Lots of excitement here in the Seattle area this week, the Seahawks winning a playoff game on the road and with local hero Chris Hansen rumored to be teaming with Microsoft’s Steve Balmer to be purchasing the Sacramento Kings from the Maloof brothers for somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 million, which experts say is a great inflated price tag. Especially for a losing team like the Kings.
The Kings are barely winning a third of their games this year, currently with a 13 win and 22 loss record and 3rd from the bottom in the Western conference. They lost their last game at home a couple of nights ago to Memphis by 32.
Even here in now basketball crazy Seattle, Hansen and Company will have to put a quality product on the floor to draw big crowds to his new arena after the novelty wears off.
The current King’s roster has 10 guys all making $3 million a year or more, 6 of them making $5 mil a year or more – and there isn’t any one of them who is close to all-star status, let alone a player one could feasibly build a franchise around. They don’t have one guy who is 7 feet tall either. On the plus side, we may get a chance to see former UW Husky star Isiah Thomas play here in Seattle on a regular basis again.
The rumors are certainly sailing today, with Yahoo Sports reporting the deal is imminent, and others reporting the Maloofs are holding out for more money. I sure hope that Hansen won’t give in – he needs to save of that money to get some good players and put a competitive team on the court.
Either way it works out, I have to feel sorry for the fans in Sacramento who apparently are going to have their team ‘stolen’ from them. And more so for Hansen, who will no doubt gain a bunch of ‘fans’ just like Clay Bennett did when he hijacked the Sonics. At least Chris Hansen has been honest and straight forward about his intentions. I hope his intentions are to put a winner on the court here in Seattle – simply buying a mediocre NBA team to fill an arena will not do.
What are your thoughts?