NBA Owners Vote To Keep The Kings In Sacramento

The NBA owners voted Wednesday to keep the Kings in Sacramento. (latimes.com)

The plot felt like it was written in Hollywood, made for the big screen, instead of a real-life saga taking place nearly 400 miles north in Sacramento.

A town struggles and worries with uncertainty for more than two years that the "evil" owners of their beloved basketball team are trying to move the team to Seattle. It seemed like the deal was inevitable, before a heroic mayor does everything in his power to keep the team at home. Months later the city gets a huge victory, but the owners still say they will sell to no one but Seattle. Tension built for the climax of the plot, which is a final ruling by the NBA owners to seal the fate.

The saga has concluded and the people of Sacramento can officially exhale their collective held breath and celebrate. The Kings are not moving to Seattle.

The Maloof family, owners of the Kings who have recently treated Sacramento like an ugly step child they were forced to be with, lost their hope in moving the franchise to Seattle with a vote by NBA owner representatives Wednesday in Dallas, according to ESPN. This comes after a unanimous recommendation last month by the league's relocation committee to reject the deal.

A vote of 22-8 kept the Kings in Sacramento after hours of deliberation by the owners group. The Maloofs still own the team as of now, but NBA Commissioner David Stern said in a news conference after the decision that he would expect the Maloof family to sell the Kings to the Sacramento group of investors created by Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson and with the financial backing of billionaire Vivek Ranadive.

Now the work begins for the fans and city of Sacramento to fill seats and buy merchandise to prove to the owners they made the right decision and for the prospective new ownership group to revamp a struggling on-court product. But right now, the city deserves its moment to celebrate. 

Everything worked out in the end for the fearful city, as if it was written in Hollywood and not Northern California.


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Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson Is Fighting To Keep Kings

Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson has until March 1 to propose a counteroffer in the hopes of keeping the Kings. (usatoday.com)

Reports came out last week from Adrian Wojnarowski at Yahoo! Sports that the Sacramento Kings owners were nearing a deal to sell the team to Seattle. Wojnarowski again reported Monday the NBA relocation committee and the league had a conference call to mark out deal points for the move and sale.

BDD wrote back in September that Seattle was moving forward with an investor group and funding for a new arena with the hopes of again drawing an NBA franchise. Seattle deserves another team after what happened with the now Thunder, but what was Seattle's gain is Sacramento's loss.

It sure looks, or looked, like Seattle is the easy frontrunner for the Kings. That is, unless Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson doesn't ruin Seattle fans' dreams. Johnson said Tuesday that NBA Commissioner David Stern has given him permission to make a proposal and counter-offer, which could keep the Kings in Sacramento, by the March 1 deadline.

Johnson has twice before kept the Kings from leaving Sacramento, so he knows what it takes to keep a team, but this time it will be more difficult with another prominent bidder in the open. Johnson addressed this at a State of Downtown event Tuesday, mentioning successful efforts to keep the team in the past, saying, "We want this to be the final act of a saga that's gone on for far too long."

"We have a city and a community that have done every single thing that is required," Johnson said Tuesday. "I hope Seattle gets another team. They deserve another team. They didn't deserve to lose a team in the first place. It just won't be the Sacramento Kings if we have anything to do with it."

As a former NBA player, Johnson has the unique perspective combining the mindset of a professional athlete and that of a public servant. This allows him to see multiple sides of the issue, unlike the Kings' current ownership group, which has largely floundered about when it comes to making forward progress for the franchise and has seemed disinterested in continued ownership on multiple occasions.

That Johnson is once again attempting to retain his city's professional basketball team is no surprise, although his dedication should not have to be tested (again) solely because the whims of the Maloof family are swaying against Sacramento. The city and fans of Sacramento deserve better than the Maloofs have given them. If Sacramento does lose the Kings, there is only one place to point the fingers, and it won't be on Johnson.

The fans suffer most when a city loses a franchise, but it feels worse for fans to know the city didn't do all it could to keep it around. It may be a long shot, but Johnson fighting for the team gives the people of the city the comfort of knowing if the team leaves for Seattle, it wasn't for lack of trying.

Alex Skov contributed to this story


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NBA in Europe? David Stern Says Yes

David Stern sees the NBA's future in Europe. (celtic-nation.com)

As NBA Commissioner, David Stern's job is to make decisions. Be it an act like voiding the Chris Paul-to-the-Lakers trade or something much more influential like, say, regulating pre-game handshakes, his final word on the business of professional basketball in America has often led to backlash. Stern's perceived heavy-handedness has not been without positive results, though. During his tenure as commissioner — which began in 1984 and is set to end in 2014 — Stern has been a major player in growing the sport of basketball around the globe.

In an interview with ESPN Radio's Scott Van Pelt and Ryen Russillo on Thursday, Stern does not see that growth ending with his retirement. From the man himself:

"I think so. I think [there will be] multiple NBA international teams. Twenty years from now? For sure. In Europe; no place else. In other places, I think you'll see the NBA name on leagues, and other places with marketing and basketball support but not part of the NBA as we now know it."

Basketball is already huge in Europe and, thanks to Stern's shrewd marketing of the NBA product and the league's foreign players, around the world. The sport is second in global popularity trailing only soccer, according to FIBA. It is a natural progression for the NBA to expand its official brand into overseas markets and executives would be ignoring a potential money-grab by refusing to expand Association-branded competition in other countries, especially with players such as Kobe Bryant already commanding large fan bases outside of the U.S.

