"Good Faith Effort"

The meaning of that phrase could ultimately decide if the Sonics are kept in Seattle.



Sonics' former owner will sue to rescind '06 sale of team


<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr valign="top"> <td width="10"> </td> <td> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr valign="top"> <td nowrap="nowrap"> April 15, 2008
CBSSports.com staff and wire reports </td> <td width="10"> </td> <td align="right"> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="0"><tbody><tr><td><script type="text/javascript"><!--// var dclkFeaturesponsor='http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/cbssports/'+vTag+';'+vTarget+';'+uID+';sz=400x60;tile=7;ord='+random+'?'; if (switchDclk != 'off') { if (location.search.substring(1).indexOf('DCLK')>-1) document.write('<input type="text" value="'+dclkFeaturesponsor+'" style="width:400px">
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<!-- T10780740 --><!-- Sesame Modified: 04/15/2008 10:44:06 --><!-- sversion: 7 $Updated: lylec$ -->[FONT=Arial, Helvetica][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica] Howard Schultz has hired a lawyer and is preparing to file a lawsuit against current team chairman Clay Bennett to rescind the July 2006 sale of the SuperSonics, the Seattle Times reported Tuesday. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica] Schultz sold the NBA team to Oklahoma City investors nearly two years ago. On Sunday, the Sonics played what could be their final home game in Seattle before Bennett moves the club. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica] Attorney Richard Yarmuth confirmed Monday that his Seattle-based law firm, Yarmuth Wilsdon Calfo, is representing Schultz and plans to sue Bennett's Professional Basketball Club in the next two weeks. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica] "The damages that are being sought is to rescind, unwind the transaction," Yarmuth said. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica] "It's not money damage. It's to have the team returned. The theory of the suit is that when the team was sold, the Basketball Club of Seattle, our team here, relied on promises made by Clay Bennett and his ownership that they desired to keep the team in Seattle and intended to make a good-faith effort to accomplish that." [/FONT]

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I love it, David Stern's worst nightmare.

David Stern is a dictator and a complete ass hole.

bigtendominator said:

I love it, David Stern's worst nightmare.

David Stern is a dictator and a complete ass hole.

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I have come to realize this first hand being in Seattle. never that big of an NBA fan, sonics are not up there with the hawks for me or even the M's. But, the city of Seattle was really thrown in a corner, and I have come to really believe what you just posted. There is plenty of money to renovate or build a new arena, but Stern and Bennett don't want to listen. Stern has said somethings that will bite him when/if this goes to court. It pisses me off more the way Stern has handled this, not to mention Sonics ownership past and present.... although what Schultz is doing is noble, but ultimately he started this mess. Once the team was sold the talk shows in Seattle went off on how long until the team was gone..... There was an effort to keep the team here, but it was unfair and there were better plans. There was not a good-faith effort from what I have read so far about all this.

what is a "good faith" effort and how does he know a good faith effort wasnt made.

Budworth22 said:

Almost zero chance of this happening. Court's are averse to enforcing these restraints on alienation. Additionally, these promises were not in writing, and if they were actually important to the deal, Schulze should have insisted on these conditions remaining in the contract. Since these terms were not included in the contract, the courts will consider them to have been immaterial to the sale, and thus a challenge to the sale will result in a grant of relief.
​

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I think that there is a chance that this works. If anything this may keep the Sonics in Seattle for another year while this plays out. That just adds to what so far has been a money losing proposition for Bennett's group. There is some BIG money people in Seattle willing to DONATE hundreds of millions of dollars to make the Key Arena into a first class facility. The longer this drags out the more it smells and at some point the other NBA owners have to ask each other if it makes sense to move from the 14th biggest market to the 45th.

gtc08 said:

what is a "good faith" effort and how does he know a good faith effort wasnt made.

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UoweDucks said:

There is some BIG money people in Seattle willing to DONATE hundreds of millions of dollars to make the Key Arena into a first class facility.

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Listening to these people would constitute a good faith effort. e-mails about the move to okl well before that was supposed to be the plan is not in good faith. Good faith imo means being unbiased in any way. If a team is in a city every possible effort should be made to keep them there. You should not have grand plans from the start to move the team.

In the long run Bennett will get his team in OKC and the Sonics will stay in Seattle. That's what I think!

Stern and Bennett will get a circle jerk going and call it good!

