There's obviously a lot of attention being focused on the NFL labor negotiations, as well there should be. Both sides need to come to their senses, and the sooner the better, if only to make the draft as intriguing as possible. (Because of the lockout, only current year draft picks can be traded. No players for picks, no future picks to move up this year, only current year. That sucks).
But there's another "negotiation" coming up next week that everyone in my hometown of Kansas City should be interested in, particularly the good folks at 12th and Oak. One week from today, the NBA Board of Governors will meet. Ostensibly, it is to compliment themselves on the best regular season in recent history, marvel at the fact that right now, you can make a compelling argument for 11 different teams to reach a conference final (Bulls, Celtics, Heat, Magic, Hawks, Spurs, Lakers, Mavs, The Durant's, Nuggets, and either the Knicks or Grizzlies, both are scary sleepers in their respective conferences).
But realistically, they are meeting for one reason and one reason only. The Kings want out of Sacramento. They want into Anaheim.
And today, Lakers coach Phil Jackson publicly confirmed what I've suspected will happen all along: the Lakers (and Clippers) ain't gonna vote to let it happen.
The great details are up at si.com. But in a nutshell, the two teams currently in the Los Angeles market want, at a minimum, a sh*t ton of money for the Kings violating their territorial rights. (If you think this doesn't matter, a brief flashback to the ABA / NBA merger, courtesy of my favorite book I've ever read, "Loose Balls" by Terry Pluto. The Nets were one of four teams allowed into the NBA (along with the Spurs, Nuggets, and Pacers). Each had to pay a $4.3 million dollar entry fee. The Nets, however, for "violating" the Knicks territorial rights, had to pony up an additional $4 million. In 2011, that sounds like chump change. In 1976, when the average value of a NBA franchise was $5 million, that was huge. The Nets were basically going to have to pay eight and a half million dollars to simply survive as a franchise because of where they played. Then-Nets owner Roy Boe had no choice -- he didn't have $8.5 million in cash laying around, so he sold off the Nets franchise player, Julius Erving, to the Sixers for $3 million in cash. It destroyed the Nets as a franchise (they'd won 2 of the last 3 ABA titles), it nearly bankrupted Boe (who also owned the Islanders, who'd win 4 straight Stanley Cups to open the 1980s), but it kept the Nets afloat. My point being this -- if the Nets had to literally pay as much in a "relocation fee" as it cost to simply join the NBA, how much are the Lakers and Clips going to demand from the Maloofs to move 30 miles away in Anaheim?)
This is where, if Kansas City had visionary, forward thinking leadership, someone would be scheduling a quick flight to New York next Wednesday evening, and prepping a presentation for next Thursday. This is the best chance KC has had to land a fourth (I'll count Sporting KC, if only because the soccer jones from last summer's World Cup still is, uuh, jonesing in me) professional franchise in a long, long time. We approved the taxes to build the Sprint Centre under the idea, however far-fetched it was, that we'd gain a permanent winter tenant. We have that opportunity, ironically with the team that fled the dumps of Kemper 25 years ago.
I've always ... ok, at least for 15 years, had a dream that KC got a NBA team, named it the Scouts, had a couple guys worth cheering for, and made this hoops-crazy mecca into both a college and pro town. Yes, it's a dream ... but the Kings have a few solid guys to build a foundation around. You could lobby the NBA to redraw the divisions a little bit post-coming-lockout -- maybe create a division with KC, Milwaukee, Chicago, Minnesota, and OKC. Again, it's a dream, work with me.
This town can support a NBA team. We sold out a Heat / Thunder exhibition game in barely two hours. We fill the Sprint Centre for any college team that plays there. Anyone who says KC can't support a loser, which the Kings would be for at least a year or two if they moved here, obviously hasn't been to a game at Kauffman Stadium over the last 20 years. Or Arrowhead for the last ten. This town embraces its teams if they give them even 1/1000th of a reason to believe.
(How else do you explain KU Football drawing 45,000 plus every year for the last decade? Because God knows that other than that magical stretch from midway through 2007 to midway through 2009, we never witnessed anything that deserved that level of support).
Mayor James, I voted for you two weeks ago, because ... well, because you weren't Mark Funkhouser. Or Mike Burke, who's blind backing of any TIF project has bankrupted this city. But I also voted for you, because you kind of remind me of the one local politician of the last three decades worth a damn, former KCK Mayor Carol Marinovich. Mayor Marinovich had the "enviable" job of selling Kansas City, Kansas, of selling Wyandotte County, to a (justifiably) credulous sporting entity and business community. And she knocked that sales pitch out of the park, resurrecting WyCo as a viable part of the community, creating The Legends, and attracting two Cup races, a minor league baseball team, and a MLS team to her jurisdiction. She's the best.
Mr. James, maybe you might want to recruit her to join you on that flight you should be making to New York next Wednesday. Go get us a team. It might be ... scratch that, it would be, the best thing you could possibly do for this community. You've got the All Star Game coming next summer that's guaranteed to sell this awesome city to the nation. Why not toss a NBA team in there to keep the hype coming ...
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