Mayor Greg Nickels and attorney (and former U.S. Senator) Slade Gordon believe that the key to retaining the NBA franchise in Seattle is to simply ‘wait out’ a potential Oklahoma-based ownership group and force them to give up their bid by exhausting the group’s resources.  King County Executive Ron Sims believes that strategy will fail, though as he is confident the current Sonics’ ownership group, led by Clay Bennett, would be able to sustain losses for several seasons while searching for a buyer.

As reported by Percy Allen of the Seattle Times, Sims said, “I just think they're gone and the issue is, will anybody else move here?  People from various ownership groups have stopped by my office and they've talked, and they're saying there's a likelihood that there will be some other teams out there that maybe would be interested in moving into this market, and that's what I think the plans are." 

Sims noted that several local investors have discussed construction of a privately financed arena in King County, but has clearly resigned himself to the departure of the Sonics as they currently exist.  Sims continued, “"What we should do is what I would call the Cleveland Browns strategy, which is to keep the name of the team here so if a new team comes here, they would become the Sonics. But this team of [Kevin] Durant and [Jeff] Green, this team as we know them is gone."

As reported on March 1^st by the Seattle Times, a third investment group might bid to purchase either the Sonics or another NBA team and then relocate them to Key Arena in Seattle.  The prospect hinges on that group’s ability and desire to kick in  $150 million toward work on the arena, with the rest of the money coming from taxes and a ‘contribution’ from the city of Seattle.  In either case, though, it appears that Kevin Durant will play elsewhere in the coming seasons.

Bill Johnson is a staff member of the Business of Sports Network