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<< Previous   of   Next >>   ADVERTISEMENT   CONTACT THE HERALD Report scores and results to 425-339-3470 or 1-866-6-SCORES (Call after 4:30 p.m.) E-mail information including items for Tuesday's Communities Sports Roundup and Thursday's Outdoor Calendar, to sports@heraldnet.com Kevin Brown, Sports Editor kbrown@heraldnet.com   Published: Thursday, July 3, 2008 Politicians pushed Sonics out the door By John Sleeper Herald Columnist Lying worked. Deceit paid off. Since he took over the Sonics from Howard Schultz two years ago, Clay Bennett did everything he could to move them to Oklahoma City, even when he claimed he would do everything he could to keep them in Seattle. He lied then. He lied when confronted with damning emails. He continued the lies when he took the stand in the lawsuit between the Sonics and the city of Seattle. Does perjury mean anything in Judge Marsha Pechman's courtroom? But it worked. The end justified the means. Bennett got away with it. He got away with it because he's good at it and he picked an easy target. Now, 41 years, one NBA championship, dozens of great, great players and consistently resounding fan support mean nothing. The Sonics are leaving because of a colossal collapse in judgment and diligence by those in charge. Bennett vs. The City of Seattle was a mismatch on the same level as Rampage Jackson vs. Pee Wee Herman. You have to hand it to Bennett. He's shrewd. His research on the Sonics was spot on. He knew an easy target when he saw one. The franchise was gettable. Schultz and the city were at an impasse. The KeyArena lease was a river of red ink, the worst one of its kind in the NBA. Then area politicians, from Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels to Gov. Chris Gregoire to City Councilman Nic Licata to House Speaker Frank Chopp practically shoved the Sonics out the door. The conditions were ripe for a takeover. Bennett knew it. Only now do we hear a sliver of logic, of course. Only now, at a time that came much too late, do we hear Nickels say that a renovation of KeyArena will work, that KeyArena is the cornerstone for the redevelopment of the Seattle Center. Schultz brought the matter up five years ago. The city laughed at him. Had Wednesday's spirit of cooperation had existed then, Seattle would still have the Sonics, KeyArena would look like a real NBA venue, we would have never heard of Clay Bennett and this calamity could have been avoided altogether. Instead, it took losing an NBA franchise for area politicians to finally get it. From Day 1, the recurring theme was too little, too late. Local and state politicians belatedly decided that the Sonics issue carried a certain level of importance to the area, a wretched reality that voters should remember come Election Day. For all the good Steve Ballmer has done for the Puget Sound area, he was years tardy in coming forth as a local owner willing to buy the team from Schultz. And how about Schultz? Only recently did he come forward with the threat of a lawsuit against Bennett for Bennett's fraudulent bargaining tactics. Don't put much stock in Schultz's legal action, by the way. While he could immediately file an injunction against Bennett to prevent an immediate move, Schultz's true motivation was that of a CEO getting hoodwinked by someone smarter than he is. The injunction has equal chance of coming into fruition as that of Robert Swift becoming the next Moses Malone. Schultz would much rather forget that it ever happened. Besides, he has an out. Schultz could say that, should he pursue legal action, he could hurt Seattle's chances of ever landing an NBA team. So here we are. The bad guys won. The Sonics are gone. We have no guarantees of a replacement. Oh, but we do have at least $45 million more of Bennett's money, with the possibility of $30 million more. We were repeatedly told that none of this was about money, when money was all that it was about. Oh, and we have the Sonic name, memorabilia and history. Bennett knows sellouts when he sees them, which is another advantage he possessed. Cunning bargainers we have here. Columnist John Sleeper: sleeper@heraldnet.com. To reach Sleeper's blog, "Dangling Participles," click on www.heraldnet.com/danglingparticiples.

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