At a news conference today, NBA Commissioner David Stern announced the arena deal between the owners of the Sacramento Kings and that city have fallen through.
Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson blamed the Maloof brothers for failing to negotiate in good faith.
The development means Anaheim is back in as a possible destination for the franchise.
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“They weren't willing to honor the deal,” Johnson, a former NBA point guard, said of the Maloofs today at his own press conference in Sacto. “They were coming up with reasons not to do the deal.”
Stern, speaking in New York where he addressed the NBA Board of Governors, blamed the lack of new arena financing in Sacramento for the deal's destruction. Meanwhile, Anaheim's Honda Center is undergoing major renovations that should be completed by the end of the 2013 NBA season, the same time the Kings are free to flee Cowbell Land.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.