I agree with Steve Kelley, It's hard to believe Bennett

Seattle - In Saturday's Seattle Times Steve Kelley had written, basically, that he wished that he could believe what Clay Bennett says, but can't because of his actions, even the way he talks about the situation betray Bennett's own words.

Well written, well said, read the story here.

Kelley wrote how Bennett reacted to a question about the viability of the Sonics making a profit in Oklahoma City's Ford Center.

1. Bennett was sure that they would be economiclly viable in that Ford Center building.
2. He cited that the team would be the only pro sports business in the state (please, no Sooner's jokes).
3. He stated that Seattle has too many options for the pro sports dollar.

I'll answer these in reverse order, so you remember the last thing, if nothing else.

3. This was the same point made against building Safeco Field. The mid-1990's Sonics were winning a bunch of games, selling out seats and raking in money from luxury box suites sales, nobody was going to buy a Mariners suite, not then. Bennett is arguing the same thing ten years later, only he has reversed the names. The answer then is the same as of is now: putting a winner on the stage is the only way to sell tickets. That's true here, and it is true no matter how few teams are in a market.

2. To think that Oklahomans would show up 5 years down the road to watch overpaid actors lose just because they are the only professional sports franchise in the state is insulting to the good sense of the people of the great state of Oklahoma. Bennett has to put a team on the floor that has a reasonable chance of winning no matter where they play now and past 2010, unless he thinks fans in Oklahoma are dumber than the average fan. I don't think they are, how about you Clay?

1. The Ford Center, according to Bennett's threat, is a viable NBA building, completed in 2002 for $93 million dollars (Forbes, 2006, Hornets team value listing). If that's good enough for the Sonics in Oklahoma, then the same thing should be good enough for the Sonics no matter where they play, including Seattle.

So, how about we, the citizens of Seattle, offer a brand new and exact copy of the Ford Center for free. Let Bennett say no to the exact thing he has been threatening Seattle with for the past ten months. That really is how to call his bluff. Get him to either take something substantially less than the Renton Palace he is demanding and stay here in a new copy of the Ford Center, or get him to say that a new Ford Center in Seattle is not visible, making the now 5-year-old Oklahoma City Ford Center not visible as well.

I think the ideas for generating revenue to pay for the new Ford Center in Seattle would be found, in part, in the collaborative efforts of civic odd couple Brian Robinson and Chris Van Dyk, chronicalled in the Friday edition of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Lowball Bennett with his own threat. In the end you, Bennett, David Stern, the great state of Oklahoma, the great state of Washington, everybody else, and I, know that Bennett does not believe in his heart that even his threat is true. His action will again betray his words.

What Seattle then offers beyond a Seattle remake of the Ford Center must be better than the Oklahoma City Ford Center.

Bennett can then accept the truth, or sell the team to somebody that can admit the truth.

That's how and why the Sonics and Storm are staying, not in a $500 million dollar palace, not in a Seattle redo of the Ford Center, but something between those two, because it involves the truth.

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