Trial Delayed?

Hard to say at this point, but the City of Seattle filed a motion in Federal Court yesterday asking for the trial to be delayed by six months should Judge Pechman agree with the Sonics' recent motion requesting the amount of money be decided at the conclusion of the trial.

To give a quick synopsis, the team is asking for Pechman to render a decision on 1) the trial and, should the Sonics emerge victorious, 2) the amount of money the city should be compensated should the team leave prior to the end of their lease.

Keep in mind that this motion to delay only comes into affect if Pechman agrees with the team, which is no surety. Should Pechman decided that the team's request is not merited, then this delay becomes moot. In a way, if Pechman agrees with the team's request, then agrees with the city's request to delay the trial, Clay Bennett is going to be awful ticked at his lawyers for even bringing this issue up, as their idea to speed up the process by including the money with the trial will have had the unintended affect of ruining any chance they had of playing in Oklahoma City this fall.

In other trial-related news, the company which compiled a market study of Seattle v Oklahoma City for the NBA has objected to Seattle's subpoena for said study, citing client confidentiality and a lack of adequate response time. The NBA also objected, in that the study would reveal that moving a team from Seattle to Oklahoma City would, in the words of the study, "be as dumb as putting a team on the moon."

I kid, of course.

And, finally, some people look to swallows returning to Capistrano, or seeing a robin in the front yard as an indication of spring arriving. Me? I look for the "Will George Karl Get Canned?" headline to let me know it's time to break out the shorts and clean up the barbecue.