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 Linda Thomas
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Kings.jpg
Sacramento Kings fans say they'll fight to keep the NBA team, despite rumors last week that a deal with Seattle investor Chris Hansen, Microsoft's Steve Ballmer, and the Nordstrom family is in the works. (Photo by Kelley L Cox)

A letter to Sonics lovers from Kings fans, 'We're still fighting'

January 16, 2013 @ 5:39 pm (Updated: 7:54 am - 1/17/13 )

They were just trying to help.

Two nice Seattle guys who were behind the Sonicsgate documentary, telling the story of how our NBA team was swiped from us, thought they'd give Sacramento Kings fans some advice.

Dear Sacramento Kings fans,

You probably hate hearing anything about Seattle right now. We know the sick feeling in your gut, the rage in your head, the sadness in your heart. There is nothing anyone could say to you right now that would make things better. We have felt your pain, and we understand the irony of hearing this from the fan base that may now gain from your loss.

The loyal Sonics fan base was beaten down, desperate, angry, depressed, and powerless. The national perception was that an indifferent Seattle had simply let the team leave. We knew this wasn't true.

The full letter includes a "blueprint for how to get a team back in your city."

Too soon Seattle. Too soon.

A Sacramento Kings fan and NBA sports writer, Tom Ziller, responds.

Hi.

I'm afraid we've gotten off on the wrong foot.

You see, we are fighting desperately to ensure that what happened to the lovely basketball fanatics of Seattle does not happen to the lovely basketball fanatics of Sacramento.

The news about the Maloofs potentially selling the Sacramento Kings to Seattle's saviors broke a week ago. Last Wednesday. Down here, we're all going to remember that day, just like y'all up there will remember the day in July 2006 when word broke that Howard Schultz sold the Sonics to some Oklahomans. You remember that, right? And you remember when Clay Bennett's arena talks with the state broke down, right? You remember how utterly crushing that was? How it felt like some money mongers were ripping your still-beating basketball-loving green-and-gold heart right through your ribcage? That's how it felt for us. Except our hearts are purple and black and occasionally powder blue.

For us, that was a freaking week ago. One week.

You've got to understand that right now we don't see the word Seattle and think about the cruelty of the Sonics' relocation...We see the word Seattle and we see what y'all saw (and still see, I reckon) when you see the words Oklahoma City. You'll say you have nothing against the fine people of interior Oklahoma, and maybe that's even an honest statement for most of you. But there's still something guttural about the words, about the immediate connotations. Oklahoma City. Still gives you the willies, yeah?

Five years later, right?

We've been dealing with the word Seattle for one week. One week. Pardon the willies. We're having trouble looking past that guttural reaction and remembering that the Puget Sound is a wondrous place populated by kind people and wildlife we share common bonds with.

His open letter concludes with a "blueprint for how to prevent a team from leaving your city."

Meanwhile, information from a Sacramento insider is confident the city will keep the Kings.

Related: Despite the hype, numbers show little NBA interest in Seattle

By LINDA THOMAS

More from Linda Thomas

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Comments (7)


  • Add A Comment

  • Newton wrote...
    Please Keep the Kings. Sacramento
    January 17, 2013 8:19 am
    Seattle does not want another crap team. We have already are limit with the Mariners that are really just a complete joke. Don't want anymore crap teams.
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  • Chuck Gould wrote...
    From the related story: Balk says he found only 4.1 percent of people in the area expressed a "very high" level of interest in the NBA. 75th in the country.
    January 17, 2013 9:20 am
    Two ways to look at that. Just a fraction of a percent of the population in this region is all that is required to fill a basketball stadium, so 4% gives them a good cushion *if* all those folks with a very high level of interest will use that interest to buy tickets.

    But if we're 75th in the country, why would the NBA put a team back here before they have addressed the much better markets for their product? There are only so many teams to go around, so you would think it made sense to locate them where there was a lot of demand.

    Should the government pay hundreds of millions of dollars to build this stadium for the benefit of 4% of the population? Well, we do build art museums, etc, that probably don't attract more than 4%----- but those are public functions. We're planning to give these billionaires $200 million dollars so they can make their for-profit private enterprise even more profitable. We'll consider the taxes that they will ultimately pay on the value of that gift a form of payback? Wowzers.

    I'd like to build a new apartment house. If the city and county will just put up the money for me to do so, the increased taxes on that apartment house will eventually replace the money they gave me to build it with. Same deal. Same very bad deal for the public.

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  • Oly80 wrote...
    good point, Chuck...
    January 17, 2013 11:17 am
    i was going to reference that same article on this site.

    a VASTLY small minority of people care at all about a basketball team being present here. why so much push, then?

    i bet there's more of a draw from hockey.

    dear Sac,

    keep 'em. and take solace that MOST Seattlites don't care to bring the nba back to this city.

    HOCKEY would be pretty awesome, though!

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  • rational wrote...
    From the related story: Balk says he found only 4.1 percent of people in the area expressed a "very high" level of interest
    January 17, 2013 9:06 pm
    And as I pointed out in that related thread, that 4.1% is of seattle's 616,000, or over 25,000 suporters, whereas the highest lvl of support was 5.4%, but that was in a "city" of less than 100,000...or in otherwords roughly 5,000 fans. So the study was bogus in it's presentation because it was presenting 5,000 as greater than 25,000.

    As I also pointed out in that related thread, I couldn't care less if seattle gets a basketball team or not. I'm just pointing out the dishonest presentation of statistics to convey a lie.

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  • Forrest wrote...
    What always gets me is....
    January 17, 2013 11:18 am
    How conservative laissez-faire capitalists want welfare whenever a sports team is involved.
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