Owners vote on Sonics' move as saga in Seattle continues

The supposedly obsolete arena is dark. After enduring billionaire power plays, broken promises and the NBA team's worst season ever, Seattle is on the brink of losing its first big-time sports franchise.

NBA owners are set to approve the SuperSonics' move to Oklahoma City today. The last two votes on moves -- the Hornets from Charlotte to New Orleans and the Grizzlies from Vancouver to Memphis -- passed by a combined vote of 59-1.

"I just want to know if we're going to leave or stay," rookie superstar Kevin Durant said Thursday as he cleaned out his locker after a dismal 20-62 season.

Sorry, Kevin. Today's approval won't quite decide whether 41 years of NBA history in the city is over.

"I'm not so worried about the board of governors' vote, really," Seattle mayor Greg Nickels said Thursday. "We expect they are going to approve it ... convincingly. We're really focused on litigation."

The two-year saga likely will be settled in court. Or with Sonics owner and Oklahoma City tycoon Clay Bennett writing a huge check to avoid the courts, a windfall Seattle might not be able to refuse.

The city already has rejected Bennett's offer of $26 million to settle a lease agreement set to end in 2010.

Nickels laughed and declined to directly answer three different questions on whether there is a price at which Seattle would agree to let Bennett take the Sonics to Oklahoma.

"We intend to have the Sonics be a part of our community for a long, long time," is all the mayor would say.

Seattle's best hope to at least delay the Sonics' flight to Oklahoma City is a three-pronged legal fight against Bennett and his partners:

* A trial, set to begin June 16, in which the city is trying to force the team to play out its KeyArena lease.

* A class-action lawsuit brought by season-ticket holders who say they were duped into buying tickets under the premise the Sonics wouldn't leave.

* Former team owner Howard Schultz's new plans to sue to get the team back.

The smooth-talking Starbucks chairman -- widely considered the villain in this civic drama -- is citing new evidence indicating Bennett's group lied while promising to make an effort to keep the team in Seattle.

The federal judge hearing the city's lawsuit forced the team to give Seattle's lawyers damning e-mails between Bennett and his partners. The messages display their eagerness to move the team to Oklahoma City almost as soon as they bought it.

Even so, Schultz's lawsuit has provoked the same bitter laughter among Seattlites that greeted news of the sale, which he pitched then as a wake-up call to local officials.

Frustrated by state and local officials' unwillingness to pay to renovate KeyArena, Schultz sold the team to Bennett for a profit of $69 million in 2006. Bennett, Schultz argued, had leverage to negotiate for a new arena because he had his eager hometown with a six-year-old building waiting if he failed.

Instead, Bennett focused on relocating the Sonics after his proposal for a new arena in the suburbs, which he said would be the most expensive arena ever built, died in the Legislature.

Bennett has defended his efforts to keep the team in Seattle. He cites his many trips here, the consultants he hired and the money he spent toward finding the Sonics a new home.

Last spring he proposed a $500 million palace in the suburb of Renton. He asked the state of Washington to authorize King County tax dollars to pay for $278 million of the building. Bennett offered $100 million.

But the Oklahoman stepped into a political climate tired of handouts for sports stadiums after tax money was used to build Safeco Field for baseball's Mariners and Qwest Field for the NFL's Seahawks.

SONICS CENTER HAS KNEE SURGERY: SuperSonics center Mouhamed Sene had microfracture surgery on his right knee earlier this week, another setback for Seattle at the center position.

BUCKS FIRE COACH: The Milwaukee Bucks have fired Larry Krystkowiak.

"The bottom line on this decision is that this is a results-driven league," new Bucks general manager John Hammond said.

The Bucks fired Krystkowiak a day after completing his first full season as an NBA head coach.

BULLS FIRE INTERIM COACH: John Paxson used words like "disappointing" and "disturbing" while describing the Chicago Bulls' nightmare of a season. The general manager talked about pride and accountability, too.

"I'm most accountable," he said.

But Jim Boylan took the fall.

The Bulls fired their interim coach on Thursday, likely the first of several changes after a disappointing season.