Sonics’ departure like a bad breakup

It is like watching a friend suffer through his or her first breakup. 

Sure, maybe the writing has been on the wall for months, and maybe in the end it is best for both involved to go out and see other people. But it hurts, even from afar, to witness the pain of lost love.

Anyone who has experienced heartbreak can empathize with the basketball fans of Seattle.

Their SuperSonics are leaving them.

The impending divorce is less than amiable. Sonics fans feel betrayed and rightly so.

Professional basketball might never pass that way again.

And it’s not like the city’s relationship with the Sonics was a one-night stand, a summer love or an extended fling.  It was a committed relationship of 41 years.

Seven years ago it appeared as though the city of Seattle and the Sonics had renewed their vows. 

Howard Schultz, CEO of a little Seattle-based company called Starbucks, a man who dearly loved basketball, purchased the team. 

Schultz tried to bring some early passion back to the relationship. He changed the team’s logo and colors back to the original green and gold. 

But Schultz’s love affair with the Sonics was short lived. 

The Sonics’ lease on KeyArena split the team’s profits between the owner and the city to pay for the arena’s renovation in the mid-1990s. The coffee magnate, who is used to hawking lattes and espressos at nearly $5 dollars a pop, wasn’t satisfied with a team that ranked dead last in the NBA in revenue. 

Schultz called it “probably the worst economic arrangement of any professional sports team in the United States of America.”

In 2005, Schultz’s Seattle-based ownership group pushed for an expansion of KeyArena but only offered to pick up $18 million of the estimated $220 million tab. Local politicians rejected the proposal that would have used taxpayer funds to finance the project. 

Taxpayers had already been tabbed with helping to pay for two brand-new stadiums; $518 million Safeco Field - home of the Mariners, which opened in 1999 - and Quest Field, the $360 million home of the Seahawks, which opened in 2002.

Frustrated by his inability to secure funds to renovate the arena, Schultz sold the team to Oklahoma City businessman Clay Bennett for $350 million.

Bennett purchased the team with the promise it would remain in Seattle. He lied. 

E-mails released last week show that Bennett never intended to fulfill his promise.

On Aug. 13, 2007, Sonics co-owner Aubrey McClendon told an Oklahoma City newspaper: “We didn’t buy the team to keep it in Seattle.”

Three days later, Bennett e-mailed NBA commissioner David Stern: “I would never breach your trust. As absolutely remarkable as it may seem, Aubrey and I have NEVER discussed moving the Sonics to Oklahoma City, nor have I discussed it with ANY other member of our ownership group.”

But e-mails four months earlier have Bennett singing a much different tune.

“I am a man possessed!” Bennett wrote about the possibility of moving the team before this current NBA season. “Will do everything we can. Thanks for hanging with me boys, the game is getting started!”

“That’s the spirit!! I am willing to help any way I can to watch ball here (in Oklahoma City) next year,” one of his associates replied. 

To the city of Seattle, Clay Bennett is a home wrecker; he is stealing its girlfriend.

Grief is a familiar theme among Sonics fans and they are all dealing with it in their own ways.

“(Expletive) Clay Bennett” chants have filled KeyArena. The grassroots campaign “Save Our Sonics” has held rallies at the state capitol in Olympia. But no matter how angry they get or how much they plead, their Sonics are leaving.

There is still a chance that the Sonics could be forced to honor their lease to play in KeyArena for the next two seasons. 

Maybe that would be enough time to mend the fences, but most likely it would just prolong the inevitable separation.

On Tuesday Schultz announced he is filing suit against Bennett’s ownership group in an attempt to recover the Sonics, claiming breach of contract for their failure to make a “good-faith effort” to keep the team in Seattle.

Schultz’s lawsuit is the equivalent of buying her flowers as she is storming out the door - too little too late.

So in the end, the city of Seattle will have to pull itself together and try and get on with its life sans the Sonics.

Maybe Seattle fans can begin a relationship with the Northwest’s other team, the Portland Trail Blazers, but we all know how long-distance relationships work out.

Or maybe, one day, basketball will return to the Emerald City, and Sonics fans will learn to love again. But right now is the time for Seattle to cope with love lost.

Breakups are never easy, but losing that first love is especially hard.