NBA Commish: Only a "Miracle" Will Keep the Sonics in Seattle

I'd held out hope that, seeing as how the Oklahoma City-based owners of the Sonics flat out admitted they never intended to keep them here, that NBA commissioner David Stern would use his influence to throw the suckers out and find local ownership in Seattle.

Looks like that isn't going to happen. Stern has given up on us. As he told reporters yesterday:

Miracles can always happen, and I'm an optimist by nature, but that optimism is waning under a generally poor response. You know, so be it. We'd love to find a way to salvage Seattle and the NBA's relationship. But if it's not to be salvaged, then the team will just live out its lease and decide what it's going to do depending on the outcome of the litigations that are now launched and pending.

Stern added that in his two trips to Seattle, he found "no heart whatsoever for assisting a Sonics team" and that there was a "there was a very sort of proactive anti-Seattle Sonics movement."

This does not sit well with Save our Sonics founder Brian Robinson, who tells the P-I, "David Stern has an obligation to try to influence the politicians."

Unfortunately, that ain't so. David Stern is under no obligation whatsoever to do anything at all for the basketball fans of Seattle. Stern's obligation is to the owners, at whose pleasure he serves, and one of the tenets held dear by professional sports owners is that they should be able to move their teams whenever and wherever they want. It's impossible to see Stern putting any sort of roadblock in the way of owners who want to take the Sonics away.

We're on our own, people.