I read it. That's the same bs posted on the Seattle forums. First of all, the legislature knew an arena was going to be presented to them as early as July the year before when Bennett announced he would need a new arena to keep the team in Seattle. The city of Seattle could have come up with it's own arena proposal, as could the legislature have done. Look what Mick Cornett did in OKC. He had an arena plan drawn up, presented it to the Sonics' owners and got NBA approval. Bennett didn't have to come to him.

Nickels just kept talking about the Key Arena, when the side letter clearly stated that the Key Arena was not an acceptable venue. If Schultz wants to hold Bennett to the side letter, he will have to admit that it clearly stated the Key was not an option.

Secondly, Bennett presented his proposal in February, and the legislature didn't adjourn until the middle of April. Look how quickly the OKC legislature passed tax benefits for the Sonics. It took a matter of days.

The bottom line is that the city of Seattle and the state of Washington had zero interest in coming up with a new arena proposal. That is patently obvious. Chopp even stated in in plain English.

It is clear, in looking at the costs of arenas around the country that the price for the arena was perfectly in line with other similar arenas.

Schultz is going to have a hard time proving either the price was out of line, or the legislature didn't have enough warning.

And his lawyer was stupid to leave half the sentence in the side letter out of the lawsuit, as it looks like he was afraid that the judge would notice that an arena was required to keep the team in Seattle. If he's so sure that his case is good, the whole sentence should have been included. It looks bad to alter a statement that's in the public record.