Quote:
Originally Posted by Nathaniele
I like your post Betts, however I can't get past that I am rooting for it to move to OKC as well as you so we without a doubt have a bias and I don't care how well thought out and well written your post is (though I do agree mostly and enjoy your posts). I can't get past the fact that person trained in this type of law, who also happens to be the top legal expert for espn and someone when he first heard about this lawsuit gave it a 0% chance of going in Seattle's favor. However once he read the lawsuit he did a complete 360 and is now giving it 60% in favor of Seattle. So while I root and agree with your posts, I have to sadly give this Munson more credit and weight as he is paid and paid a lot of money for looking at this very type of situation and knows what he is talking about more than any of us put together. =(
To add more wood to the fire, I was listening to ESPN radio today and they had another espn legal expert (not Munson), who wouldn't give any type of % like Munson did but kept repeating that this lawsuit is very serious trouble for Bennett and he wouldn't be shocked at all if Bennett lost the team. As more and more legal experts are looking at this, they are all changing their tune and going on about how clever and good of a lawsuit Shultz has. I don't want to be all doom & gloom, I am just saying this is not looking good, its actually looking pretty damn bad.
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For what it's worth, I had someone I know who is an excellent trial lawyer and works all over the country look at the lawsuit. He said it is "weak". So, there's a differing opinion. Also, remember that these legal experts only have the lawsuit filed by Schultz available. They're not looking at all the data that Bennett's lawyer will provide. They don't have the interview with Schultz a day or two after the sale when he talks about Bennett and a possibly buyout of the lease. They don't have every interview Bennett has given to the Seattle press warning them about the fact that the city has a year to build the arena. They don't have any information about the dates and times of Bennett's presentations to the Seattle legislature, or the arena plan. They don't have information showing how much comparable arenas around the country are costing. They don't have Margarita Prentice's testimony about how much time and effort she thinks Bennett put into the arena deal. There will be a lot of data provided showing Bennett made a good faith effort.
Also, if you look at the data being provided, the Seattle newspapers keep leaving out the second part of the Aubrey interview, similarly to how the Schultz lawyer left the key part of the key sentence out of his lawsuit filing. We didn't buy the team to keep it in Seattle..." is all they ever print. But there's a second half to the sentence, " we
hoped to come here." Again, if you only look at the first part of the sentence, it looks like they intended from the beginning to move the team. If you look at the sentence in it's entirety, the word "hope" indicates only that was their wish. You have to ask why that part of his statement keeps getting left out of their quotes. Are they worried that it doesn't make their point, ala the sentence in the Schultz filing? Wishes don't matter. Action does. Leaving parts of sentences out or taking things out of context can give a completely different impression. Hopefully, Bennett's lawyers will be intelligent enough to make sure every single piece of data is present in it's entirety and in context.