Friday, April 27

Tale of Many Cities

The Sonics released yet another press release today (Team Motto: "Why talk when you can e-mail?") regarding the potential location(s) of the team in the future.

Not much in the way of news to be gleaned from the release. It concludes with this paragraph:

"At this time no one knows the confluence of events that could occur to land the teams in Oklahoma City. At this moment, everything is way too premature. While it looks bleak in Seattle, we are not ready to throw in the towel."

Wonder how the folks in OKC are going to enjoy being played against Kansas City and Las Vegas. Welcome to the show, Oklahoma, welcome to the show.

UPDATE! The Sonics have issued another press release!
This time, it's to state that yes, Lenny Wilkens is the official, fer-shure, no-foolin' President of Basketball Operations. Clay Bennett will remain President of Moving Operations. Nothing like making an announcement at quarter to 3 on a Friday to ensure that your team gets minimum exposure in the newspaper. Way to go, folks!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

$100 says that when eventually announce the team is moving to Las Vegas/OKC/Wherever, it comes in a press release.

Sean Hawkins said...

How can anyone even remain hopeful anymore? He's issuing press releases about potential new homes, yet he won't grab a mike or hold a press conference to announce his "pursuit of a championship"?? Is he that much afraid of our local media? And, he actually feels the need to placate the good 'ol boys of OKC that his Vegas talk is just part of exploring potential homes?? Great way to endear yourself to the city where the team is actually still located. What a joke.

I really doubt now that this is just part of the dance, or as Margarita Prentice says, this is where the real negotiations take place. BS. It's plain as day, as Nussbaum wrote earlier, this thing is 100% straight out of "Moving your franchise for dummies" handbook.

What a stuffed-shirt COWARD. He's the type of guy that would rather hide in the corner office and send threatening e-mails rather than confront anything face-to-face. Congrats Clay. You are well on your way to replacing Ken Behring as Seattle's most hated.

Anonymous said...

Does this mean that Craig Ehlo will be the color commentator next year?

Or will the team abandon broadcasts entirely and issue scores and highlights via press release? It seems to be their favorite way to communicate these days.

Anonymous said...

Ack, Craig Ehlo! I'll wager that Bob Weiss will fill the void. They're already paying anyways, right?

E. Day said...

I don't know if you guys are onto this already, but the Field of Schemes blog is doing some good coverage of the arena situation. Seems like Bennett is only one of many parties with a say in the future of the team.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the tip, e. I'd been reading Field of Schemes religiously for a while back when there was more of a debate over whether the team should get a publicly funded stadium. I gave up reading it when I stopped writing about the merits of teams asking for $$ from public entities (I think we can all agree that everyone's opinions are fixed on this); thanks for the link, because now I have a good reason to continue to read it.