Senators Face Off Over Fate Of Seattle SuperSonics

Senators from both Washington and Oklahoma have begun a last-minute lobbying campaign over the fate of the Seattle Supersonics basketball team, sending letters to NBA commissioner David Stern.

On Wednesday, Washington’s two Democratic senators, Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, sent Stern a letter urging him to reconsider moving the team.

After years of sluggish attendance, Sonics owner Clay Bennett filed a relocation request with the NBA. Oklahoma City, having hosted the New Orleans Hornets in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, is seen as the most likely location if the team is moved.

In their letter, the Washington senators argued that an Oklahoma-based ownership group made a good faith promise to former owner Howard Schultz to keep the team in Seattle when Schultz sold the team twenty months ago.

“We believe that attempting to allow a move away from Seattle at this time would be a breach of trust and set a damaging precedent for the NBA,” the senators wrote in their letter. “Rather than vote to allow the owners to move the Sonics, we ask that you allow appropriate time for good faith efforts to find a way to keep this team in Seattle.”

On Thursday, however, Sen. James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, sent Stern a letter of his own, expressing his “strong support” for the move and “encouraging him to allow the process of considering relocation to continue moving forward.”

Inhofe also took a swipe at his fellow Senators from Washington, accusing them of “a last minute lobbying effort to derail the relocation process.”

The once proud Sonics finished the season with a 20-62 record, a far cry from the glory days of the mid-1990s, when they reached the 1996 NBA finals. However, that team ran into Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls, widely considered the greatest NBA team of all time, after posting a 72-10 record in the regular season. 

The relocation request will be voted on by all 30 NBA owners on Friday.