Analysis: What Sonics fans need to know about latest expansion reports

SEATTLE — The new NBA season begins Tuesday. The New York Knicks are reigning champs and will raise a banner for the first time in more than 50 years. The San Antonio Spurs, coached by a born-and-raised Seattle kid and with the current best player on the planet leading them on the floor, are the preseason favorites to win the championship. The Oklahoma City Thunder remain good, much to the annoyance of basketball fans in Seattle.

It’s the final beginning to an NBA season before finally learning whether the league is going to award an expansion franchise to Seattle and resurrect the SuperSonics. Depending on when your clock started, that decision will bring to an end an arduous process that has taken between two and five years to reach its conclusion.

Then came the report Friday which brought into question if the conclusion to all this expansion talk would include Seattle. ESPN reported NBA commissioner Adam Silver has indicated to owners that Seattle was “no longer a lock” for expansion in large part because the expansion fee being talked about from Seattle isn’t in the same range as what is coming out of Las Vegas where a bidding war has taken place.

Instead of going into the season with continued questions and speculation, this week could have been a celebration honoring the beginning of a new league year alongside the story of the NBA correcting the mistakes of its past and returning the SuperSonics to its footprint.

“Roundball Rock” blaring out of one speaker; The Presidents of the United States of America song “SuperSonics” playing from another (look it up, kids).

There were plenty of opportunities to make that happen over the past six months. Plenty of times when the league could have looked at the situation in Seattle — how the arena is no longer a question, how the leading ownership group of One Roof Sports and Entertainment is structured — and given expansion a stamp of approval and ended the worrying.

On the surface, the report made it feel like the momentum that has built toward the franchise being awarded hit a brick wall. But how concerned should fans be by the report?

Let’s parse what was reported and what could come next:

What does the report mean?

Negotiating in public is an effective way to create an immediate and emotional response. That is the crux of what Friday’s report was. It was putting pressure on the negotiations in a public forum.

The well-sourced story from ESPN’s longtime NBA writer Brian Windhorst made it clear that the expansion fee the league’s owners want to get from Seattle is not the number being thrown around.

The league is talking about numbers topping $10 billion in Las Vegas — and maybe closer to $12 billion or $13 billion — for the cost of the expansion fee and the funds needed for a new arena. That has never been the number talked about surrounding Seattle — it has mostly been in the $6 billion-$7 billion range — and expecting a jump to be on par with Las Vegas seems unrealistic.

But the job of the league, and specifically Silver, is to placate its owners, drive franchise valuations higher and extract every dime possible by generating revenue through avenues such as media rights or expansion.

While this public posturing might be viewed from the corporate executive suites as a strong tactic, it’s a great way to annoy a fan base that doesn’t deserve to be toyed with.

There is a danger here which Silver should understand and should be conveyed to the owners. Trifling with Seattle and failing to follow through this time almost certainly poisons the market, maybe permanently.

If there were obvious issues with the arena, the market, the ownership group, maybe there could be justifiable reasons to say no or look elsewhere. The league already raved about Climate Pledge Arena. The expected ownership group, while not fully revealed, appears viable even if the NHL product it also owns has struggled on the ice.

This appears to be all about the price tag.

Is Mexico City real?

Floating the return of Mexico City to the conversation was an interesting aspect of the ESPN report. In some ways, Mexico City is the equivalent to the NBA of what London is for the NFL. There’s a lot of potential in the market that comes along with logistical hurdles that would be challenging, from the proximity to the closest NBA market (two-hour flight to Houston or San Antonio) to the elevation (7,350 feet).

Mentioning Mexico City — after months that it wasn’t on the table — seems like an attempt at leverage with little substance, even if there might be some deep pockets wanting to bring a team to the capital of Mexico.

What are the next steps?

It does seem like a conclusion is getting closer. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported over the weekend that the bid led by Walmart heiress Nancy Walton Laurie and her husband Bill Laurie have become the leaders. That ownership group recently added Egon Durban to the mix. Durban holds the second highest percentage stake in ownership of the Las Vegas Raiders.

If the Laurie group ends up being the selection, there will undoubtedly be questions about whether either of the losing groups in Las Vegas would be pushed toward Seattle.

Would the league try to bring either the group led by former Phoenix Suns owner Jerry Colangelo or the group led by Canadian businessman Steve Apostolopoulos and former Milwaukee Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry in as a competing bidder or as a possible partner?

A competing bidder would likely generate some of the auction, and rising expansion fee, the league would like, but a group from the outside would have to negotiate with One Roof about being a tenant at Climate Pledge Arena. A partner would be more cost effective, but comes with other concerns such as whether the groups could get along.

Or none of that happens and it remains One Roof as the leading group for Seattle.

There is also the calendar. Silver has repeatedly said they want this finished by the end of the year. There are roughly 10 1/2 weeks left in the calendar and the holidays are going impact three of those weeks.

Time is running short to meet the league’s stated goal. Of course, there seems to be a simple solution right in front of them if they want to take it.