The new owners would sell the Sonics for a hefty premium in an Oklahoma minute. They are first and foremost businessmen who stole an NBA franchise. With the price of oil and gas rising daily, some of these owners are becoming the richest men(net worth) in the United States.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008 - Page updated at 12:00 AM

ANONYMOUS / AP
David Stern, right, has said all the wrong things to Seattle fans about owner Clay Bennett's proposed move of the Sonics.


Gary Payton knows a bully from a real trash talker.

DAVID J. PHILLIP / AP
Charles Barkley


Stern's trash talk stinks, but pros could teach him a lesson

Times staff Columnist

Nobody in the NBA, nobody, talks more trash these days than commissioner David Stern.
He has belittled Seattle, a city that has supported his game for four decades. He has mocked citizens as solid as Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Costco CEO Jim Sinegal. He has treated the state legislature and city council with finger-wagging disdain.
Stern has trash talked so much this season that if he were a player, he would have fined himself.
The trouble is, Stern's no good at it. Surely he knows his trash talking sounds clumsy. It's too much Park Avenue penthouse and not enough Rucker Park playground.
He needs a trash talk intervention.
Just imagine if, before this week's NBA Board of Governors' vote on whether Clay Bennett can move the Sonics to Oklahoma City, Stern called Larry Bird, Charles Barkley and the undisputed champ Gary Payton to New York and asked them to teach him the fine art of trash talking.
STERN: Thanks for coming on such short notice.
BARKLEY: Hurry up, Sterno, Ernie Johnson's waiting for me in Atlanta so I can make fun of you on TNT. And, you see, calling you "Sterno" is good trash talking, because it equates you with a source of hot air.
STERN: Thanks, that's exactly what I'm looking for, Charles. I want to talk trash like Sam Cassell on a caffeine jag, and here I am coming across as stiff as Calvin Booth.
BIRD: So Commish, the first thing you have to do is string your insults together. Quit talking about this arena lease like it was chiseled on tablets. It's booorrrring. Get into Seattle's grill. Call them a bunch of rain-drenched, latte-lovin', Monorail-ridin' Space Needlers. Something like that.
BARKLEY: Hey back off, Larry, I love Seattle and those fans loved me back. Don't be callin' them names.
BIRD: I thought that's why we were here.
BARKLEY: Why are you here, anyway? Don't you have enough problems with that lame excuse of a team you call the Pacers?
STERN: Hey, guys, can we focus here?
PAYTON: Focus? You're talkin' about focus. If you were focused, you wouldn't be throwin' down names of expansion cities like Gangplank.
STERN: That's Guangzhou.
PAYTON: It's Greek to me. Besides, nobody knows where that is. Most people have enough trouble finding Memphis on a map. Stop with the threats to move to China. Haven't you been watching the torch relay? You think Seattle's mad? Think about the stink you'd raise if you moved a team to China.
BARKLEY: And pick your spots, man. You're trying to trash talk Steve Ballmer? You're calling his $150 million proposal to save the Sonics a "publicity stunt?" Are you nuts? That would be like me getting posterized by M.J. You remember Michael Jordan, don't you, Sterno? How's your league doin' without him?
Anyway, you trashing Ballmer is like me trashing M.J. while he's hangin' on the rim after he dunked in my face.
STERN: But shouldn't I at least go after former owner Howard Schultz? See what he's doing? He's suing Bennett, saying my guy Clay broke the agreement in a letter he signed after buying the team saying he would negotiate in good faith with the city and state.
PAYTON: Howard? Are you trashin' my boy, Howard?
STERN: Your boy? You once called him a "punk ass."
PAYTON: I made a mistake. I admit it. Now he's admittin' a mistake. That's somethin' I've never seen you do in your Jordan-coattail-ridin', Euro-lovin', ratings-plummetin' years as commissioner.
My boy Howard's rubbin' salt in your wounds, isn't he? How can the Board of Governors vote to move the Sonics when your boy Clay is up to his cattle-ropin' eyeballs in lawsuits in Seattle?
BARKLEY: You didn't see that suit coming, did you, Sterno?
BIRD: Look at him, Chuck, he's blushing.
BARKLEY: That's it, Sterno. You're no longer in my Fave Five.
PAYTON: Here's a piece of advice, Commish. Threats aren't trash talking. They're just threats. It's bullying. Nothin' more. Nothin' less. You're a disgrace to my art form.
All of us players, not you, made this game great. How dare you try to taunt a city that welcomed me like a son. That's it. I'm outta here. Who's with me?
BARKLEY: I'm with you, Gee. Sterno here is an arrogant, threat-makin', snob-hobbin' con artist. He should have to move to Oklahoma City, not the Sonics.
BIRD: Anybody up for a game of H-O-R-S-E before we go?
PAYTON: In honor of the commissioner, let's call it S-T-E-R-N-O.
BARKLEY: I'll spot both of you chumps the S and T.
BIRD: Your momma.
STERN (to himself): Wow, I'll never be as good as these guys.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cg...ion_id=2002119811&slug=kelley16&date=20080416

anyone see how Bennet called Seattle of dishonesty...

and then said that the Seattle media was being hostile....... Dude you are trying to take the team out of Seattle....

