Seattle Times' Steve Kelley, "David Stern says he expects Seattle to get another NBA team"

Let's recap David Stern's position, and observation of the two meaningful facts, arena+Steve Ballmer=Sonics 2.0
The fans will show up in Seattle to watch THEIR team, they did, they will again, or at lease some of the 1.2 million people expected to move into the Seattle metropolitan area over the next ten years will (isn't that roughly the size of the Oklahoma City media market?). Showing up, or not, to a meaningless preseason game between the hated Portland Trailblazers (you miss being hated, don't ya) and the Phoenix Suns (the home and away, back to back games with GP facing Jason Kidd were epic contests set in the dead of Winter).
Show up, don't, it does not matter to the Sonics chances. The Blazers would get more respect if they just showed up at Green Lake and played there for an hour, a preseason grab for fans - not so much.

From Steve Kelley's Seattle Times column are three things everybody should hold in their heads when when others around you are imagineering a different picture of the Sonics rising again.

"The next step is really the right putative owner, who really wants to have a team and is prepared to do what it takes, working together with the city, the state to get an arena and get the job done," he said. "I think ultimately there will be [another team in Seattle]. I really do."
. . .
"I don't want to put the whammy on him [Steve Ballmer]," Stern said, "but he'd be a hell of an owner."
. . .
I asked Stern if this could be considered a hopeful sign for those of us who want the league in our town.

"I think it's just an attempt by Portland to do the right thing and show fans a good time," Stern said.

He was asked if he was concerned about a possible boycott of that game.

"I think the fans are entitled to do whatever they want to do," he said, beginning to move away. "It is an independent city. It always has been and I hope it always will be."
Steve Kelley gets the point here!

Here was my email that I fired of AT Steve Kelley when he whined about a possible boycott of a possible meaningless Blazer game:
Mr. Kelley,
When you end your column with, 
"And look at it as a very small, but necessary, first step to welcoming back the NBA.", it capped so much that is wrong with your story.

The only first, and necessary first stem is to secure funding to remodel KeyArena. No matter how many fans attended games, protests, courtrooms, it will always and only come back to the arena.

You can call the Blazers your home team all you want, but the NBA will never call that arena a home in its current condition.

This game is no help to Seattle, just to Paul Allen's Portland Trailblazers, and sports writers.

Good luck putting lipstick on that pig.

Mike Baker
Seattle, Wa
Sonics fan

So, I will not expect Steve Balmer to Facebook Friend me anytime soon to lobby for that Blazer game.

Have a great day,
Mike Baker

Sent from my iPhone
Visit me here:
http://ManyWordsForRain.blogspot.com

Mr. Blazer, Steve Kelley, "Hatred for the NBA runs deep, but don't take it out on the players"

Steve Kelley, Mr. Blazer:
It isn't an insult. It's a gift. It shouldn't be boycotted. It should be celebrated.

Celebrated? The completion of the theft? The sent marking of Paul Allen's Portland Trailblazers on KeyArena?
If Steve Kelley is too cheap to go to Portland, then I guess we celebrate Steve Kelley saving a train ticket.

It's a night to put aside your anger at the NBA and acknowledge that, underneath that anger, a love of the game still smolders.

it is a night for you to open mouth kiss your sweetheart, pro sports, butter your bread Steve.

I'll always love this game, even as I detest many of the people who run it and ran it out of this town.

As a newspaper writer you will not give them any of your hard earned cash, so, maybe you are writing this column to other media peope?
I do not plan to give Paul Allen's Portland Trailblazers, an NBA franchise, a dime while SEATTLE does not have a SONICS home team.

As far as the anger is concerned, I'm with you.

In words but not deeds.

Read all about Mr. Blazer, here!

Have a great day,
Mike Baker

Sent from my iPhone
Visit me here:
http://ManyWordsForRain.blogspot.com

Thanks for making a Nightmare come true Greg Nickels

The Sonics are gone, but KeyArena will be the site of an exhibition Oct. 14 at KeyArena between their former Northwest rivals, the Portland Trail Blazers, and the Phoenix Suns.

Reported By Percy Allen, Seattle Times Newspaper

KeyArena is not good enough for the Sonics to call it home after 41 years. I see no good reason for the Portland Trailblazers to call it home for even one game.

The Mayor of Seattle, Greg Nickels sold out the lease two years early to franchise owners that have lost most of their wealth, to leave to a city struggling to pay for upgrades to the Ford Center.

Now that is a visionary, the guy that testified that "anything could happen" in those last two years choked.

Have a great day,
Mike Baker

Sent from my iPhone
Visit me here:
http://ManyWordsForRain.blogspot.com

SeattlePI.com: Wash. treasury to see further revenue decrease

The Special Session in October is timed to deal with the next economic forecast due September 27.

By then it should be clear that people are still not spending money they do not have on things people are too unsure that they should produce because there might not be a market for that unmade, unsold, not purchased, thing.

I'll offer KeyArena, and low-income housing as stimulus spending, using tourist taxes, as being a good idea.

Top lawmakers, meanwhile, said a special session of the Legislature is likely in October, if only to approve new school-spending and criminal justice policies that were not resolved during this year's regular legislative session.
www.seattlepi.com AP story linked here!

Have a great day,
Mike Baker

Sonics reach out to pet the dog, and the dog bits off 4.1 fingers

SEATTLE - ESPN 710's Kevin Calabro had the "Highly Anticipated" interview with NBA Commish David Stern on Friday, June 5th.

(Show link and audio ishere!)

There was nothing new in the interview. There was nothing new in the reaction of the callers to the radio station afterward, either.

I think a few thoughts before listening to any interview with David Stern, I think he:
Does not own an NBA team, so he can not make promises involving something he does not own.

When talking to the press about a particular franchise he is paid to always take the position of the owner of a given franchise, that is why it looks like he is talking out of both sides of his mouth, they are not his words.

When talking to a particular owner he is speaking on behalf of the other 29 other owners.

He has the right as the Commish to rule on arenas and the revenue the league requires. So, he has said KeyArena needs a remodel paid for by mostly public money (Howard Schultz), then a new arena paid for by public money (Clayton Bennett), then a remodel of KeyArena would be fine and only half public money paid on the common public portions (Steve Ballmer).

A privately funded building would be fine if it were fine with some owner.
KeyArena would be fine as-is if some owner were willing to pay the league the balance of the revenue they require (10's of millions of dollars every year).

When talking to anybody about Seattle he has said the same thing for 7 years, his personal opinion is that he would rather have a team here.
I think that when he does give just his opinion that he really does want that to happen.
The problem is, I think, that he is rarely, ever, giving his opinion.

His "power" comes from the owners supporting what he says and does, voting on what they want him to say and do, and hiring him to say and do it through 2010.

The situation reminds me of a joke:
David Stern is standing next to a dog.

Sonics fans walk up to Mr. Stern and say, "does your dog bite?".

Stern says, "No."

Sonics reach out to pet the dog, and the dog bits off 4.1 fingers.

Sonics fans yell at Stern, WHAT the heck is wrong with you, you said your dog does not bite!!!!

Stern replies, "That's not my dog."

Have a great day,
Mike Baker