sucks to be a seattle fan... im rooting for okc, simply because i despise how the heat came together... simply crushed cleveland and toronto as well... somewhat crushed us because we lost that damn ipad... i feel simpathy for seattle... hopefully they get a professional basketball team, after Las Vegas...
I don't remember, but was Seattle's last season a lame duck season? I forget if it was announced before the start of Seattle's last season that they were moving. Because, if this is the case, then drawing around 65-70 percent would be pretty good considering.
I don't blame them. But I am still rooting for OKC. The players have nothing to do with the move. And I can't root for the Heat.
That's such a misleading stat. The team had already started building their new arena in OKC and had NBA owner approval (28-2) to relocate. The city sued to get them to play one more year (of the three they had left on their lease), but it was a dead man walking season where everyone had started to give up on the team. The Sonics were already out the door at the point. I went to fan appreciation night when the Rockets came to town, and it was like a funeral. One of my favorite football moments is watching the Titans come up a yard short in the Super Bowl.
TBH, I like Lebron compared to Wade. Wade's of the court and on the court antics make it easy to root against him. I laughed so hard when he cried in pain in Toyota Center.
Nah they sucked anyways. Never heard of the Sonics. BC Lions, the Whitecaps are plenty for me. I may be wrong...but don't we also have a pretty good hockey team?
Really? When the Cardinals moved to Phoenix I was furious. I laughed every year they failed, and I was still pissed when they got to the Superbowl in 2008-09. They can suck my ****. NEVER FORGET
The team was sold to Clay Bennett, who then made a sham effort to get a new arena built in the greater Seattle metropolitan area. When that failed he made an immediate play to relocate as everyone knew he would. The Sonics still had three years left on their deal at Key Arena. They had approval by the NBA owners and an agreement with OKC to build a new arena, but Seattle sued to keep them playing in Key Arena another year. The team had a hard time selling season tickets that last year, and the team tried to sell more seats by committing to staying through the end of their lease and trying to stay in Seattle (email correspondence proved their owners had no intention of doing these things). Nonetheless, it was a dead season when everyone knew the team was leaving. I felt rotten cheering for the Rockets at Key Arena. It felt like picking on a kid who just lost a family member. After that last season, there were a flurry of lawsuits. Former owner Schultz sued to save face by claiming Bennett bought the team under false pretenses, Seattle sued to keep the team for the duration of its lease in Key Arena, and season ticket holders sued for false advertising in that the team marketed that they would stay or try to stay longer. Schultz dropped his lawsuit, I want to say season ticketholders had theirs thrown out, and the city of Seattle settled with Bennett. The Thieves got to relocate immediately, Seattle got a cash payment, if a new arena was built within a few years Seattle got more money (this didn't happen), and the city retained the right to the team name and colors.
Seattle, more importantly, does get to keep the history. All of OKC's records are set in OKC, meaning that the all-time Thunder scorer is Kevin Durant with 51 points, the first time they made the playoffs was 2009, and they have never won a ring. Of course, until a team moves back to Seattle and inheirits all the Thunder left behind, fans and media will still consider all of those things to belong to the Thunder.
The first arena vote failed for a lot of the same reasons the first arena vote failed in Houston. The team had 5 years left on their Key Arena lease, and the taxpayers didn't feel like a new arena was needed or could be easily afforded. A lot of property taxes had already gone up for light rail, and we were still paying off a football stadium and a baseball field. There's a pretty strong libertarian anti-tax sentiment in Washington. It skews a lot more liberal in Seattle. People will vote heartily for tax increases for schools, arts, and parks, but if you try to raise taxes for stadiums it's a harder sell. There also was no concern that local boy Howard Schultz would move the franchise. Then he sold it to Clay Bennett, who had every intention to move the team. I think if the first arena deal was put back on the table, it might have passed although it would have been close. Bennett immediately pissed off all the local and state government officials he could by acting like a prick in negotiations. He bypassed Seattle and made a sham proposal to build a nearly billion dollar arena in Renton, which is 20 miles south of Seattle. For a viable arena to happen, it would need to be within easy public transportation for most of the city. Downtown by the stadiums would be ideal. That arena deal was opposed by all the Seattle government as well as all the key state officials. It never even got to a vote by the public. Bennett claimed arena negotiations failed, and he was off for OKC with Stern's approval.
Benett was a prick but I suppose if Seattle had ponied up for a stadium earlier it never would have gotten to that point.
Municipalities shouldn't finance arenas anyway. Especially not after this sham of a lockout we had this season. As much as I love my team, there's no way you could ever get me to vote to subsidize a billionaire's vanity project just so he could hold out to pay his employees less, and if you do, you're a straight idiot.
