NBA commissioner David Stern announced yesterday that he’s retiring (in 2014, after 30 years in the job), but managed to partially upstage himself by discussing the likelihood of Seattle getting a new team, and saying the city is just one of many contenders for an NBA franchise, if one even becomes available:
I don’t have any current view on where such a team comes from. We deal with a lot of cities. Seattle happens to be another great city. We’ve dealt with everything from Kansas City to Virginia Beach to Pittsburgh, Columbus, Louisville – all cities of the certain type who would very much like to be considered for an NBA franchise. Anaheim, Vancouver, Las Vegas. So Seattle is very much in the mix…
We think this it is a great development in Seattle. And we’re excited about it. But there is no current team in play and that’s going to be an issue for the owners have to consider.
Stern added that he wouldn’t “preclude” expansion, which sounds like a nice way of saying “not now, bub.” Any expansion plans would need to go through the NBA’s relocation committee, which is headed by none other than Clay Bennett, the guy who bought the Seattle Sonics in the first place and moved them to Oklahoma City to become the Thunder.
Asked by Seattle’s KING5-TV what the relocation committee plans to do now, Bennett replied, “Right now, I have to go to the eye doctor.” Click the button!
None of this is exactly unexpected: You can hardly expect Stern (or Bennett) to promise Seattle a team when there are so many other cities holding out hope for one — and, more to the point, when existing owners are going to want to play these cities off against each other to bid for their franchise, without the commissioner butting in and declaring a front-runner. By virtue of its market size, Seattle still has to be considered the favorite to be next in line for an NBA team. But as we’ve seen before, you can never tell what’ll happen if somebody else comes up with a sweet enough lease deal.