4/17 - Ratto Report

I’m Ray Ratto, and this is a minute about Negotiating With The Maloofs.

We’d love to bore you with all the details of the Sacramento arena negotiations, we really would, but your time is precious, and you never know when the boss is going to come and wonder why you’re slamming that desk drawer on your head.

But let’s boil it down for you anyway. The Maloof Brothers, who own the Kings, have now gone from wanting to negotiate without the mayor of Sacramento, Kevin Johnson, to negotiating without the commissioner of the NBA, David Stern, about a building they no longer want.

Again, they don’t want to negotiate with the leader of the city, which would pay for it, or the league, which they invited into the process to begin with, to abandon the building they wanted in favor of refurbishing the building they didn’t.

Say that five times fast, and then pour a bottle of gin directly into your eye.

This would go so much easier if they’d just say what they mean, “We’re slowly going broke. We want to sell this team, and we’ll get more if we can move it to another city.”

But then they’d look bad, as opposed to the current plan in which they look . . . well, nuts.