City of Seattle Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Sarver Threatens To Move Suns To Seattle Or Vegas?

December 12th, 2018 at 1:06pm CST by Luke Adams

In the midst of a battle with the city of Phoenix over funding for arena renovations, Suns owner Robert Sarver has told some city council members that he’ll take the franchise to Seattle or Las Vegas if he can’t reach a deal in Phoenix, reports Laurie Roberts of The Arizona Republic.

As Jessica Boehm of The Arizona Republic outlines, the Phoenix City Council had been set to vote on a proposal that would see the city pay $150MM on a $230MM renovation plan for Talking Stick Resort Arena, with the Suns contributing the remaining $80MM. The deal would have also ensured that the Suns were committed to staying in Phoenix through at least 2037.

However, in the wake of “backlash from the community,” it appears that vote will be postponed. According to Roberts, delaying the vote will allow time for a pair of public hearings on the project, whereas if the Phoenix City Council shot down the proposal today, it might kill future prospects for a deal. There are seven city council members and at least three are currently opposing the arena renovation plan.

As Boehm explains, the Suns’ current arena lease runs through 2032, but that agreement includes a provision that would allow the franchise to opt out in 2022 if its building is considered “obsolete.” If the renovations are approved, they’d take place between 2019 and 2021, ensuring that the arena is modernized.

Given the nature of the situation, Sarver’s threats to move the franchise could simply be a way of regaining the upper hand and forcing city council members to seriously weigh the ramifications of turning down the funding plan for those arena renovations. If the Suns were to leave Phoenix, the city would have to take over operations and maintenance of Talking Stick Resort Arena, Boehm notes.

While the NBA reportedly has no plans for expansion in the next several years, there are several cities interested in a franchise, led by Seattle, which recently secured an NHL team. With relocation looking like the only viable way to get an NBA franchise to Seattle anytime soon, team owners seeking public funding for new arenas or arena upgrades may try to use the threat of a move to the Pacific Northwest as leverage during the next few years.

Taking that into account, I don’t know that we should take Sarver’s threats too seriously for now, and I wouldn’t expect the NBA to idly stand by if he attempts to move his team out of one of the country’s largest cities, but this is a situation worth watching closely going forward.

Kevin Durant Discusses Seattle, Interest In Owning NBA Team

December 6th, 2018 at 8:48am CST by Luke Adams

After suggesting back in October that he’d love to see the city of Seattle get an NBA team again, Kevin Durant went a step further on Wednesday, suggesting that it’d be a “great story” if he could be involved in the ownership of a Seattle franchise someday, as Nick Friedell of ESPN.com relays.

“Hell yeah,” Durant told Friedell when asked if he’d be interested in being part of an ownership group for a Seattle team. “Of course I would. No matter if it’s Seattle or any team, just to help young men grow. Or help men in the next phase of their lives as basketball players. Why not? Especially somebody who’s gone through it and been through just about everything as an NBA player, outside of getting traded, I’ve been through pretty much everything. I would love to give back to an organization, the knowledge that I’ve gained. So hell yeah I’d be interested.”

The NHL officially confirmed this week that it will launch a franchise in Seattle for the 2021/22 season, but an NBA return to the city still doesn’t appear to be on the table. As we detailed on Wednesday, most people around the NBA don’t expect the league to seriously consider the possibility of expansion for at least another five to seven years.

Nonetheless, Durant – who has expressed a desire in the past to get into NBA team ownership once his playing career is over – is hopeful that the city where he started his career will eventually get the SuperSonics back. And he’d like to be involved in that process, even as he acknowledges that it would be a huge challenge.

“It’s just the fact that I played there and I get so much love there,” Durant told Friedell. “More than any city in the league probably. Look, it would be a great story. But it would be a lot of hard work, it won’t be easy because it’s Seattle. After the press release and the first couple of weeks it’s straight to work.

“I know people want to tie me into Seattle a lot, and I love being part of that, but I’m not just waiting for that opportunity,” Durant continued. “Any opportunity that comes around where I could become [part of] an ownership group or a front office or anywhere I could just help the team as of right now in my life I would go for it, but who knows what will happen at the end of my career?”

