Kings sale: NBA owners vote against move to Seattle

It looks like the Sacramento Kings will not be moving to Seattle. The group of seven NBA owners on the Relocation Committee voted to reject the team's sale to a Seattle-based group, according to ESPN's Brian Windhorst and Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski. The vote was unanimous, according to NBA.com's David Aldridge.

The full group of owners are expected to decide on May 13, but it is expected that they will follow the committee's recommendation, according to Aldridge.

Thus ends a nearly four-month saga that was kick-started by the team being sold to a Seattle-based group led by Chris Hansen and Steve Ballmer. Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson vowed to match the Seattle group's price and assembled an ownership group led by Vivek Ranadivé that came close enough to matching the sale value to satisfy the NBA. The league promised they would hear presentations from both ownership groups and have evidently made their decision.

It remains to be seen how the Hansen/Ballmer group responds and how the sale from the Maloof brothers to Ranadivé's group transpires.

This is only the second time the NBA owners have blocked the sale and relocation of a franchise. The first time was in 1994, when a group that planned on moving the Minnesota Timberwolves to New Orleans were rejected due to questionable financing.

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