The NBA no longer exists.

Entering the same graveyard as Rams kicker Josh Brown, the National Basketball Association no longer exists. There isn’t much to say about it, really. One corrupt businessman got together with another, they exchanged a few love letters then swindled a great sports city out of its team. While I’m not a believer in karma, I sure wish it existed for cases like these. David Stern and Clay Bennett are evil, the politicians in charge of the Washington state government and the city of Seattle are spineless, and I hope all of the above find a way to end up homeless.

I’m glad that the team name and colors got kept in Seattle in case we get another team, but I just can’t imagine that it’ll ever be the same even if we did eventually get one back. I simply have no interest in doing anything to line the pockets of a corrupt weasel like Stern ever again. Thankfully I have no such qualms about supporting the NCAA, and I look forward to many more years of rooting for Tony Bennett and the WSU Cougars.

In the meantime, it’s just over five weeks until preseason football kicks off…

Some hopeful legal analysis of Schultz’s lawsuit to save the Sonics.

ESPN’s legal analyst, Lester Munson (a lawyer himself), writes a very good article assessing Howard Schultz’s chances of succeeding in court to get the Sonics taken away from Seattle.

Here’s the link.

I thought this was an interesting snippet regarding Schultz’s motives in the matter. He makes a good point in defending the sincerity of this move.

Q: Schultz has been reviled in Seattle since he sold the team. Isn’t this just a public relations stunt to allow Schultz to improve his public image?

A: The lawsuit is more than a public relations stunt. The allegations against Bennett and his group are serious and seem to indicate a fraud at the time of the sale. The chronology of the e-mails is compelling evidence that will allow Schultz to push Bennett and his group into a bad corner. If it were a PR stunt, both Schultz and Yarmuth would be holding press conferences and making dramatic statements. Neither would comment to ESPN.com beyond what is said in the lawsuit. The language of the suit is lean and spare. If anything, it understates the case. Their conduct and their lawsuit are clear indications they are serious about their allegations and their attempt to undo the sale.

I can’t add any meaningful analysis of my own, but it looks like us Sonic fans can still at least feel reasonable about holding out some hope here.

Maybe you can drop the Starbucks boycott…maybe.

The former owner of the Seattle SuperSonics plans to sue the current owners to get the team back, arguing they breached a condition of the sale to make a “good-faith effort” to keep Seattle’s oldest pro sports franchise from leaving town, according to Seattle-area media reports.

Starbucks chairman and CEO Howard Schultz, who sold the Sonics to an Oklahoma City-based group led by Clay Bennett, will not seek monetary damages, but wants the team back, according to his attorney, Richard Yarmuth.

Link

My thoughts after the jump…

I wouldn’t put David Stern out if he was on fire.

In the wake of last week’s disgusting but unsurprising revelation that Clay Bennett was lying all along, and that he had very much been intending to move the Seattle Sonics to Oklahoma City from the day he bought the team, NBA Commissioner David Stern looked like a fool…even moreso than usual.

His reaction today to the revelation that he had been played for a fool, though…simply unbelievable.