And-Ones: Seattle, G. Davis, Conley, Embiid

December 5th, 2018 at 3:57pm CST by Luke Adams

The city of Seattle will become the home of the 32nd NHL franchise, as our sister site Pro Hockey Rumors detailed earlier this week. However, a return to Seattle still doesn’t seem to be in the cards anytime soon for the NBA.

According to Kurt Helin of NBC Sports, who spoke to multiple sources about Seattle, the league’s owners aren’t even considering the possibility of expansion at the moment. Most people expect it to be at least five to seven years before the NBA starts thinking seriously about expanding, according to Helin, who notes that it could be part of the next TV package discussions in 2025.

If Seattle has any chance to get any NBA team before then, it would likely have to be via relocation rather than expansion, Helin continues. Still, while there has been some speculation about the long-term viability of the Grizzlies and Pelicans in Memphis and New Orleans, respectively, no NBA franchises – including those two teams – appear to be in any imminent danger of leaving their current towns.

Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:

The next stop for former NBA big man Glen Davis may be the Canadian Maritimes. According to Robin Short of The Telegram (hat tip to Sportando), the St. John’s Edge of the National Basketball League of Canada have agreed to terms on a contract with Davis, who left his team in Croatia last month.
In an interesting Insider-only article for ESPN.com, Bobby Marks takes a closer look at playing-time incentives for Mike Conley and Joel Embiid, who can fully lock in the guarantees later in their max contracts by reaching certain benchmarks in games or minutes played. Marks also explores the pressure Andrew Wiggins is under to live up to his max deal, the Kings‘ balancing act between winning and developing players, and more.
The Pelicans, Rockets, Wizards, Heat, and Mavericks are the would-be contenders who most need to make a trade, in the view of Paolo Uggetti of The Ringer. Meanwhile, a handful of NBA.com writers weigh in on the teams most in need of a shake-up, and many of the same clubs are mentioned.

Seattle Remains Unlikely To Get NBA Team In Near Future

October 5th, 2018 at 9:51am CST by Luke Adams

The NBA will return to Seattle on Friday night, as the Kings and Warriors play one another at KeyArena, but the league still isn’t expected to return to the city on a permanent basis anytime soon, as ESPN’s Brian Windhorst details in an in-depth report.

According to Windhorst, the NBA doesn’t have expansion on its timeline and the latest arena developments in Seattle weren’t discussed at the league’s Board of Governors meeting last month. Sources tell Windhorst that some prospective NBA ownership groups have been told by league officials that expansion may not happen until at least 2025, when a new TV deal can be negotiated.

The Los Angeles-based Oak View Group, led by veteran executive Tim Leiweke, is currently in the process of redoing KeyArena — the arena will close for renovations following Friday’s game. That renovation project, which initially had a $600MM price tag, is now projected to cost $750MM, Leiweke tells ESPN. When it’s finished, the New Arena at Seattle Center – as it’s now known – is expected to be ready to house an NHL team and an NBA team, as well as premium concerts and shows.

Seattle officials are optimistic that the city’s odds of landing an NBA franchise will increase substantially once that arena project is complete, with Seattle mayor Jenny Durkan indicating that she has spoken to commissioner Adam Silver and “communicated to him that we’re interested.” However, Windhorst notes that if an NHL franchise moves into the arena first, a hypothetical NBA team would be “arriving last to the party,” which could diminish the league’s interest.

As Windhorst explains, NBA franchise in major markets are increasingly looking to control their own arenas in order to maximize their revenue. The Warriors are doing just that with the Chase Center, and Clippers owner Steve Ballmer has a similar plan in in the works to move out of the Staples Center and get his own building. Based on that trend, the NBA may ultimately be more interested in a rival Seattle arena plan from investor Chris Hansen. Hansen, who has long been interested in bringing the NBA back to Seattle, still hopes to construct a privately-financed arena in the city’s SoDo district, near the MLB and NFL stadiums. That project is still in the planning stages though.

