Seattle Arena

Potential Sacramento Kings Sale to Seattle Sonics Ownership Group Recap for January 9

Published January 9, 2013 | By Casey McLain | Posted in Sonics

If you’ve turned on a TV or radio today you know that there is a story permeating all genres of media that the Sacramento Kings have been to Chris Hansen’s group of future NBA owners. It seems like at this point those reports were premature, but that in some way, shape, or form the Maloofs—who presently own the Kings, and who have lost a significant portion of their fortune since the recession—are negotiating with the group.

Supposedly the Hansen group offered $500 million, and supposedly the Maloofs turned it down. Kevin Johnson is operating under the assumption—albeit feverishly—that the team hasn’t been sold yet. But they are for sale, there’s no denying that at this point.

Here’s a brief summary of what else we know, or what some people think they know, or what some people are saying they know, or whatever:

This all started January 8 when Daina Falk, the daughter of NBA agent David Falk, posted these tweets (they’ve since been deleted, hat tip to Seattle Sports Agents for taking the screen capture)

The story was significantly legitimized when Adrian Wojnarowski posted this story on Yahoo! Sports stating:

The Maloof family is finalizing an agreement to sell the Sacramento Kings to a group that hopes to move the franchise to Seattle for the 2013-14 season, league sources told Yahoo! Sports.

The deal will sell the Kings for approximately $500 million to a group led by hedge-fund manager Chris Hansen and Microsoft chairman Steve Ballmer. The group is seeking to relocate the franchise to Seattle’s KeyArena for the 2013-14 season.

The Seattle group’s plans, with support of the NBA, is to play two seasons in KeyArena before moving into a new Seattle arena, sources said.

No agreement has been signed, but one source with knowledge of… Continue reading →

Kings Arena Deal Dead in Sacramento, Again

Published July 6, 2012 | By Joseph Chong | Posted in NBA, Sonics

Back on April 13, 2012, the Maloof brothers reneged their contributions for their new arena at the Downtown Sacramento Railyards after the Arena deal seemed ready to go in February. After the arena deal was reneged, Sacramento’s Mayor Kevin Johnson declared the end of a relationship with the Maloofs after fighting to keep the Kings from moving to Anaheim in April of 2011.

As of now, the Kings are going to play the 2012-2013 season with many questions to be answered by the end of the year.

With the Maloofs reportedly over $200 million in debt from the NBA and City of Sacramento combined and no support for relocations to Anaheim, there has been raising questions on whether they were going to sell the team.

According to Joe Maloof after the drafting of Thomas Robinson 5^th overall pick from Kansas:

“We’re not going anywhere. We’re not moving. We’re not selling. We’re going to fix our team-that’s what we’re going to do.”

But can Thomas Robinson really turn this franchise around with a very low payroll and a young team? Recently Tyreke Evans has been rumored to be on the trading block with the Kings not having the money to extend his contract. As long as the Maloofs are stuck with Power Balance Pavilion, it looks like the Kings are going to be stuck in the draft with a very limited ability to sign any players in the free agent market.

FINALLY…..

Kevin Johnson’s “Plan B” to build the new arena has been declared dead as of July 3^,2012. The second option for a new arena for the Sacramento Kings or any other professional sports tenant-never really took shape, Johnson stated “The city and arena operator AEG have concluded that the financial model is not viable… Continue reading →

From NBA Finals to NBA Beginnings: Positivity Is Key As Thunder in Finals, and NBA Prospects in Seattle Begin

Published June 12, 2012 | By Kris "Sonics Guy" Brannon | Posted in NBA, Sonics

Oh, the good old days.

This is the toughest column I’ve ever had to write. I knew I would one day eventually have to write this but I thought it would take longer for this event to happen. The team we loved and cared for 41 years is now again in the NBA Finals, but this time in a different city with different colors.

Until recently I had a newspaper clipping on my fridge that was from the first year of the Thunder playing when they were truly a team rebuilding. It talks about how they fell short to Dallas and their record dropped to 2-22.

