Balmer should move the Clippers to Seattle
Dude spent $2 billion for an LA based franchise and you think he should move that franchise to a medium sized market that couldn't support an NBA franchise and would most likely severely effect the value of the franchise he would move there?
Not gonna happen. I would think Memphis would be the next franchise to move and would go to either Seattle or Las Vegas
meh... he’s got 45 billion more. A team in Seattle will prob be worth around 1-2 billion.
TP
people act like these owners are average joes, worried about whether their car will pass inspection or something.
Balmer made his money in Seattle, little gift back to the city would polish his karma a bit.
When you think about how the league has evolved over the last 10 years with player movement, and the debate about what players should consider when they have to pick between teams, I have to wonder how Seattle would do in the current NBA.
Look at Golden State, pretty long period of time between Run-TMC and the Curry/Kerr teams where nobody thought about Golden State at all. Now they're considered a major market and the allure of Silicon Valley connections is supposed to help influence players to want to be there.
Look at Miami. They landed Riley in '95 and were able to field competitive teams most of the time through trades and were even able to win a championship with Wade/Shaq. Despite all that, I never heard Miami considered as a premier free agent destination until LeBron went there in 2010.
Posted this earlier in the thread, but in 2010 one betting site gave Miami the 4th worst odds out of 5 teams of landing LeBron. Now all of the sudden, Miami is considered to have an unfair advantage over most of the league with their night life, weather, and no state income tax.
Anyways, that brings me back to Seattle. No state income tax. Tech hub. One of the first marijuana friendly states.
13th largest US media market. Weather neither good or bad (rainy, but not too hot or too cold, better than 50% of the league? 75% of the league?). Kind of wonder how they'd stack up in terms of appeal. No way they'd have LA/NY appeal, but maybe Houston/Dallas/Philly level appeal, or more down in the middle of the list like Denver/Orlando level appeal?
And the city of Seattle could support an NBA team, Clay Bennett just wanted to move the team all along and didn't make a good faith effort to keep them there! If only Seattle voted yes on public funding for arena renovations back in 2006, or if Bill Gates was an NBA fan, or if Jeff Bezos explosion of wealth came a few years earlier (
was only worth a measly $3.6b in 2006, and to nick's point,
Ballmer was worth $13.6b in '06, if he wanted an NBA team in Seattle, why didn't he buy them then when Shultz was looking for local ownership?). Still interesting to think where the Seattle Supersonics would be today. They'd certainly have more appeal than the dust bowl of OKC. Would non-Clay Bennett ownership have paid to keep Harden? Would Durant have stayed? Or maybe they'd have gone in a completely different direction and never hired Presti. All interesting things to think about.