Milwaukee Bucks sold

It's not about correcting the wrong, as if the NBA has some sort of moral standard for doing business. It's about who is willing to work with the league. Seattle as a city didn't want to work with the league with its public financing of the arena, so they are now out of a team. Sacramento, led by Kevin Johnson on the other hand, worked with David Stern every step of the way, and thus saved their team.

If Milwaukee as a city plays hard ball with the NBA, probably out of necessity since it's a rapidly declining city with a slowing economic engine, the NBA will move it out of there in no time.

 

Exactly - the rhetoric about cities "stepping up to the plate" to keep their teams is a smokescreen. As it stands, the NBA is operating on a business model of pure profit when municipalities spend their taxpayer money on buildings that send private profits to owners. Arguments about jobs, investment, etc. are, by and large, rhetorical smoke screens for billionaire owners who could, but don't want to, build their own arenas.

I link to this site in every relocation/stadium thread because it is always relevant - http://www.fieldofschemes.com/ - Field of Schemes does a great job of chronicling all owners' maneuvers to hoodwink cities out of money that could be spent on bettering the lives of people that live there.

I think many American cities are souring on the idea of using public funds to build private arenas. There was a bubble in the late 1990s up until the construction of Marlins Stadium in Miami. The team fleeced the city so badly on that deal that other places are more reluctant to pay for future stadiums. It doesn't help when teams like the Dolphins plead poverty only to afford their own improvements in the end or the Bobcats, who play in the third-youngest NBA arena, suddenly want $41.9 million from the city of Charlotte .

 

I don't believe that. I think Sacramento won out because the city and the new buyers were willing to bend over. The league might have had a slight bias for staying, but wouldn't have blinked at moving if they didn't get all the concessions they got.

If Seattle is willing to play ball.

 

Milwaukee doesn't need a team anymore, it's a dying city

 

Greek freak, Hensen and the incoming no.1 pick...Future looking bright for MIL.

 

Only guaranteed a 25% chance at No. 1 pick, but picks 2-4 should be good as well.

 

FIFY, it was never about a change of direction, it was always the exact same MO.

 

Detroit next to move? That city has one of the worst economic situations for a major city.

 

Drayton McLane could've done something similar to keep the Astros in the NL. I'm still steamed about how all of that went down.

 

Knight
Wiggins
Alphabet
Henson
Sanders.

Knight
Alphabet
Parker
Henson
Sanders

These are solid EC starting lineups. And that frontcourt is poised to give Miami trouble, should LeBron / Wade / Bosh all stay.

 

Herb Kohl was a freaking US Senator from Milwaukee and has invested millions in the city over time. He has a lot of loyalty to Milwaukee and the state of Wisconsin.

I never had the feeling that Drayton cared about Houston and the team the way Herb Kohl does.

 

$200m in private money for an arena that'll probably cost $400-500m total? That sounds like a better-than-average deal for an arena nowadays.

 

Milwaukee has history in basketball. don't think it's a declining city either. look at the brewers. they just need to get a new building and decent team to get the fans back. when the big 3 were playing, they never had trouble with fans.

 

I read somewhere that Herb Kohl might build a new arena with some of the team sales and write it off as charity on his taxes- and that both him and the league as a whole benefit from having a high sticker price for that reason.

The NBA will try as hard as possible not to have the Sonics come back, because the threat of the Seattle billionaires trying to buy a team starts a massive bidding war and raises the price (and thus value) of every team on the market. If Seattle had a team, there'd be no one to raise the bids.