Sacramento makes last bid

Associated Press

SACRAMENTO, Calif.

The NBA left town on Tuesday.

This time, maybe for good.

Mayor Kevin Johnson, business leaders and fans have done all they could in the past few months to prevent the Sacramento Kings from relocating to Anaheim.

The final and perhaps most critical step came Tuesday, when the corporate community handed NBA representatives deposits on more than $10 million in sponsorship pledges for the Kings to stay at least another year.

“Today is another historic day in Sacramento,” Johnson said. “The NBA had said to Sacramento, ‘Show me the money.’ And today, we’re doing just that. We’re making a down payment on the future of the Sacramento Kings and this being their permanent home.”

Now the decision is out of the city’s control.

The NBA relocation committee headed by Clay Bennett — who moved the Seattle SuperSonics to Oklahoma City three years ago as owner — will issue a final report to commissioner David Stern later this week. Then Kings owners Joe and Gavin Maloof will finally decide the franchise’s fate.

The Maloofs have until Monday to file a relocation request to the league, which fellow owners would have to approve by a majority vote. The Maloofs remain undecided.

Sacramento has used the two extensions from the original March 1 deadline to rally the business community and convince owners that Sacramento remains a viable NBA city. Johnson, a former NBA All-Star, has been at the center of that effort.

“Three weeks ago many of us were thinking that there’s not a chance that we’re going to keep the Sacramento Kings here in Sacramento,” said Matt Mahood, president of the Sacramento Metro Chamber of Commerce. “But there was just this little crack, this little opening that the mayor saw to take advantage of.”

The primary reason the Maloofs have explored relocation — several failed efforts to build a new arena in Sacramento— won’t be answered by the deadline.

A feasibility study for a new arena in Sacramento isn’t scheduled to be completed until the end of May, and there has always been a divide between Kings fans and the broader public on how to finance a facility.