Imagine my sadness when realized that Luke Ridnour no longer wears #8 to provide a picture for this article. Picking the image of "Employee #8" probably makes no sense to all the young kids but they have to learn NBA history somewhere.
The good news is that the team currently located in Sacramento does have a player who wear's number 7 to provide us an image for tomorrow's countdown. In the meantime I think nitpicking about images is about as productive as debating the tweets and gossip from yesterday.
It is interesting that a request for a formal, finalized offer was issued but shouldn't be a surprise. It is time for Sacramento investors to put up the money and deliver on their claims. If they don't do it by Friday how could the proper legal review occur to even have a discussion next week?
I think that if an offer is received that is not equal in all ways and that offer is not completely, 100% binding then there is nothing to discuss and it goes Seattle's way.
The biggest difference in perspective from Sacramento lies in their group of whale's willingness to pay. Their reporters have long talked about the virtues of their competitive offer and willingness to pay.
I do not believe that they will have enough faith in a conceptual arena agreement with the city to avoid hedging their bet. Instead of making a rock solid commitment to a half billion dollars when the city's ability to deliver on the promised arena they will include some type of contingencies. I think we have good indicators of that based on the fact that their last offer was $100 million short. Their most impressive investor bowed out just this week and they are reshuffling. They don't have the details locked down.
Assuming they do deliver then it becomes a battle of the business plans and EVERY indication is that Seattle wins that battle. Our group has an agreed upon interim plan for KeyArena that will make it a better home for the NBA for the next 2 years than Sleep Train. They are on track to open their building in the 2015 season as opposed to a best case scenario of 2016 in Sacramento making that year much better. They have a better building design, with greater vision for the 32 years following that and in all honesty if you were going to invest in a region for 35 years what market can provide greater certainty of economic growth?
Our regional sports network has been estimated to deliver $40M/year and that money will drive a franchise of big spenders, boosting player salaries and ensuring that the franchise does not need to receive financial aid from the other owners.
Trust Hansen. Don't get distracted by all this garbage. Let them make their business case next week.
Go to13:55 of this interview to hear Kevin Calabro explain how I really feel.