If they're even talking at this point, It's very hush, hush. It will be interesting to see if the judge's rulings today might get talks started.

This is from this mornings Seattle Times.....

Sonics | Seattle vs. Sonics: Trial starts next week, if there's no settlement | Seattle Times Newspaper

The dialogue between the team and the city had been terse. And that's when they were even talking — they haven't engaged in meaningful negotiations since February.

"It's always a good idea to talk," Seattle City Attorney Tom Carr said. "It's usually a failure if a case ends up getting to trial. Generally, there's a solution to every problem."

Carr would not speculate on the prospects for a pretrial settlement; nor would Dan Mahoney, spokesman for Sonics chairman Clay Bennett.

I have to believe that the broad discovery was orchestrated by Gorton in hopes of providing the smoking gun needed for Shultz to file his suit.

Quite possible, but it certainly didn't turn up too much that's a slamdunk, by any stretch. The suit was filed on a half-sentence, and they didn't find much more than that, really. This Seattle suit is the better suit.

Judges do NOT like when there are not negotiuations. Judges don't like when trials actualy occur, even. I bet you're right: Judge Pechman will probably be pretty peeved this week is they aren't even attempting to talk.

Then maybe this helps our side......this is from the same article.....

"In April, Bennett urged civic leaders to make a counterproposal after the city rejected his $26.5 million offer to buy out the final two years of the lease and move the team to Oklahoma City next season".

That certainly won't hurt PBC in the eyes of the court. At least SOMEONE was trying to avoid trial.

Judge rules on pretrial motions in Sonics case | NewsOK.com

Judge rules on pretrial motions in Sonics case

By Gene Johnson
AP Legal Affairs Writer
SEATTLE (AP) - A federal judge on Monday declined to place limits on what evidence the owners of the Seattle SuperSonics may offer during a trial that could determine whether the team moves to Oklahoma City next season.

In pretrial motions, Seattle lawyers asked U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman to bar the Sonics from introducing evidence that the team and the city had a "dysfunctional" relationship, that survey results show most residents don't care if the Sonics leave, and that the team tried to obtain a new arena in the Seattle area.

They also wanted to block the Sonics ownership group, the Professional Basketball Club, from pointing out the city's efforts to have the team sold to a local partnership led by Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer.

Pechman declined, saying that some of the city's motions raised questions of law, rather than just evidence.

"The court will not preclude PBC from offering potentially relevant evidence at this time, but will hear all proper objections during the course of the trial," she wrote in a two-page order.

Pechman will hear the six-day trial herself, without a jury, beginning next Monday. The city sued last year in an attempt to prevent the Sonics from breaking their lease at KeyArena before it runs out in 2010.

The judge did grant the team's motion to exclude one witness for the city, talk radio host Mitch Levy. The city disclosed Levy's name too late, and the Sonics did not have a chance to depose him or prepare any rebuttal.

However, Pechman also said she would allow National Book Award winner Sherman Alexie to testify for the city. Seattle's lawyers said they hoped to call Alexie because he's a season-ticket holder, a big fan and can discuss the team's importance in Seattle. Attorneys for the Sonics had asked that he be barred, claiming he had nothing relevant to say.

one thing i've noticed from keeping up with this whole fiasco is that we've finally have the paper and even the locals in seattle (and other rags n mags) calling us OKC instead of OK CITY.
which, for some reason, is a big deal to me.

Yes, but on the Seattle Times web site they have a graphic showing who all of the players in the are and they use a cowboy boot to represent OKC. I hate that. Of course our own Convention and Vistors Bureau used a spining spur logo for years so I guess it is our own fault.

__________________
Oklahoma City - The surprise your family has been looking for.

Ignoring our heritage doesn't make it not exist. I think people in Oklahoma and OKC would be happier and have a better self-image if we simply embraced our culture instead of being embarrassed of it. You should see how native americans are treated in New Mexico as opposed to here...it's like night and day. They ENJOY adding that to their culture. Accoridng to some, we should never acknowledge that we had a dust bowl, cowboys, or indians.

Anyway, PBC came out quite favorbly on the motion rulings!!!

yeah, i agree, folks on the east coast get excited when they see something like the red earth festival or tour the stockyards... it's exotic to them. however, the fact that they can stay at the colcord or skirvin, dine at nonna's or swing by the apple store to grab a new i-phone to replace the one they lost while "roughing it" in oklahoma makes their stay pleasant and tolerable.
in fact, i was helping a guy yesterday who is somehow connected with the chinese softball team... and he kept asking for a cowboy hat!
btw, i bought a sweet jersey off the coach's back.

