Silence is not golden. No news is not good. Patience is not a virtue.
Like everyone else, I want to know what is going to happen to the Sacramento Kings and I want to know now. I don’t want to wait until 2pm on Monday, hell, I don’t want to wait until 2pm today. Enough already.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZBPu7jJbJU&w=480&h=390]
What’s worse is that there is a possibility that we won’t really know anything. Let’s look at the options followed by the possible outcomes:
Maloofs go forward with their plan to file for relocation.
- NBA Board of Governors approves move with a simple majority vote and the Sacramento Kings become the Anaheim Royals.
- NBA Board of Governors vote down the relocation attempt with a simple majority vote and the Sacramento Kings stay in Sacramento for at least one season.
- NBA Board of Governors vote down the relocation attempt with a simple majority vote and the Maloof family files an anti-trust lawsuit. Team stays in Sacramento while a lengthy court battle ensues.
- NBA Board of Governors vote down the relocation attempt with a simple majority vote and the Maloof family sells the team to Ron Burkle.
Maloofs decide not to go forward with their plan for relocation.
- The Maloofs come back to Sacramento willing to work with the City on a new Sports and Entertainment facility. It works and the team stays in Sacramento long term.
- The Maloofs come back to Sacramento willing to work with City on a new Sports and Entertainment facility. It doesn’t work and the team files for relocation next March or the year after.
- The Maloofs come back to Sacramento angry and not willing to work with the City, refile for relocation next March.
- The Maloofs don’t come back to Sacramento. They sell the team to Ron Burkle, who works with the City to build a new Sports and Entertainment facility.
There might be other small variances that come into play here, but these are the basics as we know them. So many options, so little time. Can you hurry up and decide Maloof family, so we can get to the celebration … or the wake.
When asked last night what his gut feeling was on the whether the Maloofs would file for relocation or not, Kings play-by-play announcer Grant Napear shared with the twitter world that his “gut says file.” Grant later tweeted that he was “preparing for the worst.” Although Napear has claimed to have no knowledge of the ultimate decision, he is on the inside and his “gut feeling” might be more accurate than he is letting on.
If the Maloofs do file, they are setting themselves up for not only a lengthy court battle, but a “no turning back” scenario. Years of goodwill in Sacramento will be exhausted. Years of goodwill within the NBA will be exhausted. They will be pariahs in Sacramento and in NBA circles. There will be no talking their way back in the door, no acceptable mea culpa, no “my bad” moment. The fans will still love the Kings, but the emotional roller coaster will have taken its toll and the Maloof family will have no bargaining point, no leverage, just a franchise that is further in the red, worth even less and trapped in a city that would rather eat glass than support the owners.
Is this a no win situation? No way. Of all the options above, there are at least two that make perfect sense, but both begin with “The Maloofs decide not to go forward with their plan for relocation.” The Maloofs can either come back to Sacramento now, eat crow and work their asses off to get a new sports and entertainment facility built, or they can sell the team to a buyer already in place and let him fight this fight.
These are intense times. I will not venture to guess whether the Maloof family has the rumored $150 million needed to relocate the Kings to Anaheim, but I know that if they do, they would be better served using that money to help build a new stadium in Sacramento. Will there be hurt feelings? Sure, but no one will remember this saga when a Tyreke Evans/DeMarcus Cousins-led team plays deep into the playoffs in a beautiful new state of the art facility in the Capitol of California.
Hopefully there will come a day when we no longer have to hear the words relocation, Anaheim Royals or Randy Youngman (sorry Randy, nothing personal) here in Sacramento. There is still a possibility that the word Maloof can avoid making that list.
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