Liar! No self-respecting Oregonian from LO would ever live in Milwaukie. Ah.... I see what I did there.
The latest is that Sacramento is hoping to have a final sales deal negotiated with the Maloofs prior to the May 15 BoG meeting (http://www.sacbee.com/2013/05/01/5384875/sacramento-investors-shooting.html). From a contractual standpoint, I'd be pretty surprised if the no shop provision in the signed Hansen contract allows that, given that the Sac offer is lower $ value and the NBA has not yet rejected the Hansen offer (Monday was only a committee recommendation.) Usually the new offer would have to be superior to the one in the signed contract or Hansen would need to give approval to the Maloofs for them to negotiate with Ranadive. It's also coming to light that the finance committee silence/no vote taken was a surprise to everyone (it sure was to me.) The theory is that the NBA is likely aware they're on thin ice outright rejecting the the superior Seattle offer and is hoping that Hansen and crew quietly surrender/walk away. The problem with the NBA approach is that they're not giving Hansen an alternative. They have pretty strongly taken expansion off the table, no other teams appear to be available for sale, and even if Hansen's group could cut a deal to buy, they'd still be stuck in the same situation as they've been in Sacramento, which means the Hansen group gets the team only if the current city fails to come up with an alternative. I wonder if Hansen and crew are considering buying the team and agreeing to keep the team there if the proposed arena is built as planned. General consensus is that Sac has greatly over-estimated revenues (from parking) and greatly underestimated costs of building the arena in the downtown retail area. No one seems to think the arena will get built as proposed and that the proposal was made to be as glossy as possible purely for the NBA's current dog and pony show. Last thing, the morning show guy seemed to think that a vote was not taken or that the vote was not truly unanimous. I've worked with a fair number of companies/boards of directors and it's pretty rare in that context that votes are actually tabulated. More often than not, the group reaches consensus and passes a resolution without having each member raise his/her hand. Obviously, I have zero idea how the NBA conducts its meetings, but I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of the committee said they'd vote for Sac and that the mechanical vote never happened. This wouldn't impact the result of the committee's decision, but it could be important from the standpoint of counting votes when the BoG has its vote. Again, I'd love it if they make Stern sweat...he's too smug and I don't like his games.
I think the NBA just fucked themselves. This has Antitrust lawsuit written all over it and I think the Seattle group will sue.
In the past, Stern has been able to convince people not to take that approach (likely with a veiled threat not to burn bridges.) This time, he's not offering up real alternatives and Hansen, Balmer and the Nordstrom's might decide it's the best option. Sitting on the sideline and watching it all, I think I'd probably go the legal route. There are a lot of bad facts against Stern and the NBA on this one.
The latest (http://blog.seattlepi.com/sonics/20...-no-acceptable-deal-possible-with-sacramento/) is that the Maloofs don't want to sell to the Sac group, who have not matched the Hansen deal. “There is no acceptable deal possible” with the Sacramento group, a Maloof family spokesperson told Reuters, “and no serious desire by the Sacramento group to arrive at one. It has become too onerous for us to continue spending time and resources on a process that cannot succeed.”
They should just call the team the Sacattle Sonikings and play half the games in each city. Problem solved.
Seems like this thing will take one of three directions over the next couple weeks: 1. Stern will work his usual tricks (or magic, if you're a fan of him), keep the owners in line and manage Hansen and the Maloof so that they quietly go along with him. 2. The owners vote differently than the relocation committee recommendation or otherwise reign in Stern. It's possible all the owners are in agreement with his handling of the sale and the precedence he's setting, but I've got to think there's a good chance that they disagree with him. Stern has a gag order on the owners so that they have to pay a fine if they talk publicly, which means they'd be more likely to handle it internally/nonpublicly if they do decide to make him revise the process, including having the finance committee have its say. Sterns been using up some of the favors he's given over the years (hello, Clay Bennett!) and it'll be interesting to see if that runs out. 3. No change in stance from the NBA so Hansen, Balmer and crew let it play out and then go the legal route if necessary. There seems to be some question whether the Ranadive will have the money in escrow in the next two days. I'd be surprised if Ranadive fails to make it, but that would change the scene big time. Obviously, I think #1 is most likely to happen, but there's a lot of room for things to go sidewise.
It's already been thrown out there that if Hansen gets the team but it's stuck in Sac that they should become the Seattle Sonics of Sacramento.
The PI has added a note at the top of the story that they think Reuters re-cycled an old story and that the Maloof quote is from a couple weeks ago.
Latest Seattle sports radio scoop is that Hansen is still trying to close the Kings sale, even if it means he has to keep the team in Sac. Best guess is that he'll keep the team there if the arena is built as proposed and he'll move the team if it doesn't. No one seems to think the current Sac arena is remotely feasible (projected costs underestimated and projected revenue from parking overestimated.) Edit: And, yes, it's like the chairman of the relocation committee is trying to create the same disastrous scheme that he used to pull the Sonics from Seattle in the first place. Only difference is that Clay was demanding a ridiculous arena/financing structure so that local politicians would reject it. In this case, it's the local politicians creating a ridiculous arena/financing structure to sway the NBA.
A couple of updates: - The BoG will vote on the Hansen sale on May 15 (http://seattletimes.com/html/nba/2020935338_kings07.html). The Stern process is questionable, but not surprising given what we've seen the last couple of months...he's pretty clearly engineered the process to get the result he wanted. Don't even bother with the Hansen purchase agreement (because Hansen/Balmer would be difficult to reject) and instead focus on relocation because that is more likely to give him the result he wants. - The proposed Sac group agreed to forego revenue sharing that it's been receiving (this has been a big gripe of the bigger market teams) and agreed to cover a "significant portion" of cost overruns on the arena. I'm a little surprised about the overruns part...I'd thought the city was going to be stuck with that. Best guess is that the Sac group made a deal with KJ so that they will deal with cost overruns and KJ will deal with the over-optimistic revenue predictions from parking. It's also hard to know what to make of the "significant portion" part...is it a capped amount so that Ranadive has certainty or are they covering a percentage? - There seems to be no further discussion about the Maloofs being stuck with a lower $ return because of the forced move to the Sac group. There is also no mention of the $30M deposit being returned to Hansen or the $15M from the 7% ownership acquisition being returned to Hansen. Is Stern handling these directly on the down low or is he hoping both the Hansen/Balmer group and the Maloofs quietly fall in line? Guess we'll find out between now and next week.
This has turned from what should have been fairly cut and dry into a very murky and unsual handling of the whole situation. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2
It seems that way to me, but I can't tell if I'm objective about it or if too much biased Seattle sports talk radio is affecting me lol. I'd love to know what's really going on right now, especially what's happening with (1) Hansen/Balmer interactions with Stern, (2) Maloof interactions with Stern, and (3) Ranadive negotiation of purchase terms with the Maloofs. I'd think (3) possibly isn't happening because it'd be precluded by the Hansen purchase agreement.