For now, Silver and the NBA are focused more on building new audiences in non-U.S. markets than they are on expanding within the United States. Windhorst reports that the league is close to announcing the launch of an NBA G League franchise in Mexico City, which is expected to begin play in 2019/20. That G League team will serve as a “trial balloon” to see how an NBA team south of the border might function, Windhorst adds.

With expansion not on the table anytime soon, relocation would be another potential path to get the NBA back to Seattle. According to Windhorst, several prospective ownership groups are keeping an eye on the Grizzlies, since lawyers believe language in their long-term lease with FedEx Forum could create a window for the team to leave Memphis in 2021. However, team owner Robert Pera bought out a pair of minority owners earlier this year and said at the time that he was “committed to Memphis as an NBA market,” so there are no indications that he’d consider selling.

Ultimately, while the NBA seems destined to return to Seattle at some point, all signs point to that return being a ways off yet.

And-Ones: Seattle, Two-Way Deals, Trade Candidates

October 3rd, 2018 at 3:59pm CST by Luke Adams

With the Warriors and Kings set to play a preseason game in Seattle this Friday, Kevin Durant – who began his NBA career with the SuperSonics – suggested this week that he’d like to see the NBA bring a team back to the city, as Nick Friedell of ESPN.com writes.

“Most definitely,” Durant said. “It’s a basketball city. It’s a sports town. … They have a good representation of basketball in the NBA from Seattle-born players, Washington state-born players. And I feel like that whole brand deserves an NBA team. Just like the Golden State Warriors deserve a team or the Los Angeles Lakers deserve a team, Seattle is that same way.”

While the city of Seattle would almost certainly be next in line if the NBA decides to add a new team, the league has shown little desire to expand beyond 30 franchises, and none of those 30 clubs appears to be in any danger of being relocated in the near future. As such, it remains to be seen when we might see the SuperSonics return to the NBA.

Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:

The introduction of the two-way contract was one of the major changes in the NBA’s most recent Collective Bargaining Agreement, and so far it has been a relative success, creating job opportunities for 60 additional players, as Michael Scotto of The Athletic observes in a deep dive on the subject. However, some agents would like to see the system tweaked a little, suggesting that multiyear two-way deals shouldn’t be permitted and that there should be a limit to the number of two-way contracts a team can sign in a given league year.
Dan Feldman of NBC Sports identifies five top candidates to be traded during the 2018/19 league year, ranging from the obvious candidates (Jimmy Butler) to some under-the-radar ones (Dewayne Dedmon).
Former Celtics and Cavaliers power forward Luke Harangody continues to play professionally overseas, having signed this week with Spanish team Joventut Badalona, per Emiliano Carchia of Sportando. The former second-round pick has now played overseas for several years, last appearing in the NBA in 2012.

And-Ones: Carmelo, Bazley, Seattle, Rookies

August 16th, 2018 at 3:55pm CST by Luke Adams

Carmelo Anthony, the newest member of the Rockets, published a letter earlier this week thanking his old team, along with the Thunder fans. As Erik Horne of The Oklahoman details, Anthony said that he wanted to bring a championship to OKC and was “sorry it didn’t work out” while he was there. However, despite only being with the Thunder for one year, Carmelo said he’ll never forget the experience and the support he received from the “incredible” fans in OKC.

Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:

Within an Insider article on his observations from the Nike Basketball Academy in Los Angeles, ESPN’s Jonathan Givony notes that there’s speculation among NBA scouts that prospect Darius Bazley may end up not playing in the G League, as was originally planned. Bagley didn’t look great at the event, so if he feels he’s not ready for the G League, he could take the Mitchell Robinson route and forgo competitive basketball for 2018/19, writes Givony.
Seattle is in “a class by itself” in terms of cities that are candidates for NBA expansion, Marc Stein of the New York Times writes in his latest newsletter. In Stein’s view, there are a handful of cities that could be options to join Seattle if the NBA decides it wants to expand to 32 teams at some point, but none of those cities are on Seattle’s level.
A handful of top NBA rookies spoke to ESPN about which fellow rookie they’re most looking forward to playing, their biggest purchase since signing their rookie contract, and – most interestingly – their pick for Rookie of the Year. ESPN’s Chris Forsberg has the details.
The NBA announced this week that the NBA 2K eLeague will introduce four expansion teams for the 2019 season, with the Hawks, Nets, Lakers, and Timberwolves adding affiliates.

