Randy Youngman's article yesterday made it seem even more one-sided, if you ask me:

www.ocregister.com/sports/maloofs-298367-arena-sacramento.html

Through all of this, Neil, you haven't fully credited one other factor: We have a very motivated Samueli, and an extremely motivated Maloof family.

That makes all the difference.

KJ's idea for a JPA will not fly. There really is nothing in it for the very diverse six-county region outlined a few days ago. I mean, Yuba County? Really?? You ever been to Linda?

If it were up to Samueli and the Maloofs, I have no doubt you'd be right. But the Lakers, Clippers, and NBA are also all extremely motivated, and I don't see the league shoving the Kings down the L.A. teams' throats until they've eliminated Sacramento as an option, and clearly they don't think they've done that.

To expand on Youngman, the choices for the Maloofs are: 1) Don't file on Monday, play nice, and wait till next year; 2) File on Monday as a weak form of protest, then wait till next year; 3) File on Monday and fight tooth and nail, through the courts if necessary, to force the NBA to allow a move. Since I doubt option 3 would move quickly enough to get the Kings to Anaheim this fall anyway, I'm anticipating either 1 or 2, and in terms of outcomes it doesn't really matter which one. Either way, it's Sacramento comes up with an arena plan by next March, or we go through this thing all over again then.

What if they can prove to a court that forcing them to stay one more year is what drove them to bankruptcy? Because that's next. Betcha the NBA and the City wouldn't prefer that outcome.

It's really ridiculous that one team would have that much power. If one team can move itself to a City of 15 million, and then say, "This all belongs to us; if you move in, you owe us your first-born children for the next 3 generations", that just strikes me as unfair and wrong. The fact that the LA area has 1.5 teams right now doesn't change that argument.

There's only one thing that should drive this: Is there a market for this? If the answer is yes, let 'em move. Allowing a local monopoly "because we want it" isn't good enough. I hope the rest of the league has the wisdom to see that.

I mean, geez, this looks like 100% private financing has come along to bolster the revenues of a publicly-owned facility. Isn't that the sort of reverse-scheme we all want? That's the main point of this website, isn't it? No more public funding?

So a billionaire comes along and invests what looks like could be $200M to reverse-public an arena, and people complain? I don't get it.

There's also this:

www.sacbee.com/2011/04/29/3588085/sacramento-budget-proposes-deep.html

That's just the kind of thing people are tired of from KJ: Plenty of time to deal with an arena, even in the face of budget shortfalls.

It's ludicrous.

And I recognize I'm lecturing. Sorry.

Mike, I know you're an Anaheim supporter, but it doesn't appear the Kings will be playing 2011-12 in Anaheim regardless of what happens. The league will block it if they do file necessitating a long costly court fight should the Maloofs really want to push the issue. And money is the one thing they seem short of these days. Doesn't rule out 2012-13 if Sacramento fails to make progress in the next 9 months. However they've made some interesting progress in the last 2 weeks that the Maloofs would have claimed in March were not possible. I mean hell, Sac already has Burkle who is very interested in buying the team (an easy out for the Maloofs), and now they've supposedly got a private equity firm that is willing to match Samueli's offer and a possible second arena plan. The big question for the Maloofs really isn't where they want the team, it's which of the three offers do they want to take for their team. One of the two in Sac where they lose the team quickly, or Samueli's where they lose it a little more slowly to him when they can't pay back his loans (which frankly will happen faster now under this newest Samueli plan).

www.fox40.com/news/headlines/ktxl-fox40-exclusive-new-plan-to-keep-kings-in-sacramento-20110428,0,7739490.htmlstory

This is a really dumb move on the part of the Maloofs -- but it sure signals their intent:

www.ocregister.com/sports/jackson-298491-lakers-kings.html

You could very well be correct, Dan, the Kings could easily be in Sac for the lockout season next year, but it will very clearly be against their will, and could crush them financially.

It'll be one year, with the worst "fan experience" in league history. It'll make Donald Sterling's worst year for customer service look like the Orlando Magic's best.

Forcing them to say is sooooo stupid, I can hardly believe they're even thinking about it.

Is this about forcing the Maloofs to sell? I sure hope so. That would be ideal; Kings stay, Maloofs go, someone privately finances an arena. Perfect.

But forcing them to stay, then them not selling, not coming up with an arena plan in 10 months when they've failed for 14 years, and doing what they plan to do to prove their point? NOT WINNING!

