Sacramento and Seattle have made their presentations as to why the Sacramento Kings should stay in town and play at a new arena.  It appears they both still have work to do. 

 

The Seattle group led off with their leader -Hedge fund manager Chris Hansen- doing most of the talking.  He gave the details of the deal to buy the team and build an arena.  He also touched on one of the biggest hurdles his group will have to overcome -proving Seattle should have an NBA franchise just five years after it lost the Seattle Sonics, "I just think you don't get anywhere in life looking backwards and dwelling on things that have gone wrong and maybe the counter to that is also that you know sometimes you have to lose something that you really hold precious and dear to really realize just how much it means to you."

 

 

The Sacramento group was lead by Mayor Kevin Johnson, with Ron Burkle giving the arena presentation.  But it was Vivek Ranadive's talk that may have resonated most with the Commissioner.  Ranadive is the first Indian co-owner of an NBA franchise.  He stressed how he hoped the league would expand its reach, "We talked about globalization -how, at one point china and india were 2/3 of the world economy and at some point within the next couple of decades, that will probably happen again.  So, it was important for it to become a global sport." 

 

Kings majority co-owner George Maloof sat in on both presentations and voice support for the Seattle bid. Stern says the decision will be more complex than just a comparison of the two cities' economies. 

 

"Seattle is a vibrant and thriving market with plans for a great building and Sacramento has been a great and supportive market of the NBA with plans for a new building.  And so we need to flush out for the owners -every owner seems to have a different question- but we got a fair amount of work to do." 

 

Stern says there may not be a decision by the April 18-19 Board of Governors' meetings, but he said a delay would not extend much past that. 

Sacramento and Seattle have made their presentations as to why the Sacramento Kings should stay in town and play at a new arena.  It appears they both still have work to do. 

 

The Seattle group led off with their leader - hedge fund manager Chris Hansen - doing most of the talking. He gave the details of the deal to buy the team and build an arena.

 

He also touched on one of the biggest hurdles his group will have to overcome - proving Seattle should have an NBA franchise just five years after it lost the Seattle Sonics, "I just think you don't get anywhere in life looking backwards and dwelling on things that have gone wrong and maybe the counter to that is also that you know sometimes you have to lose something that you really hold precious and dear to really realize just how much it means to you."

 

The Sacramento group was lead by Mayor Kevin Johnson, with Ron Burkle giving the arena presentation. But it was Vivek Ranadive's talk that may have resonated most with the Commissioner.

 

Ranadive is the first Indian co-owner of an NBA franchise. He stressed how he hoped the league would expand its reach,

 

"We talked about globalization - how, at one point China and India were two-thirds of the world economy and at some point within the next couple of decades, that will probably happen again. So, it was important for it to become a global sport."

Sacramento and Seattle have made their presentations as to why the Sacramento Kings should stay in town and play at a new arena.  It appears they both still have work to do. 

 

The Seattle group led off with their leader -Hedge fund manager Chris Hansen- doing most of the talking.  He gave the details of the deal to buy the team and build an arena.  He also touched on one of the biggest hurdles his group will have to overcome -proving Seattle should have an NBA franchise just five years after it lost the Seattle Sonics, "I just think you don't get anywhere in life looking backwards and dwelling on things that have gone wrong and maybe the counter to that is also that you know sometimes you have to lose something that you really hold precious and dear to really realize just how much it means to you."

 

The Sacramento group was lead by Mayor Kevin Johnson, with Ron Burkle giving the arena presentation.  But it was Vivek Ranadive's talk that may have resonated most with the Commissioner.  Ranadive is the first Indian co-owner of an NBA franchise.  He stressed how he hoped the league would expand its reach, "We talked about globalization -how, at one point china and india were 2/3 of the world economy and at some point within the next couple of decades, that will probably happen again.  So, it was important for it to become a global sport." 

 

Kings majority co-owner George Maloof sat in on both presentations and voice support for the Seattle bid. Stern says the decision will be more complex than just a comparison of the two cities' economies. 

 

"Seattle is a vibrant and thriving market with plans for a great building and Sacramento has been a great and supportive market of the NBA with plans for a new building.  And so we need to flush out for the owners -every owner seems to have a different question- but we got a fair amount of work to do." 

 

Stern says there may not be a decision by the April 18-19 Board of Governors' meetings, but he said a delay would not extend much past that. 

Sacramento and Seattle have made their presentations as to why the Sacramento Kings should stay in town and play at a new arena.  It appears they both still have work to do. 

 

The Seattle group led off with their leader - hedge fund manager Chris Hansen - doing most of the talking. He gave the details of the deal to buy the team and build an arena.

 

He also touched on one of the biggest hurdles his group will have to overcome - proving Seattle should have an NBA franchise just five years after it lost the Seattle Sonics, "I just think you don't get anywhere in life looking backwards and dwelling on things that have gone wrong and maybe the counter to that is also that you know sometimes you have to lose something that you really hold precious and dear to really realize just how much it means to you."

 

The Sacramento group was lead by Mayor Kevin Johnson, with Ron Burkle giving the arena presentation. But it was Vivek Ranadive's talk that may have resonated most with the Commissioner.

 

Ranadive is the first Indian co-owner of an NBA franchise. He stressed how he hoped the league would expand its reach,

 

"We talked about globalization - how, at one point China and India were two-thirds of the world economy and at some point within the next couple of decades, that will probably happen again. So, it was important for it to become a global sport."

 

 

Kings majority co-owner George Maloof sat in on both presentations and voiced support for the Seattle bid.

 

Stern says the decision will be more complex than just a comparison of the two cities' economies,

 

"Seattle is a vibrant and thriving market with plans for a great building, and Sacramento has been a great and supportive market of the NBA with plans for a new building. And so we need to flush out for the owners - every owner seems to have a different question - but we got a fair amount of work to do."

 

Stern says there may not be a decision by the April 18-19 Board of Governors' meetings, but he said a delay would not extend much past that. 

The Seattle contingent made up of investors Chris Hansen and Steve Ballmer has made its presentation to a special committee of NBA owners. Also there were the Mayor of Seattle, Mike McGinn and King County Executive Dow Constantine. 

ADDED at 2:18 p.m.:

The leader of the Seattle group of investors is hedge fund manager Chris Hansen.  He gave the majority of the group's presentation to the NBA committee.

One of the biggest hurdles his group will have to overcome is to prove Seattle is an NBA city, after it failed to support the construction of an arena and lost the team five years ago,  "I just think you don't get anywhere in live looking backwards and dwelling on things that have gone wrong and maybe the counter to that is also that you know sometimes you have to lose something that you really hold precious and dear to really realize just how much it means to you."

Constantine called Hansen's presentation thorough and Ballmer's energetic, "Our primary purpose there was to demonstrate we had between the city and the county the political support for our agreement with the owners and the arena deal and I think those are the types of things they were looking at is what was the nature of the deal, what is the nature of the arena deal and they just wanted to look into that a little bit and understand where we were coming from and where we were going."

Constantine says Kings majority owner George Maloof spoke on behalf of the Seattle group, "After owning that interest for so many years, it was just  from a personal perspective as a fan of the NBA, touching to hear them talking about  their long involvement with the league going back to his parents."

The Sacramento group is currently presenting before the owners' committee.  There will be a press conference following that presentation and an additional press conference by NBA Commissioner David Stern.

 

Vivek Ranadivé ‏@Vivek3h

NBA.com Video archive - Watch the press conferences following the presentations