NBA Rumors: Seattle SuperSonics Could Soon Return To The League, Adam Silver Hints
The Seattle SuperSonics may be gone, but they are not dead.
Nearly a decade after the team was ripped away from the city, there is growing hope that basketball will be making a return sometime in the very near future. This week, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in an interview that NBA expansion is inevitable and that Seattle is on a “short list of cities” to get a team.
The Sonics left Seattle after former owner Howard Schultz sold the team to group led by Oklahoma City businessman Clay Bennett in 2006 for $350 million. Schultz moved the team two years after the purchase after winning a legal battle against the city of Seattle.
However, the Sonics could soon return to Seattle. As SLAM reported, Silver noted that expansion was certainly coming, but didn’t exactly say when.
“I think it’s just a question of when the right time is to seriously start thinking about expansion,” Silver said, adding, “I don’t want to put a precise timeline on it, but it’s inevitable at some point that we’ll start looking at growth of franchises. That’s always been the case in this league, and Seattle will no doubt be on a short list of cities that we’ll look at.”
The new NBA rumors about a return to Seattle is a shift from the league’s previous stance. As the Los Angeles Times reported, former NBA Commissioner David Stern said in 2007 that the league would likely never return to Seattle if the team left.
?THE SONICS COULD BE COMING BACK ?https://t.co/Y8JsZK8fjN
— SB Nation (@SBNation) July 26, 2017
This is the latest in a line of rumors that the NBA will be returning to Seattle, and there have already been attempts to revive the team. Back in 2013, a group of buyers led by Microsoft chairman Steve Ballmer made a bid to buy the Sacramento Kings and move them to Seattle, ESPN reported.
The bid ultimately did not go through, and Ballmer would go on to purchase the Los Angeles Clippers.
There have been other recent efforts to return the SuperSonics to Seattle, the Metro noted. In May, former Sonics star Ray Allen posted a lengthy statement on Instagram encouraging the NBA to find a way to bring a team back, and the death of former Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell sparked new interest in the team he loved, the report added.
Return of the Seattle Supersonics? ? pic.twitter.com/mqV8YgaOSy
— Stadium (@Stadium) July 26, 2017
The NBA rumors will be welcome to the basketball-hungry fans still mourning the loss of the Seattle SuperSonics. The team had maintained a devoted fan base, with many even showing up in Sonics gear to root against the Thunder during the playoffs.
[Featured Image by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images]
