It’s a nice time to be a Seattle sports fan, between a bid for an NHL expansion team making progress and a preseason basketball game bringing Kevin Durant back to town.
Durant played his rookie season for the Seattle SuperSonics, the final year before the team was relocated to Oklahoma City and became the Thunder. Durant, now on the Warriors, is back in Seattle this week for a Golden State preseason game Friday against Sacramento.
Durant told ESPN he believes Seattle should get their beloved Sonics back.
“It’s a basketball city. It’s a sports town,” Durant said. “They have a good representation of basketball in the NBA from Seattle-born players, Washington state-born players. And I feel like that whole brand deserves an NBA team. Just like the Golden State Warriors deserve a team or the Los Angeles Lakers deserve a team, Seattle is that same way.”
Meanwhile, Seattle made its presentation Tuesday to the NHL Board of Governors’ executive committee, and the league is moving forward with its application for an expansion team. It would be the NHL’s 32nd team, after the Vegas Golden Knights debuted last year as its 31st.
Seattle was the first American city to win the Stanley Cup; the Seattle Metropolitans won it in 1917 long before the days of the NHL.
Before the year is out, Seattle could be awarded the expansion franchise, as the Board of Governors may vote as soon as December.
Bettman on Seattle expansion: “The notion is have the board vote on expansion and assuming, as I think everybody is, that it would be approved, I don’t want to be presumptuous of the board’s prerogative, but everything seems to be on track.”
— Stephen Whyno (@SWhyno) October 2, 2018
If Seattle got both the NHL and the NBA back in town, it would become the 14th metropolitan area in the U.S. to have a team in all four major sports leagues.
• Adam Zielonka can be reached at azielonka@washingtontimes.com.
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