Dwyane Wade Discusses Owning A Team In Seattle

June 23rd, 2018 at 5:01pm CST by Arthur Hill

Seattle may have a powerful ally in its quest to rejoin the NBA. Dwyane Wade tells Joel Weber of Bloomsburg BusinessWeek that he would like to become an owner when his playing days are finished and is particularly interested in the Pacific Northwest.

“I definitely want to be a part of ownership in the NBA,” Wade said. “I’m not going to try to buy a team. I don’t have that kind of bread, but I definitely want to be a part of a great ownership group. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is all about players being involved in an ownership capacity. You’ve got players like Grant Hill involved in the Atlanta Hawks. Shaquille O’Neal is involved in the Sacramento Kings. It’s definitely something that I’ve talked about, some of my friends have talked about. But, first of all, I’d have to be retired.”

When asked which team he would like to own, the SuperSonics quickly came to mind.

“I want Seattle’s team, the Sonics, to come back,” Wade said. “I think Seattle is a great basketball town. I would love to be a part of that.”

Seattle has been without a franchise since the Sonics moved to Oklahoma City a decade ago. In speculation about potential expansion sites, Seattle frequently appears at the top, but the NBA doesn’t have plans to add any teams in the foreseeable future. However, the league has scheduled a preseason game at Key Arena in October as a potential test to see how the market responds.

Wade touches on a few other issues in the interview, including:

Do teams need dynasty-level talent to win an NBA championship?

“Right now you do. I raise my hand as a part of the problem. When the Miami Heat decided to bring the big three together—myself, LeBron James, Chris Bosh—in 2009, the game changed. Players understand their power. I don’t see that slowing down. I see the next generation—my son’s generation—getting even tighter.”

Do players talk about joining forces to beat the Warriors?

“Nobody’s calling me at 36, like, ‘Yo, we need you to come lay down this dynasty.’ But obviously you want to take down the champs, right? People who watch the sport can’t wait to see what’s going to happen this summer in free agency, because you want to see a team put together that can compete against a team like that. I’m watching. I’m a fan. I want to see a big splash this summer. I would love to see some guys team up. Our game has grown. When people say Golden State is hurting our game, that’s untrue. Our game is so high right now. It’s so great, but we would like to see somebody else get an opportunity.”

Which is the best team he ever faced?

“The greatest team I’ve ever played against was probably the San Antonio Spurs, with Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili. They challenged you in so many ways with the mental part of the game. It goes way beyond basketball. Golden State does that. They challenge you mentally as well as physically. And they have more talent than everybody, as well. It’s going to take some special kind of medicine to put a team together to get them.”

How has the game changed over Wade’s 15-year career?

“David Stern, our last commissioner, did an amazing job of helping us grow our game, saying ‘OK, we need a face-lift, and let’s do this differently.’ He made our game global to where, in China and other countries, it’s so big. The NBA wasn’t one of the top leagues. It was definitely looked at as a very thuggish league, you know. They used to fight back in the day a lot, a lot of real grown-man fights. And that was one of the things that David Stern cleaned up—getting the players out, getting us involved in the community, building the brand. He changed that. Once you hit somebody you’re going to lose all your money. The guys started dressing differently. He helped the new players coming in to start thinking of the NBA as more of a business. It really changed the mindset.”

Kansas City Destined For NBA Franchise?

May 18th, 2018 at 9:27pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Kansas City is on the short list of cities to get an NBA franchise, a league executive told NBA scout Jarrett Sutton (Twitter link). The unnamed executive cited multiple sources in his conversation with Sutton.

