Sacramen-to-be for Kings as Seattle move fails

After nearly 5 months of battling with an extremely wealthy Seattle business group, the Kings are staying in Sacramento.

On Wednesday afternoon, a meeting was held in Dallas to decide the fate of the Kings. It was attended by all 30 NBA owners, the Seattle Group, Sacramento Mayor KJ and League Commissioner David Stern. After hours of debating and last-minute proposals, the bid to move the Kings to Seattle was crushed, with a 22-8 vote against the relocation of the Sacramento Kings.

The news first broke in early January regarding a deal between the King’s owners – the Maloofs – and Seattle businessman Chris Hansen to relocate the team to the Emerald City. Sacramento’s chances of retaining their team initially looked bleak. However, through the combined, tireless efforts by Kings fans and Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, this saga has almost been put to bed entirely.

With the short time given to him, former NBA player and current Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson (or KJ as he is affectionately known in the Californian capital) managed to secure a group of private investors with the ability to pose a counter-offer to Chris Hansen’s huge, unprecedented bid for the franchise. KJ also drew up financial bid plans for an arena to be built in downtown Sacramento to the tune of $448 million dollars.

Despite the resounding success and positive news for Kings fans, there is still one major issue yet to be resolved; the Maloof family have not yet signed a deal to sell the team to the private investors grouped together by KJ. However, Commissioner David Stern insisted that he will personally press for a deal to be signed by the end of the week.

Furthermore, Vivek Ranadive, an Indian born co-owner of the Golden State Warriors who is heading the Sacramento buyer’s group acknowledged that he and the Maloof’s attorneys have been in ‘serious’ discussions this week. Ranadive is confident that a deal will be done. At a press conference following Wednesday’s meeting, Kevin Johnson said he expects the two sides to negotiate around the clock in the coming days to finalise a deal.

Sacramento resident Sheila Jackson said: “As a long time Kings fan, I am really happy they are staying, most of us would be happy if the Maloofs were out of the picture”.

Sheila went on to say: “Maybe now with new ownership and potential sweeping changes in the organisation, things will look up and we’ll get back to the glory days.”

This saga has run on for many years due to the Maloof’s financial failures and a tendency to conceal the truth regarding the plans for a new arena, which was of the highest priority to be resolved for the Kings to remain in Northern California. Sacramento fans will be relieved to see this twist in a long tale finally come to an end.