Congratulations Kings Fans

I want to say congratulations to the fans of the Sacramento Kings on getting one last shot to find a way to keep their team. I'm quite uneducated about the specifics of the situation and the chances of their getting a new arena. But the fans their have always seemed like they give a damn about the team and knowing firsthand how much it sucks to lose a team due to the bullshit bureaucracy of professional sports, I'm happy for them that they get another year to work it out. Personally, this is nice to see after the Sonics fiasco of three summers ago. It doesn't hurt that their mayor is an ex-NBA player as opposed to the slovenly Greg Nickels Seattle was stuck with as its chief negotiator. It appears that Sacramento's politicians have learned from Seattle's mistake of being unorganized and naive about the reality of a team being moved at the fickle whim of ownership.

Some similarities about the Kings and Thunder owners.

1. Neither Clay Bennett (Thunder) or the Maloof brothers (Kings) made their millions through business proficiency of their own. They both inherited the money. Clay Bennett married the daughter of a wealthy media mogul Edward Gaylord, while the Maloofs are sons of billionaire beer distributor George Maloof.

2. They're both douchebags. Clay Bennett looks like an evil fuck, and he also bought the Sonics, lied about his intentions to not move the team, made a half-assed attempt to mesh with local business and politicians, and sued his way out of any obligation to keeping the team in Seattle.

The Maloof brothers own a Vegas Casino. That's about as douchey as you can get.

The bottom line is that NBA teams do not need to move because the owners run bad businesses and can't afford to build their own arena. If you demand the arena is paid for by local taxpayers, but you want a scenario where you own it and receive profits from all events hosted there, then you are a horrible person. Bud Selig has done a lot of stupid, fan enraging things over the years, but he did force a takeover of the LA Dodgers when their owner Frank McCourt got taken to the cleaners in his divorce. If NBA Commissioner David Stern had the dignity to do something like this, as opposed to being a lackey for the owners in the league, there wouldn't have been three franchise relocations in the last 10 years.