“Kansas City will get an NBA team at some point. … Just a matter of time. Seattle and KC, to me, are most valuable markets for league expansion when it makes sense.”

Seattle has long been considered as the likely landing spot should an NBA franchise move or if the league decides to expand. There’s been talk of Seattle getting back a franchise virtually since the SuperSonics relocated to Oklahoma City in 2008.

The league even plans to hold an exhibition game there next season. The city has already filed for an NHL franchise.

There hasn’t been much buzz about Kansas City becoming an NBA city, even though it has a 19,000-seat arena, the Sprint Center, which was built in 2007.

It’s been more than three decades since the city had an NBA team. The Kings bolted for Sacramento in 1985 after the franchise relocated from Cincinnati in 1972. The Kings played a majority of those seasons at Kemper Arena. Mike D’Antoni, Mike Woodson, Nate Archibald and Ernie Grunfeld were among the players to don a Kings uniform.

The Kansas City Knights of the American Basketball Association were the last pro basketball team in the city, as Ryan Young of Yahoo Sports notes. That league shut down operations in 2005.

And-Ones: Seattle, Wilkins, Trash Talk, Lottery

February 28th, 2018 at 5:25pm CST by Luke Adams

Last week, we touched upon how the NBA is planning to hold a preseason game in Seattle next season, the first NBA game at KeyArena since the Sonics left after the 2007/08 season. Now, according to a report from ESPN’s Emily Kaplan, the ownership group that applied to bring the NHL to Seattle is leaving the door open for bringing an NBA franchise back to the city as well.

The Oak View Group, comprised of investment banker David Bonderman, longtime sports executive Tim Leiweke, and Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer, is hoping to found the NHL’s 32nd team, and the NHL is reportedly likely to accept the bid. The OVG plans to begin remodeling KeyArena this October with the hope to begin play during the 2020/21 season.

As for the potential for an NBA franchise, Leiweke says, “The way we are going to structure all of our contractually obligated income is making sure there will be revenue upside built in should the NBA ever consider Seattle. We are committed to making sure the building, all of our contracts, all of our partnerships and all of our relationships, are done in a way that we can maximize value.”

Here are more odds and ends from around the basketball world:

Having been waived by the Pacers earlier this season, Damien Wilkins has been a man on a mission in the G League, averaging 29.2 PPG, 6.0 RPG, and 5.0 APG for the Greensboro Swarm this month. As Scott Agness of VigilantSports.com details, the 38-year-old Wilkins badly wants to finish the season on an NBA roster.
In an entertaining piece for ESPN.com, Tim MacMahon and Law Murray break down some of the unwritten rules of NBA trash talking.
Speaking of entertaining pieces, Andrew Sharp of SI.com lays out his idea for a end-of-season tournament featuring non-playoff teams that would replace the draft lottery and determine the order of the top 14 picks.
With a win over Puerto Rico this week, Team USA clinched a spot in the second round of the qualifiers for the 2019 World Cup, per an AP report (link via USA Today). The next round of qualifying games begins in September.

Clark Crum contributed to this post.

NBA Planning Preseason Game In Seattle

February 21st, 2018 at 6:02pm CST by Arthur Hill

The NBA will return to Seattle next preseason with a familiar face for Pacific Northwest fans, according to Ailene Voisin of The Sacramento Bee.

Kevin Durant, who spent his rookie season with the SuperSonics before the franchise moved to Oklahoma City, will lead the Warriors against the Kings on October 6 at Key Arena, Voisin writes. It will be the first NBA game at the facility since the Sonics left after the 2007/08 season.

The Kings also have a connection with Seattle, as it appeared the team might move there when it was put up for sale five years ago. A deal to sell the team to a Seattle-based ownership group was reached in January of 2013, but it fell through when Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson was able to assemble a group to keep the Kings from leaving.

Two months ago, Seattle’s City Council approved a proposed $650MM renovation of Key Arena in hopes of attracting an NBA or NHL franchise by the end of the decade. The refurbished arena will hold 18,350 spectators for NBA games and 17,150 for NHL games.