Is the NBA Finally Returning to Seattle?
The Seattle SuperSonics could begin play in 2028-29.
On Monday morning, Seattle Sports fans woke up to the news that the NBA may finally be seriously considering a return to Seattle. The SuperSonics were relocated to Oklahoma City nearly 20 years ago, back in 2008. A move that would have also cost the region the Storm, if Force 10 Hoops didn’t save the team.
For nearly two decades, the league has shown little interest in bringing a team back to the Pacific Northwest. At one point, they even blocked the sale and relocation of the Sacramento Kings to Seattle. They didn’t want to hurt the people of Sacramento. Of course, they didn’t care about the fans at all when they ripped the Sonics out of our city.
Seattle continued to have arena problems throughout the 2010’s. In 2016, the Seattle City Council voted 5-4 in a split decision to reject a new arena being built in SoDo near the Seahawks and Mariners stadiums. No further action would happen until 2018, when Oak View Group and Tim Leiweke arranged a deal to demolish most of KeyArena and rebuild it into Climate Pledge Arena.
Even years after Climate Pledge Arena opened in 2021, the region didn’t have much positive news about a Sonics return. The message was consistent in that they weren’t looking to expand at this time. Even when it felt that expansion could be on the horizon, it was always shot down.
Today’s announcement seems pretty substantial. The fact that they are letting this get out to the public and the fact that they are only spotlighting two cities, Seattle and Las Vegas, leads me to believe things are further along than initially thought. There has been some smoke around this topic in recent months, but not that long ago, it felt like it was shot down again.
710 AM ESPN (Seattle Sports Radio) had ESPN’s NBA expert Shams Charania on to talk about the breaking news. You can listen to that interview at the link below.
The NBA Board of Governors will meet on March 25th and 26th. They need to have 23 of the 30 team owners approve this process to move forward. If approved, they will then begin the process of rounding up ownership groups with bid proposals for the two new expansion teams in Las Vegas and Seattle. Shams’ report suggested the Expansion fees could be in the range of $7-10 billion. Howard Schultz sure is a smart businessman for selling the Sonics off for $350 million.
We’ll know more about this story at the end of next week. In the meantime, what are your thoughts on the NBA and the SuperSonics returning to Seattle? Are you excited about the news? Are you worried it could negatively impact the Storm? Could you see any benefits it could have on the Storm? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
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I’m ambivalent. What’s frustrating is the talk about “basketball finally coming back to Seattle.” Hello… It’s been here the past 26 years. With FOUR championships to show for it.
I'm cautiously optimistic. I think we are a lot closer to getting the Sonics this time than we were in the 2010's. I am just hoping that nothing comes up where they fall one vote short of expansion, or something similar to that.
I hope that if the Sonics do come back, that they get their history from OKC back from 1967-2008, similar to how the Hornets and the Pelicans worked it out where the Charlotte got their name back (so that they were no longer the Bobcats) after the first Hornets team relocated to New Orleans.
The Storm have kept the legacy of professional basketball alive and well in Seattle, and I am really hoping that by next week, that the Storm and the Sonics will start sharing the same building beginning with the 2028-29 season. The Storm have been around for 26 years, and with the seasons not conflicting with each other, I am not as worried about them being impacted by the Sonics coming into the building, especially with Sue Bird's statute at Climate Pledge Arena to remind people of the legacy of women's professional basketball in Seattle. If anything, this will be a benefit to the Storm to have the Sonics back.