Terry Mitchell

How the NBA Should Realign after the Sonics Move



Posted: Friday, July 11, 2008

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http://commenterry.blogs.com

Now that the city of Seattle has settled its lawsuit against Supersonics' owner Clay Bennett, the team might be on its way to Oklahoma City beginning with 2008-09 season. On July 2, just before a federal judge was to render her decision on the suit, Bennett agreed to pay Seattle a total of $75 million in exchange for the city allowing his team to break the final two years of its lease at KeyArena. When Bennett first announced his plans to move the team to Oklahoma City, Seattle sued to force it to honor the two remaining years of the lease by staying put through the 2009-10 season. The move was approved by a vote of 28-2 by the NBA's Board of Governors back in April.

However, the move is not quite a done deal yet (although the team has already begun the process of moving to Oklahoma City) because of another pending lawsuit. Former Sonics owner Howard Schultz had filed suit against Bennett in an effort to rescind his sale of the team. Schultz's suit alleges that Bennett did not negotiate in good faith when offering to buy the team, i.e., he intended all along to move it to Oklahoma City, while claiming that he would do everything in his power to keep the team in Seattle. Schultz says he does not want the team back permanently, but rather intends to immediately turn around and sell it to a local ownership group that is committed to keep the team in Seattle. This suit is scheduled to be heard later this summer.

At any rate, should Schultz's suit fail and the team ultimately move to Oklahoma City this fall, the NBA would allow Seattle to keep the team's name, history, logo, and colors, which could be used for a franchise it might get via expansion or relocation in the future. Bennett would have to come up with a new name, logo, and color scheme for his franchise. This is similar to what the NFL did in 1996 when the original Cleveland Browns moved to Baltimore. Cleveland got an expansion Browns franchise in 1999 as a replacement. Of course, Cleveland was promised that it would get this new team at the time of the move, and it was also given a timeframe as to when the team would arrive. However, no such thing would be promised to Seattle. All NBA Commissioner David Stern will say is that Seattle would be eligible for another franchise within five years if it either rebuilds KeyArena or provides a whole new venue that meets the league's specifications by the end of 2009.

In addition, the NBA should be prepared to realign four of its divisions due to the geographical impact of the move. The Seattle franchise currently resides in the Western Conference's Northwest Division. Oklahoma City would not be a very good fit for this division. Instead, it belongs in the Southwest Division of that same conference. Therefore, I propose the following four moves as part of a mini-realignment of the league's division: Put Oklahoma City in the Southwest Division; move Memphis from the Southwest Division to the Eastern Conference's Southeast Division; move Washington from the Southeast Division to the Eastern Conference's Central Division (where it was before the last realignment); and move Milwaukee from the Central Division to take Seattle's place in the Northwest Division (The Bucks spent the first 10+ seasons of their existence in the Western Conference anyway, so they would just be returning to their roots). So the affected divisions would appear as follows:

Eastern Conference

Central Division

Chicago Bulls
Cleveland Cavaliers
Detroit Pistons
Indiana Pacers
Washington Wizards

Southeast Division

Atlanta Hawks
Charlotte Bobcats
Memphis Grizzlies
Miami Heat
Orlando Magic

Western Conference

Southwest Division

Dallas Mavericks
Houston Rockets
New Orleans Hornets
Oklahoma City
San Antonio Spurs

Northwest Division

Denver Nuggets
Milwaukee Bucks
Minnesota Timberwolves
Portland Trailblazers
Utah Jazz
 
Terry Mitchell is a software engineer, freelance writer, amateur political analyst, and blogger from Virginia, USA. He posts a least one article a day to his blog - http://commenterry.blogs.com - on subjects such as current events, politics, technology, society and culture, religion, health and well-being, self improvement, personal finance, trivia, and sports. Terry is also the owner and operator of a website that is dedicated to allowing U.S. citizens to find all types of insurance at reasonable prices.  
 
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