This means that the NBA should be able to avoid the pitfalls suffered by NFL Europe, which appealed to a relatively small audience outside American borders and eventually shuttered its doors after several re-branding maneuvers and an attempt to use it as an avenue for young players to gain playing experience, a la the D-League.

However, there are several hurdles the NBA must clear before making Stern's prediction a reality, the least of which is finding willing ownership for a franchise based in Europe. Already filled with regional and national leagues, Europe is not a basketball-deficient continent and while the official NBA logo alone will help sell tickets, the logistics of competing with these other groups is not something the Association has never dealt with. As Kurt Helin of NBC's Pro Basketball Talk and Ball Don't Lie's Eric Freeman point out, adopting established clubs such as FC Barcelona and CSKA Moscow (the former home of players like Andrei Kirilenko and Alexey Shved) to become the NBA's official branches in Europe is the most logical move as it requires fewer start-up strategies, with the clubs already having fan bases and branded identities.

Scheduling these clubs — and there would have to be several to justify a separate division in Europe — to play against existing NBA teams would be the tough part. International travel would necessitate long road trips for teams to play each overseas opponent in a single go, rather than setting up back-to-backs beginning on one side of Atlantic Ocean and ending on the other (obviously).

Freeman also notes that racial tension is significantly higher in Europe, even in sports like soccer, and that recent NBA expansion teams in Vancouver, Toronto and Charlotte have all struggled to gain footholds among local audiences, prompting one move (to Memphis, for the Grizzlies) and a continued cold shoulder from American-born players skittish to play outside of their homeland's borders.

In the interview, Stern insists the league he has overseen for the better part of 30 years is "poised for global growth" and that he is "very pleased with the prospects for growth," even going as far as to offer his services to travel internationally and negotiate on the league's behalf. As an aside, he also mentions the NBA's return to Seattle, saying he "hope[s] there will be" a franchise there in the near future, a direct contradiction of his own 2007 statement that "if the team moves, there's not going to be another team."

The growth of basketball under Stern's watch is undeniable, whether it be that of his own league or the sport as a whole, and it looks like his precedents will be the map the NBA follows for the foreseeable future. There seems to be no way around it at this point, so the question is not if the NBA will have teams in other countries but if the plan to expand to Europe will work as a sustainable endeavor.


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No Dap for David

Cut it out, LeBron. (cbssports.com)

Gosh damnit, David Stern. Lockouts, blocked trades, the “respect for the game” rule – and now this? The NBA announced last week it’s implementing a 90-second clock for pregame rituals. After player introductions, teams will have just a minute and a half to perform rim pull-ups, chalk tosses and shorty solicitations. Less clowning and quicker tip times, the NBA says. Tell me, David, do you lease your fun-sucker or did it come with an option to buy? 

The NBA pregame dap exchange is more important than the third quarter! It’s DVR-worthy. True story: I once rewound a Toronto Raptors game just to see how awkward it was to see Linas Kleiza and DeMar DeRozan bump torsos. That has to be the first time “rewound a Toronto Raptors game” has ever appeared in the written word. These are the greatest athletes on the planet. The handshakes, the theatrics, the egos – that’s what makes your league go, Mr. Commissioner. Why would you take that awa-ohmyGod you’re retiring.

As I’m writing this post – my first for Beats, Dimes & Drives – ESPN is reporting that Stern, 70, will retire Feb. 1, 2014. On that date, he will celebrate his 30^th year as commissioner of the Association. Wow, I don’t know what to say, really. This was a curveball. I was kind of hoping to crank out another 500 words on how the big, bad man took my John Wall Dougie away. Now I just, I don’t know.

Joe Posnanski, I feel your pain, dog.

Thinking…

Congratulations, Mr. Stern. I just put two envelopes in a tumbler. One said to FINISH YOU Mortal Kombat-style and turn this into a litany of your wrongdoings as Big Boss (the ’85 lottery, urinating on the already rainy Seattle, the “buried bodies,” CP3 to the Lakers); the other said to let you off blast and offer five ways to speed up NBA games without murdering The Dapshow. I pulled the latter. I know, should have bent the envelope.

1. The five-minute jump: If a team, up 15 points, hits four three-pointers in a row, the game clock skips forward five minutes. Think of it like jumping off Rainbow Road on Mario Kart and landing halfway through the next lap. Obviously, this rule has its limitations. You can’t use the shortcut with under five minutes remaining, effectively ending the game. But if the Bobcats are down 23 with 6:51 in the 4^th quarter… c’mon, that game needs to get off my TV.

2. Picture-in-Picture the second half of all TV timeouts. Mute the broadcasters so the advertisers don’t get pissed, but throw the ball back in before Kobe’s done ladling soup for the NBA Cares campaign.

3. And1s in quarters 1-3 are automatic points. This will result in fewer trips to the free throw line and more hard fouls. If you get hacked on a made bucket in the fourth quarter, you still have to shoot the free throw. The pressure remains when the game is on the line. Put on your stars and stripes bandana – that rule is ’Merican right there.

How will this man's introduction be entertaining? (canishoopus.com)

4. Coaches no longer get introduced during pregame. Sure, I’m just shaving seconds at this point, but LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, THE HEAD COACH OF YOUR MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES…RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKK ADDDDEEEELLMANNNNNNNN!!!

Stop it.

And finally, any on-court beef between league-minimum players takes two minutes off the game clock. This happens all too frequently in the NBA. Hey, guy-who-rides-pine, sit down. It’s garbage time. We didn’t care about you when you were an athletic, high ceiling, 8.3 ppg-dude in the Big Sky. We certainly don’t now that you’re in the league. Get out of Mo Harkless’ face.


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