Sonics moving? Maybe

The NBA will approve the move to Oklahoma City, but a lawsuit will follow.

SEATTLE (AP) — The supposedly obsolete arena is dark. After enduring billionaire power plays, broken promises and the team’s worst season ever, Seattle is on the brink of losing its first big-time sports franchise.

NBA owners are set to approve the SuperSonics’ move to Oklahoma City today. The last two votes on moves — the Hornets from Charlotte to New Orleans and the Grizzlies from Vancouver to Memphis — passed by a combined vote of 59-1.

Today’s approval won’t quite decide whether 41 years of NBA history in the city is over.

“I’m not so worried about the board of governors’ vote, really,” Seattle mayor Greg Nickels said Thursday. “We expect they are going to approve it ... convincingly. We’re really focused on litigation.”

Yes, this two-year saga likely will be settled in court. Or with Sonics owner and Oklahoma City tycoon Clay Bennett writing a huge check to avoid the courts, a windfall Seattle might not be able to refuse.

The city already has rejected Bennett’s offer of $26 million to settle the lease agreement, which runs through 2010.

Nickels laughed and declined to directly answer three different questions on whether there is a price at which Seattle would agree to let Bennett take the Sonics to Oklahoma.

“We intend to have the Sonics be a part of our community for a long, long time,” is all the mayor, who stood on the downtown sidewalks for the Sonics’ parade after they won the NBA title in 1979, would say.

Seattle’s best hope to at least delay the Sonics’ flight to Oklahoma City is a three-pronged legal fight against Bennett and his partners:

• A trial, set to begin June 16, in which the city is trying to force the team to play out its KeyArena lease.

• A class-action lawsuit brought by season-ticket holders who say they were duped into buying tickets under the premise the Sonics wouldn’t leave.

• Former team owner Howard Schultz’s new plans to sue to get the team back.

The smooth-talking Starbucks chairman is citing new evidence indicating Bennett’s group lied while promising to make a good-faith effort to keep the team in Seattle.