doesn't Stern want the next expansion to go international?

And they're moving to OKC, not Minot, ND. It won't even be the smallest NBA market (it's 44, Salt Lake City is 48 and New Orleans is 51). They've got a decent arena and (so far, at least) good fans. It sucks for Seattle, but it's also not armageddon for the NBA.

 

[ScribePharisee]

Re: UPDATE: Sonics headed to OKC, money headed to Seattle

I blame Howard Schultz more than anyone, how do you sell a team to a guy that has no ties in your area and expect him to keep them here.

There you go. Where was his loyalty to Seattle? That comes before Bennett, who had none, obviously. But when did lying become an issue to NBA leadership? They've tolerated it on and off the court for some time.

Oklahoma City could have strong-armed its way to keeping the Hornets. They didn't.