Sonics may be gone, but dream still alive in Seattle

The final mugging of Seattle by Clay Bennett might have come at the right time. Losing the NBA team formerly known as the SuperSonics is painful, but could also be what drives city, state, and community leaders with deep pockets toward restoring professional basketball in Seattle.

Until Wednesday's announcement that Seattle and Bennett had settled a KeyArena lease dispute, which allowed the team to be moved to Oklahoma in return for $45 million, there was little cohesion around how to make the NBA work in the region. The absence of Bennett's poisonous presence clears the way for honest discussions about making KeyArena and Seattle — yes, Seattle, not Renton or Bellevue — a place for a team to flourish.

If all the post-settlement statements from city officials are to be believed, there is a chance the NBA could be back. Would the city have settled for what seems like nothing if there was not a stronger commitment from the NBA to return to Seattle?

NBA commissioner David Stern said the city will be notified if and when a team comes up for sale. Mayor Greg Nickels' commitment to the NBA in Seattle seems lacking if he rolled on that meager assurance. Nickels is a talented politician who hopefully has a stronger hush-hush agreement with the NBA.

Anyone who believed that Bennett would have lost interest in his team and sold it to a local buyer if the city had won its lawsuit and kept the team in its lease until 2010 was delusional. Bennett was committed to professional basketball — just not in Seattle or the Puget Sound region.

The Legislature made his Oklahoma commitment easier by not allowing King County to vote on a plan to build an arena in Renton. Had King County extended the taxes used to pay for Safeco Field to a new arena, Bennett would have likely sold the team.

Instead, Bennett's halfhearted effort in Olympia was trumped by that of lawmakers. The only person in Olympia committed to getting that deal done was Sen. Margarita Prentice, D-Renton. Gov. Christine Gregoire and House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, should have forced the Legislature to vote on the proposal. They did not and the proposal died in committee.

That was the team's last chance to stay in the region. The longer Bennett was here, the less likely the NBA in Seattle became.

Bennett is gone not a day too soon. Now potential owners such as Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer can start working with the Legislature and the city to craft a sensible remodel of KeyArena. Ballmer and his political friends also have to run on a parallel track with Stern. Local players need to apply pressure and secure a deal that guarantees league expansion will happen in Seattle before any other city.

There is no question that there is enough money floating around Seattle and the Eastside to afford a team. Stern must recognize this and should work as hard as he did for a Seattle buyer as he did for Bennett if a team comes up for sale.

Expect Bennett to also work on getting a team in Seattle. The settlement forces Bennett to pay the city $30 million more under a number of scenarios. One trigger is if the city cannot secure a team by 2013. No doubt he will need that money to keep Kevin Durant from jumping to a real basketball city when his contract is up.

Not having a team hurts, but is better than watching a truly awful team limp through two meaningless seasons.

Bennett's departure with his team gives Seattle a chance at landing an NBA franchise. That puts fans in a better place than they were on Tuesday.

Ryan Blethen's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is rblethen@seattletimes.com; for a podcast Q&A with the author, go to www.seattletimes.com/edcetera