SEATTLE — A day after losing one member of a prospective ownership team hoping to keep the NBA’s Kings from moving to Seattle, Sacramento added a replacement.
SEATTLE — A day after losing one member of a prospective ownership team hoping to keep the NBA’s Kings from moving to Seattle, Sacramento added a replacement.
Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson, though, resisted any notion that the city was essentially making a trade in adding local developer Mark Friedman to replace Ron Burkle.
It was announced Monday that Burkle would not be involved in the team or financing a new arena due to a conflict of interest. He is part owner of an athlete-management firm that represents NBA players.
Burkle had been touted as being a key piece of Johnson’s efforts to keep the team, and observers wondered how the plans would be impacted by his departure.
The revelation Tuesday that Friedman was now jumping aboard appeared to quiet those questions.
Johnson, though, said the plan all along had been for Friedman — whose family controls the Arden Fair Mall in Sacramento — to become part of the team that will make an offer to buy the Kings as well as help finance a new downtown arena.
In fact, Johnson said he has been talking with Friedman since January and that the NBA was notified of the potential departure of Burkle and addition of Friedman when representatives of Seattle and Sacramento met a group of owners last week in New York.
“We shared Mark’s name (with the owners),” Johnson said. “They were very pleased.”
Johnson said the addition of another local owner could give Sacramento an edge over Seattle as the time for a final decision on which city will be home to the Kings next year edges closer.
“(The NBA owners) thought that gives us one of our advantages that we have such a strong local presence,” Johnson said during a Tuesday news conference.