NBA Commissioner David Stern says that Seattle isn’t interested in the NBA.

At your prices? Mr. Stern, you’re absolutely right.

Here’s the backstory: The Sonics are mad because they didn’t get a new stadium like the M’s or the Hawks. The terms of the lease at the Key Arena are “the worst in the NBA,” according to Stern, since the Sonics have to share revenue with the city of Seattle. The Sonics claim they’ve lost $60 million in the last five years.

The Sonics want a new lease and a $220 million remodel mostly paid for by you, me, and every other tax-paying citizen in King County. Among the proposed terms for the new lease: the Sonics manage all the events and all the profits for Key Arena, basketball-related or not.

If the Sonics don’t get what they want, they’ll leave, says Stern. Best case: the Sonics move to a new arena in Bellevue. Worst case: the Sonics move out of town entirely.

So: let them.

Here’s why:

• The basketball is terrible. NBA players these days don’t bother playing much defense and, all too frequently, don’t know how to shoot. Scoring is down, field-goal percentages are terrible, and the players are slaves to the almighty Dunk. Many NBA teams have assistant coaches who are assigned to teach their multi-million dollar players basic basketball skills.
• The price is too high. We have at least two major road projects worth several billion dollars of tax money on the horizon. We urgently need a mass transit upgrade. Seattle has to close several schools. And we’re proposing to pay $220 million for another new arena? Bellevue can’t afford this either. They’ve got transportation problems too.
• The team isn’t that popular. The Sonics usually run about 90 percent of capacity, about 640,000 fans over a season. By comparison, the Seattle Mariners can pull in 2.72 million fans even when they’ve had two consecutive seasons of suck.
• The Sonics management are whiners. David Stern admitted to Olympia legislators that the Sonics felt left out of the public stadium dollars given to the M’s and Hawks. Hang on, guys, let me see if I can get the Seattle Symphony violin section to play “My Heart Bleeds For You.”
• The Storm don’t play often enough. The Seattle Storm are the heartwarming antithesis of the Sonics: the tickets are cheap, the basketball is great, and the Storm win. They are, in fact, the only championship winners of Seattle of the past two decades. But they have a shortened season and only play 17 home games per year, and sports fans are frequently forced to choose between M’s games and Storm games. They’d be sadly missed, but are they worth $220 million?

So. Due respect to Sonics fans, but in my humble opinion, the Sonics should sell their stake in the Key and use the proceeds for oversize FedEx envelopes to mail themselves to Oklahoma City.

My fellow Metroblogger Dylan may have a different viewpoint on the matter.

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1. full court press : gregoire on sonics
2. One more time on the Sonics
3. SEIU to Sonics: Not in OUR house
4. Does Seattle need the Sonics?
5. A Win-Win Proposal