Mike,

The only result that would be "unfair and wrong" is if Sacramento wasn't given another year to put together an arena deal. Kings fans have put up with bad owners (the Maloofs are actually an improvement on the previous owner, Jim Thomas), bad teams, a bad arena... and yet we still support our team more loyally and passionately than any fans in the NBA. KJ found $10 million in additional corporate support over a few weeks, a local DJ (Carmichael Dave) raised another $1 million through Facebook in $20 increments. Burkle and others have stepped up and offered to buy the Kings and keep them in Sacramento where they belong. KJ got unanimous support from the Sac City Council for the arena study and has organized an unprecedented level of political support for the Kings in the six county area. David Taylor's Icon group waived their usual fees to conduct the feasibility study. Not long ago David Stearn referred to Sac as a "model" NBA city, and he was right. After visiting Sac last week Clay Bennett said he had never seen anything like our "Here We Purple" community support campaign. In other words, the only fairness question that really counts is whether it would be fair to take the Kings from Sacramento without at least giving the community another year to put together an arena deal. The answer is no, that wouldn't be fair. I have no doubt that Anaheim is a viable NBA market and I agree that Jerry Buss shouldn't be able to block any team from ever moving there. But the Kings belong in Sacramento, period.

Mike, it may or may not be about getting the Maloofs out. Only the NBA knows.

I will repeat what I said last week, though: the Maloof's desperation doesn't and shouldn't lead the NBA to jump through hoops to help them. There are other (better) potential owners out there for this club, whether they stay in Sacramento, move to Anaheim, or any one of a number of other places.

Allowing the Maloofs to move on the cheap/quick could well help them a great deal. Is that the right thing to do for the NBA (which is a franchise operation, like most other leagues)?

These aren't fully independent businesses. Put another way, if the NBA at some point decides to move a club to Anaheim, what makes the Kings think that right is theirs? If the market was presently vacant (IE: no lakers, no clippers), it might be a different story. But the proposed market is anything but vacant.

Maybe they can "pull a clippers/raiders", but that's a move for a well funded owner who can fight the inevitable string of lawsuits. Doesn't sound to me like that is the Maloofs right now.

There's another important factor with regards to Sacramento's viability as an NBA market that is not receiving sufficient attention -- political leadership. Not that KJ isn't getting credit for mounting a sensational, game changing 4th quarter comeback on behalf of the Kings. He is. But that's only half the story. The other half is the complete lack of political leadership on this issue that our community witnessed for 8 years under the previous mayor, Heather Fargo, who actually seemed like she would have preferred for the Kings to leave all along. When folks ask why would a new arena deal succeed when all the others failed, the answer is political leadership. Back in the late 90's our late Mayor Joe Serna saved the Kings from leaving through his own strong leadership. But for his untimely passing a decade ago I have no doubt that the Kings would already be playing in a new arena in downtown Sac. We're the 20th largest media market in the country and if the Kings move we'll be the largest media market without a pro team. The notion that Sac is not a viable NBA market is simply not true. If the NBA gives KJ another year to get an arena deal done, I have no doubt that he will succeed. The bigger question is can we put together an arena deal that actually makes economic sense for the citizens of greater Sacramento. Hopefully we'll get to find out.

Paul, given the deals that were put together when Fargo was in, I wanted them to go, too.

The current rumblings here are for the City to sell bonds, and then the bonds get repaid by a combination of a rental car tax and a hotel tax -- something I bet the rental car companies and hotels will object to (just a hunch), plus seat surcharges, plus some lease payments, and so forth.

If keeping the Kings here means we make an Orlando/Indy-type deal, then I got one thing to say: Go Warriors.

The Maloofs have asked for some incredible taxpayer gifts. Neil said at the time that Q&R was easily the most generous deal he'd seen to date.

If that's the deal they want, then adios.

Fargo was perfectly justified when she said, "Shyeah, that'll happen."

I agree that Q & R was not a good proposal, but that doesn't mean we can't draft a better one, especially if the Maloofs are feeling some pressure from Stern (with Burkle hovering in the background) to negotiate in good faith.

Mayor Fargo's "proposal" was to let the players pay for the new arena. I'd hardly call that effective leadership. I lived within the Sac city limits at the time, and I know she wasn't representing me.

Maloofs are broke:

www.sacbee.com/2011/04/30/3591030/maloofs-woes-an-issue-for-nba.html

If they have to wait 3-4-5 years for an arena in Sac, they'll be even worse off. That's why they have to leave or sell now.

But if Samueli's offering more than Burkle, can you blame them for moving?

I even think that once you get to a certain debt level, you're probably better off being contracted. I bet the Maloofs lobby for contraction before they agree to sell to Burkle.

The Maloofs can lobby for whatever they like, there's zero percent chance of contraction happening.