From the Seattle P-I.......

"The city's case is easily defined. Seattle officials believe the lease agreement assumed by Clay Bennett's ownership group requires the Sonics to play their home games at KeyArena through the 2009-10 season.

Less understood are the lines of defense being assembled by the Sonics' attorneys, who will attempt to show why the franchise should be allowed to pay the remaining rent and expenses on the final two years of the lease and be free to play elsewhere as soon as next season.

As stated in the pretrial order, the Professional Basketball Club's legal defenses will include showing the city has "unclean hands" because it acted in bad faith by using the lawsuit to drive up the team's financial losses and attempt to force a sale to a prearranged group of businessmen. Sonics lawyers will argue that making the team play future games at KeyArena would impose "undue hardship" on the club.

Seattle's lawyers attempted to undercut the "unclean hands" issue with a motion last week asking Pechman to exclude as irrelevant all testimony regarding the city's efforts to put together the local group of buyers led by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and developer Matt Griffin.

The Sonics came back with their rebuttal this week, arguing that the city used "improper conduct" in subverting Bennett's efforts to gain support for a new arena in Renton due to its desire to keep KeyArena as the sole solution.

Additionally, the lawyers laid out an extensive plan hatched by city leaders in conjunction with former Sonics president Wally Walker that was designed to make things as difficult as possible for Bennett's group both in Seattle and with the NBA, while pushing forward a solution built on forcing a sale to Ballmer and his three partners.

The Sonics charge that the city disclosed confidential financial information to the Ballmer group through Walker after he had been retained by the city to aid its efforts "in plain violation of his fiduciary duties" as a former team executive.

When it became clear Walker's actions might surface in the lawsuit's discovery process, the Sonics say city lawyers then wrote a letter to Walker retroactively making him a "consultant" to the Ballmer group and thus attempting to make his actions confidential.

Pechman will rule at a pretrial conference Friday on whether that type of testimony concerning the Ballmer efforts will be allowed. The Sonics argued this week that the city's motion to suppress that argument is really a veiled attempt to seek summary judgment on their entire line of defense.

The "undue hardship" issue might be even more critical, given the Sonics will contend Pechman shouldn't force the sides into two more years of an untenable working situation."

Sonics, Seattle outline their trial tactics