Now that the city of Seattle has settled its lawsuit against Supersonics’ owner Clay Bennett, the team might be on its way to Oklahoma City beginning with 2008-09 season. On July 2, just before a federal judge was to render her decision on the suit, Bennett agreed to pay Seattle a total of $75 million in exchange for the city allowing his team to break the final two years of its lease at KeyArena. When Bennett first announced his plans to move the team to Oklahoma City, Seattle sued to force it to honor the two remaining years of the lease by staying put through the 2009-10 season. The move was approved by a vote of 28-2 by the NBA’s Board of Governors back in April.
However, the move is not quite a done deal yet because of another pending lawsuit. Former Sonics owner Howard Schultz had filed suit against Bennett in an effort to rescind his sale of the team. Schultz’s suit alleges that Bennett did not negotiate in good faith when offering to buy the team, i.e., he intended all along to move it to Oklahoma City, while claiming that he would do everything in his power to keep the team in Seattle. Schultz says he does not want the team back permanently, but rather intends to immediately turn around and sell it to a local ownership group that is committed to keep the team in Seattle. This suit is scheduled to be heard later this summer.
At any rate, should Schultz’s suit fail and the team ultimately move to Oklahoma City this fall, the NBA would allow Seattle to keep the team’s name, history, logo, and colors, which could be used for a franchise it might get via expansion or relocation in the future. Bennett would have to come up with a new name, logo, and color scheme for his franchise. This is similar to what the NFL did in 1996 when the original Cleveland Browns moved to Baltimore. Cleveland got an expansion Browns franchise in 1999 as a replacement. Of course, Cleveland was promised that it would get this new team at the time of the move, and it was also given a timeframe as to when the team would arrive. However, no such thing would be promised to Seattle. All NBA Commissioner David Stern will say is that Seattle would be eligible for another franchise within five years if it either rebuilds KeyArena or provides a whole new venue that meets the league’s specifications by the end of 2009.
In addition, the NBA should be prepared to realign four of its divisions due to the geographical impact of the move. The Seattle franchise currently resides in the Western Conference’s Northwest Division. Oklahoma City would not be a very good fit for this division. Instead, it belongs in the Southwest Division of that same conference. Therefore, I propose the following four moves as part of a mini-realignment of the league’s division: Put Oklahoma City in the Southwest Division; move Memphis from the Southwest Division to the Eastern Conference’s Southeast Division; move Washington from the Southeast Division to the Eastern Conference’s Central Division (where it was before the last realignment); and move Milwaukee from the Central Division to take Seattle’s place in the Northwest Division (The Bucks spent the first 10+ seasons of their existence in the Western Conference anyway, so they would just be returning to their roots). So the affected divisions would appear as follows:
Eastern Conference
Central Division
Chicago Bulls
Cleveland Cavaliers
Detroit Pistons
Indiana Pacers
Washington Wizards
Southeast Division
Atlanta Hawks
Charlotte Bobcats
Memphis Grizzlies
Miami Heat
Orlando Magic
Western Conference
Southwest Division
Dallas Mavericks
Houston Rockets
New Orleans Hornets
Oklahoma City
San Antonio Spurs
Northwest Division
Denver Nuggets
Milwaukee Bucks
Minnesota Timberwolves
Portland Trailblazers
Utah Jazz
---
Save up to 70% on Insurance! Free Instant Quotes. Auto, Home, Health, Life, and More.
Wow! You really screwed the TrailBlazers. Do you hate them for having a good franchise? Not only are Minnesota and Milwaukee 2000 miles away but they are two time zones away. Milwaukee isn't even west of the Mississippi River! A 7:00 game would start at 5:00pm in Portland. Great for the ratings. Denver is far enough to fly. What other team would even come close to having to travel so much? Plus Portland has no natural regional rivalry with Milwaukee. Nor Minnesota for that matter. And I don't think any of those teams besides Portland would consider themselves to be in the Northwest.
Putting Portland in the Pacific with the California teams puts all the Pacific Ocean state teams in the same division. Furthest divisional foe is about 1000 miles and in the same time zone. Move Phoenix to the SW and create a new West division from the old NW division. Portland's flight times would be cut in half and regional rivalries would be re-kindled.
Here's my list:
Southwest
Dallas
Houston
New Orleans
Phoenix
San Antonio
West
Denver
Minnesota
Oklahoma City
Memphis
Utah
Pacific
Golden State
Los Angeles
Los Angeles
Portland
Sacramento
Posted by: Brian Dukleth | October 02, 2008 at 02:42 PM
Wow! You really screwed the TrailBlazers. Do you hate them for having a good franchise? Not only are Minnesota and Milwaukee 2000 miles away but they are two time zones away. Milwaukee isn't even west of the Mississippi River! A 7:00 game would start at 5:00pm in Portland. Great for the ratings. Denver is far enough to fly. What other team would even come close to having to travel so much? Plus Portland has no natural regional rivalry with Milwaukee. Nor Minnesota for that matter. And I don't think any of those teams besides Portland would consider themselves to be in the Northwest.
Putting Portland in the Pacific with the California teams puts all the Pacific Ocean state teams in the same division. Furthest divisional foe is about 1000 miles and in the same time zone. Move Phoenix to the SW and create a new West division from the old NW division. Portland's flight times would be cut in half and regional rivalries would be re-kindled.
Here's my list:
Southwest
Dallas
Houston
New Orleans
Phoenix
San Antonio
West
Denver
Minnesota
Oklahoma City
Memphis
Utah
Pacific
Golden State
Los Angeles
Los Angeles
Portland
Sacramento
Posted by: Brian Dukleth | October 02, 2008 at 02:43 PM
Brian, your realignment plan does make sense. BTW, I'm not the one who hates Portland -- it's the NBA owners who allowed Seattle to move to Oklahoma (not a major league) City. This move is going to come back to haunt them. Just wait and see.
Posted by: Terry Mitchell | October 03, 2008 at 08:16 AM
Once the Kings move to KC it'll be easy.
Atlantic:
Boston
New Jersey
New York
Washington
Central:
Chicago
Cleveland
Detroit
Indiana
Toronto
Southeast:
Atlanta
Charlotte
Memphis
Miami
Orlando
Southwest:
Dallas
Houston
Oklahoma City
New Orleans
San Antonio
Northwest:
Denver
Kansas City
Milwaukee
Minnesota
Utah
Pacific:
Golden State
L.A. Clippers
L.A. Lakers
Phoenix
Portland
That makes way more sense.
Posted by: kombayn | May 29, 2009 at 10:24 AM
I agree with kombayn. It makes sense at all..
Posted by: cheap fioricet | August 17, 2009 at 12:31 AM