Blue,
I really think there is a chance Seattle sticks for next year. I grew up loving the sonics. I still find it hard to believe that there is anything wrong with Key Arena. The loudest venue I have ever attended, playoff games vs Utah, Houston and finally Chicago championship series. Crazy.

Bennett explains what Sonics e-mails meant

By Percy Allen
Seattle Times staff reporter

When Sonics chairman Clay Bennett wrote "I am a man possessed" in an e-mail, he says he meant "I am a man possessed to keep the team in Seattle."
Any other inference is inaccurate, he said Friday after the NBA Board of Governors voted 28-2 to approve the team's bid to move to Oklahoma City next season, pending the outcome of a June lawsuit from the city of Seattle.
In filings last week, the city revealed e-mails between the Oklahoma City-based ownership in which they spoke about moving the team to their hometown. The e-mails seemingly contradict Bennett's claims that he gave a "good-faith best effort" attempt to keep the team in Seattle after buying it July 2006, which was part of the sales agreement with former owner Howard Schultz.
On April 17, 2007, Sonics co-owner Tom Ward wrote co-owner Aubrey McClendon and Bennett: "Is there any way to move here for next season or are we doomed to have another lame duck season in Seattle?"
Bennett replied: "I am a man possessed! Will do everything we can. Thanks for hanging with me boys, the game is getting started!"
Ward replied: "That's the spirit!! I am willing to help any way I can to watch ball here next year."
On Friday, Bennett denied claims he acted in bad faith.
"I feel very bad about the misrepresentation of that particular e-mail; the fact that it's been misconstrued and been utilized in such a fashion, because I clearly recall that e-mail exchange," he said. "That e-mail exchange took place when I first learned that our bill had died in committee in Olympia, and that there would be no public funding forthcoming relative to our proposition.
"And my absolute feeling and emotion in that e-mail is I am a man possessed; I am only beginning; I will do everything I can to get this done in Seattle. And there's been an enormous misunderstanding of that, misrepresentation of that, misconstrued, I'm not sure which, but I was speaking about my commitment to a process in Seattle."
Bennett admitted Ward and McClendon "perhaps all along wanted to have a team in Oklahoma City," but added that "they knew it was not to be the Sonics."
Last year, McClendon drew a $250,000 fine from the NBA for statements in an Oklahoma business journal in which he said: "We didn't buy the team to keep it in Seattle, we hoped to come here."
NBA commissioner David Stern said the city of Seattle's e-mail disclosure had little bearing on the owners' decision.
"There may be issues and litigation that require testimony, documents, etc., and, all of that is forthcoming and that's where we'll be following that and participating to some degree as witnesses or producers of documents," Stern said. "But that did not play any role. There was no questioning of that issue. There was a statement by Clay and my sense is, there was an acceptance of his statement."
Bennett said he was naïve about the difficulty in building an arena in the Seattle area.
He said he's made at least 30 trips to Seattle and spent millions of dollars while trying to drum up support for a $500 million Renton arena plan that died in the state Legislature last year.
"Safeco [Field] is one of the most magnificent modern baseball stadiums in the country," Bennett said. "You've got Qwest that is one of the most magnificent modern football stadiums in the country. And you have got KeyArena that is basically a renovated 1962 building."
Mayor Greg Nickels said he does not seek a buyout to settle the lawsuit and the increasingly hostile rhetoric between city officials and Bennett suggests the two sides will settle their differences at the trial, which begins June 16.
Despite the hostility, Bennett offered a truce Friday, saying he would like to restart communications with the city of Seattle.
"Let's find a way to dial it down and get something productive on track," he said.
Percy Allen: 206-464-2278 or pallen@seattletimes.com

Bennett is a rat....

Bluemyboy said:

Despite the hostility, Bennett offered a truce Friday, saying he would like to restart communications with the city of Seattle.
"Let's find a way to dial it down and get something productive on track," he said.

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hmmm