Attorneys representing the Seattle SuperSonics and the City of Seattle met before U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman at the federal courthouse in Seattle on Friday afternoon for a pretrial conference.
During the hour-long session, Pechman said she will file a written order by Monday afternoon determining which motions to exclude evidence filed by both parties will be honored regarding the June 16 trial.
The meeting Friday mainly was an opportunity to set the ground rules and iron out logistics for the upcoming, six-day trial.
Along with the meeting, the last depositions of Joel Litvin, NBA president of league and basketball operations, and Matt Griffin, a spokesperson for a local, private investment group trying to keep professional basketball in Seattle, were released.
Also, apparently released only to The Oklahoman on Friday was a clean version of Sonics chairman Clay Bennett’s deposition. Most of that document was redacted when released by the city last week.
According to The Oklahoman, Bennett told NBA owners the team expected to lose $60.9 million to $64.9 million during the next two years if forced to honor the final two years of the KeyArena lease.
However, Bennett said if allowed to move to Oklahoma City, the team believes it can turn an $18.8 million profit.
According to the report, Bennett testified that the Oklahoma ownership group could weather projected losses in Seattle, but added, “It’s certainly no fun losing a lot of money.”
Most of Griffin’s deposition was heavily redacted or marked for attorneys-only material.
Litvin’s testimony, given April 20 in New York, lasted over eight hours. Some interesting tidbits from Litvin’s deposition:
• Litvin said the league’s Board of Governors approved the Sonics’ KeyArena lease in 1995, even though the league did not approve of the lease terms. NBA commissioner David Stern is on the record as saying the Sonics’ lease with KeyArena is the worst in the league.
• Litvin said that in 2006, when former Sonics owner Howard Schultz lobbied in Olympia to secure money for a remodeled KeyArena, Stern supported plans for the remodel. Stern has since said a remodeled KeyArena does not meet the league’s standards for a first-class facility.
• Litvin said he never discussed with Bennett the legal ramifications of the “good faith best effort” stipulation in the sales agreement between Bennett’s ownership group and Schultz, although recently released e-mails seem to suggest Litvin was aware of the stipulation.
On Monday, Pechman will rule on several motions for exclusion of evidence regarding the case, including testimony from Seattle author Sherman Alexie and KJR-AM radio talk-show host Mitch Levy that the city would like used in the trial.
The Sonics also are seeking to have evidence included in the trial that it sought a successor venue to KeyArena, along with a field survey that shows the team behind the Seahawks and Mariners in popularity, among other things.
Pechman sought to limit the number of exhibits entered in the trial, with the Sonics responsible for 110 and the city responsible for more than 300.
After the meeting, the city’s lead attorney, Paul Lawrence, addressed the media on the courthouse steps. Asked about negotiations for a potential settlement, neither Lawrence nor Bradley Keller, lead attorney for the Sonics, responded, with both saying they were focused on the trial.
“We think it’s a very simple case,”
Lawrence said. “The PBC (Professional Basketball Club LLC, which owns the Sonics) has raised a lot of what we think are extraneous issues. But we have to be prepared to address those issues. That’s the reason for a lot of the documentation.”
