The sale and potential relocation of the Sacramento Kings, which is still pending an approval by the NBA Board of Governors, is still a strong possibility, but in comments to the media at All-Star Weekend in Houston, NBA commissioner David Stern also gave some hope that Sacramento is still in the running to keep the team.
Although Stern said the Seattle plan is "quite strong," Stern also said, "I think the owners are going to have a tough issue to decide," as quoted by the Sacramento Bee.
Stern also said that it is "plausible" that the Kings stay in Sacramento. "I expect that the owners have a very open mind on this," he said.
The Board of Governors, which is made up of NBA team owners, is expected to vote on both the sale and whether to let the team relocate at its meetings April 18-19. Sacramento mayor and former NBA player Kevin Johnson was reportedly in Houston for All-Star Weekend, meeting with team owners and trying to convince them that keeping the franchise in Sacramento is in the league's best interest.
Seattle has been without a team since the former Sonics left and became the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2008. The current owners of the Kings, the Maloof family, have agreed to sell the team to a group of Seattle investors for a reported $525 million.