The Seattle Supersonics have been sold to a guy from Oklahoma City, which desperately wants an NBA team. The group that bought the team is led by a fella named Clay Bennett, a guy who owns an investment firm and really pushed Oklahoma’s business leaders to do all they could to get the Hornets to move to OKC. Bennett, in fact, formed a group last year, Oklahoma Professional Sports LLC, who’s sole purpose was to bring a pro team to OKC (thanks, for all of this, to True Hoop, which is awesome).

So yeah, when the Clay Bennett-led group says they’re going to all they can to keep the team in Seattle… well, I think they’re fibbers. That’s right, you heard me, FIBBERS. And I got this unsigned, impassioned e-mail from a presumed Sonics fan about the situation. I think the guy’s name is Herman. Edited only for capitalization, punctuation, things of that nature…

I’m sure you have seen the news surrounding the sale of the Supersonics to a group headed by the man who pledged to bring basketball to Oklahoma City. The press conference was full of talk about how they only sold the team to this group because of “their committment to keeping the Sonics in Seattle,” and included a claim that they took less money from this group because of this committment. The new owner pledged to work for the next 12 months to secure an arena deal that allows the team to maintain a “viable NBA franchise”.

The fact is that this is a case where the fans are being served a truckload of bullshit, and that the new ownership group is headed by a man whose mission is to bring basketball to OK City, and he will simply declare anything but a blatant handover of tax dollars to be less than a “viable solution” and fulfill his pledge to bring the NBA to his city. So forget any movement to save NOOCH, they have a better solution, namely the OKC Soonersonics.

And anyone who has any inclination to feel sympathy for some billionaire who is “losing millions to keep a team in (insert city here)” should keep in mind Howard Schultz, who whined incessantly about losing 60 million in 5 years, but of course sold the team for about 150 mil more than he paid for it (the Knicks are probably an exception, because its hard to see how any sale will cover the losses incurred under the master of disaster Isiah Thomas).

Such self serving bullshit fuels the disillusionment of fans everywhere. Not that I wasnt aware that it’s all business, but it’s upsetting when us fans dont view it as such and our support is tossed out the fucking window so casually by billionaires who dont even respect us enough to forego lying to us so blatantly and trying to make themselves look like good guys who care about us more than making another 90 million dollars, when its obvious and apalling horseshit nobody is going to buy anyway. I’d respect them more if they came right out and said “you should have handed us what we wanted… now you get hosed you bastards, and im laughing all the way to the bank.”

Yeah. Sounds about right. My sympathies, Seattle sports fans. Seems like a pretty good bet that the Seattle Supersonics won’t be for very much longer. May someone kick Clay Bennett in the nuts for you.