Closing arguments for the Sonics lease trial are winding down at this moment. As a lifelong Sonics fan it has been too trying to put together enough words without going Frank Brickowski in the 1996 Finals on the issue.

Today is also the NBA Draft and the Sonics have the fourth and twenty-fourth picks. I was at last year's draft party. What should have been a celebration rejoicing over the pick of Kevin Durant turned into a kick to the gonads when management traded Ray Allen. Don't get me wrong, Jeff Green is a fine player. Anyone who watched the Celtics in the NBA Finals though could see what type of force on the hardwood Ray Gun is. This year's official draft party has been cancelled by the Sonics ownership group by-the-way.

Update: Sonics just picked UCLA point guard Russell Westbrook, a good defensive player who will hopefully be a better, pass-first player than the disappointing duo of Luke Ridnour or Earl Watson.

Looking at the news one can't feel anything but pessimistic.

The legal case of forcing the out-of-state Sonics ownership group to live up to their Key Arena lease should be open-and-shut. The case is being held in a hometown courtroom. A couple thousand fans swarmed the Federal Building last week; on a Monday. Key Arena was renovated with public funding, in good faith, during the early 1990s with the expectation that a major league basketball franchise would play at the facility throughout the entirety of its lease.

Bennett's ownership group purchased the team knowing the full details of the lease. Municipalities enter these lease agreements not just for the remunerative values a team renting their facility provides but also for the economic impact a team provides a region as well as more intangible quality of life issues.

"Clay-Clay" and his posse are reneging on their deal.

Unfortunately this is the City of Seattle we're talking about. Local leaders are more concerned about preserving a boarded-up Denny's or protecting coyotes. They can't fix the Viaduct two-decades after it was declared seismically unsafe. They allow bums and drug dealers to overrun parks and streets harassing and killing people. And as a Sonics fan I'm supposed to have hope these jokers can do win legal case?

You almost wish both sides could lose.

On one hand you have Oklahoma City booster Clay Bennett and NBA Commissioner David Stern trying to steal a 41-year, regional institution that has brought joy to millions of fans.

Everyone knows Bennett's ownership group bought the team with the sole intention of moving it to Oklahoma City. The $500 million dollar arena proposal in Renton that was floated several months ago was intentionally a poison pill. Taxpayers were never going to accept paying 80 percent of the bill plus cost overruns. Nor was Bennett going to pay for the other $100 million either. His costs were going to be defrayed by selling the naming rights.

On the other there are the likes of Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, City councilmember Nick Licata and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, the trio of whom are mostly responsible for causing this clusterfrak to begin with.

(And by-the-way, if part of their great legal strategy is to get Sherman Alexie to testify, your case is getting screwed harder than a post-op hooker from a Stranger personals ad.)

The sad thing is, this story needn't have gotten to this stage.

The amount of money that the City of Seattle flushes away each year fighting "Global Warming" would be enough to pay for renovations needed to Key Arena - a city-owned and operated facility - to keep an NBA franchise in town. New parking garages and a remodel of the Key is necessary anyway to help attract more and better concerts and events.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and a group of local investors were willing to contribute $150 million to a new/remodeled arena if the City and State would match the funds. To Seattle's credit they offered to pony up $75 million.

But the craven, myopic, bloody-minded cowards in Olympia, Governor Christine Gregoire, Speaker Frank Chopp and the rest of the Democrats scratching their bellies in the legislature didn't do a thing. Saving the Sonics wasn't a priority.

Hell. All the legislature needed to do was simply authorize Sonics scratch tickets, personalized license plates and a ticket sales tax and they could have more than raised the dough necessary. They wouldn't have even needed to worry about voter backlash because the aforementioned funding sources are all user fees which of been successful funding mechanisms for both Safeco and Qwest fields.

When the Republicans controlled the legislature in the 1990s they fought tooth-and-nail to keep both the Seahawks and the Mariners in town.

Putting politics aside if you care about the team the only thing left to do now is work to make sure Dino Rossi is put into the governor's mansion. He is probably the highest profile politician of note to step on the court and block-out for local hoops fans. The only purpose of the Sonics lease trial now is to buy enough time until he is elected.

If you listen to 950 KJR AM it is heartening to hear radio hosts and fans calling into the shows in order to complain about Gregoire, Chopp and the Democrat-controlled legislature while making the logical conclusion that different leadership in Olympia is the only way to save local basketball.

Extra: Incidentally, I'd have mentioned listening to 770 KTTH "Home of the Sonics" for news about the Supes. But the station has focused about zero attention on the team, the ongoing legal issues, Clay Bennett or his threat to move the franchise. It is an embarrassing joke to have the Sonic's flagship station not at the forefront of this issue.