I don't know that it's we should never acknowledge these things, so much as find a way to move beyond them. We have plenty of "icons" that speak to our past, but at the same time there comes a point when we need to embrace our possibilities, too. Not all of our iconography has to be based on cowboys, indians and the Grapes of Wrath.

I wholeheartedly disagree.

Why would we want to lose our heritage and change our culture to be just like everyone else.

It seems like we are increadibly insecure.

So then, if I understand what you are saying, the only "icons" we should have will be some incarnation of cowboys, indians, buffalo and the like.

Do we not have ANYthing else to offer in terms of culture?

The last I checked the people of Oklahoma quit using horses as a primary mode of transportation at about the same time as the rest of the world. How come Tampa doesn't build on their Cowboy heritage? After all, they rode horses just like they did in OKC. Why didn't the Seattle Times use a biomedical symbol to represent Oklahoma? That is more realistic image of modern day OKC.

__________________
Oklahoma City - The surprise your family has been looking for.

Maybe it is, but it's not traditional or easily understood. Sure, that's a stereotype of us, I just don't think it must immediately be considered negative. Besides, like Seattle understand anything about any of us "fly-over" states.

it's our niche that should not be neglected. we will never escape those cliches... dallas is the 4th largest mass of people in the US, has a fantastic & modern downtown and many fortune 500 companies are based there... but has yet to escape it's cowboy image.
few places can capitalize on such an image as us.
that doesn't mean we shouldn't pursue nanotechnology and whatnot. the dj crew i'm a part of is on the cutting edge of electro music... but we get so much more attention cause we're from oklahoma and doin it well.

See Ed that is what I am saying. Being good at something AND being from Oklahoma makes it a surprise because Oklahoma is supposed to be cowboy and Indians not electro music. Would you ever see the following sentence?

the dj crew i'm a part of is on the cutting edge of electro music... but we get so much more attention cause we're from Phoenix and doin it well.

__________________
Oklahoma City - The surprise your family has been looking for.

what i'm saying is that there are people doing cutting edge music, medical research, nano tube research and yada yada yada... but i don't believe those stereotypes are holding us back any longer. i think they are assets that should be exploited. thanx to the internet and myspace... the playing field is starting to become more level and i love being underestimated and being "the surprise you're looking for"

the robot dancers cutting edge???? ha!

LOL - you got me there. But I guess it is better than saying, "Oklahoma City - Exactly what you would expect, Yee Haw."

Now, what were we talking about, oh yea, the Sonics lawsuit.

__________________
Oklahoma City - The surprise your family has been looking for.

That's why I like the new OKC CVB logo. It has a sleek modern look, and it incorporates our renaissance (rowing on the river) with our past (cowboy boot-shaped skyscrapers) in a creative way.

Bet you $100 bucks we have more horses per capita in Oklahoma vs Florida.

Do I think horses should be in the downtown metro? No.

But I am not ashamed of seeing horses or cows in pastures as I am driving between towns either.

On their web-page the OKC C of C touts OKC as being "The Horse Capitol". How backwards is that. No wonder all those people up in NYC and out in L.A. think we still ride our horses to work.

OU Adonis - we might be on the same page here. If Purcell wants to tout the horse farms and ranches then fine by me. I just don't like the states largest city touting that it is some kind of 1890's western town in the midst of 21st century America.

When I was at OU there was a one week "celebration" of American Indians. The leader of their group went on and on about how they wanted to use the one week time period to dispell the sterotypes about Indians. Well guess what their big display was. A freaking tee-pee! Is their anyone in the world that doesn't think Indians still live in tee-pees? That is the sterotype. A better use of their time and effort would have been to show the American Indians impact on the modern day world by identifying researchers, scientist, government leaders, athletes with American Indian heritage. That would have dispelled the sterotypes.

When the City doesn't make an effort to put forth a modern day image then it allows the sterotype to continue. I for one am tired of it. Yes the new logo for CVB looks better but it still has the boots in it. Boots in downtown OKC died in the 1980's in reality but lives on in the marketing efforts of central Oklahoma. Let's move on already.

__________________
Oklahoma City - The surprise your family has been looking for.

Unfortunately I think they still use this logo occasionally. I saw it on a billboard as recently as 3-4 months ago.