The growing pains of that first season in Oklahoma City were plentiful for a while there I thought they may break old record for losses in an NBA Season. However the Thunder slightly improved through that year and never really challenged the old 76ers record of 9-73 in a season or the percentage of the Bobcats in the shortened season last year

I knew I would have to write about Oklahoma City being in the NBA Finals, but it only be after the Sonics had won a couple of more Championships right? We would have our history back and have a 3-0 lead on the Thunder for NBA Titles that would make these words I’m writing less painful.

Alas, I cannot delivery the news that way.

The Thunder are poised on the doorstep of a championship the only thing standing in their way is the team that everybody else (myself included) until a few days ago hated: the Miami Heat. I guess you could call me a prophet–I predicted that I would be cheering for LeBron at the end of the year to stop the Thunder–and here it… Continue reading →

SoDo Arena Plan Moves Forward with Memorandum of Understanding

Published May 22, 2012 | By Kris "Sonics Guy" Brannon | Posted in NBA, Sonics

I just feel great about being able to bring news of a new basketball team coming to the area is getting closer to reality every day. The latest arena meeting I went to was the MOU (Memo of Understanding) it sounds very Seattle in its name, but it’s really a comprehensive deal between the county, city and the investors lead by Chris Hansen.

The back of the one and only Sonics Guy, who has the most famous back to hit the Seattle Times since Randy Johnson.

When I arrived at the meeting there was a buzz of anticipation in the air. Media cameras waited to capture something interesting luckily myself and two other members of Bring Back Our Sonics entered fully dressed in green and gold. The cameras got their wish as they snapped numerous pictures of us Superfans. Their were some seats available in the front row so we sat down waiting for the Seattle Big Three to come in Dow Constantine, (King County Executive) Mike McGinn (Seattle Mayor) and Chris Hansen.

When they came in I almost had to sit on my hands to stop cheering too loudly. The first one to speak was Constantine. He complimented us on our outfits and thanked us as fans for stopping by. He talked about how this was a great deal for the county. He then introduced the mayor who proceeded to mention how this deal will bring NBA and NHL back to the Emerald City. One of the interesting things he said was whenever he talks to kids the first question they always ask is “When will get the Sonics back?”

After the Mayor, the Man of the Hour took to the podium. I felt like he was really connecting on all the good points he was… Continue reading →

Hair of the Dog: Links From the Week, Volume 1

Published May 20, 2012 | By Casey McLain | Posted in Mariners, Seahawks, Sonics

For quite a while, I’ve been contemplating a link article that would come out once a week. Believe it or not, they take a whole bunch of time even though I’m not actually doing any original analysis, and am instead looking at other people’s stuff and linking to it.

It’s called Hair of the Dog as an homage to my college radio days, when I did a morning show by the same name. This is the Urban Dictionary definition of the phrase:

An alcoholic beverage consumed as a hangover remedy. The phrase comes from the expression “hair of the dog that bit you”, meaning that the best cure for what ails you is to have some more of it. In ancient times it was literally used to say that if a dog were to bite you, putting the dog’s hair into the wound would heal it. “Like cures like”. This hangover remedy is not recommended because a) it leads to a bad habit of drinking during the day and b)it doesn’t really work very well. Still, this method works about as well as most other hangover remedies.

So basically, this will be an article of links from the last week. Sometimes the links will be from longer ago than that, because sometimes I’m behind the times.

Alas, commence linkage:

Chone Figgins has been quite terrible since coming to Seattle. There’s no doubt about that. I mean sure, signing him made a ton of sense, he figured to equal Adrian Beltre’s defense and be marginally better at the plate, but it didn’t work out that way. At very beginning of the season though Figgins was playing well, and Northwest Kingdome created perhaps the most accurate video depicting Mariners fan emotion when Figgins does anything good, ever. (I’m watching it again… Continue reading →