A treasure trove of private emails exposed! More lawsuits! Nationwide blog campaigns! The key NBA vote tomorrow!

A lot of moving pieces to what could prove to be one of the biggest stories of this NBA season.

And Seattle fans are fired up. For instance, TrueHoop reader Michael emailed late last night:

I just got back from the Lupe Fiasco, Rihanna, Kanye West concert at KeyArena.

What might interest you is that chants of "Save Our Sonics" broke out between performances. It feels impossible to sit in that arena and look up at the various Seattle Sonics banners and cope with the thought that I may never again attend a Sonics home game.

News from all over:  

• Jerry Brewer of The Seattle Times: "So, what's next? With the NBA Board of Governors meeting today and Friday to decide whether to allow Seattle's oldest pro franchise to move to Oklahoma City, now would be a good time for another prominent local businessman to transform into a billionaire nag. Paul Allen, help us. We're desperate. ... Seattle needs to be heard, even if it's in vain. Mark Cuban, the Dallas Mavericks owner, seems willing to assist, but he's known as a free-will owner. If Allen joined Cuban, then we'd have some good infighting."
• Greg Johns of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: "U.S. Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell added their voices Wednesday to the group of state politicians asking the NBA to postpone the Sonics' relocation vote, but a league spokesman said the item remains on its Board of Governors' agenda for Friday. Murray spoke by phone with Joel Litvin, the league's president of basketball operations, and also co-signed a letter with Cantwell asking NBA commissioner David Stern to 'allow appropriate time for good faith efforts to find a way to keep this team in Seattle.'"
• Darnell Mayberry of The Oklahoman: "Even amid reports of uncovered e-mails between Sonics owners and calls from the Northwest to delay the Board of Governors vote on Friday, Stern has called Seattle's efforts to keep the team futile. 'In fairness, even under different circumstances this past month, the State Legislature is still, and was still, unwilling to extend the tax by which the stadiums for football and baseball were funded to basketball,' Stern said Wednesday on ESPN's Mike & Mike in the Morning show. 'I understand that decision, and I respect the ability of a Legislature to say, Enough. We're not going to spend any more money on these things. But they've declined to do that, I guess, at least four times, the most recent one was back last April when they finally shot it down and said they weren't even going to report it out of committee. So I think that there's a futility here, talking about getting a building built, that has been there from Day One even when the team was owned by the group that sold it to Clay.'"
• Percy Allen of The Seattle Times: "So long, Kevin Durant and Jeff Green, and say hello, commissioner David Stern and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels. Goodbye, Nick Collison and Luke Ridnour, and get to know Bradley Keller, Slade Gorton, Tim Ceis and Richard Yarmuth, the attorneys who might ultimately decide if the Sonics return in the fall. As players clear out their lockers today, the team's six-month basketball season segues into a summer-long legal battle and the fate of the Sonics shifts across the country to a downtown New York hotel where the NBA Board of Governors begins a two-day meeting this morning. The owners will discuss revenue sharing and the Tim Donaghy referee scandal, but Sonics chairman Clay Bennett's bid to move the team Oklahoma City next season is at the top of the agenda. The next 48 hours could undo 41 years of Sonics history in Seattle."

Also, yesterday, I linked to the blog of law professor Marc Edelman, who speculated that Howard Schultz's threatened lawsuit was essentially doomed to fall short of its stated goal to return the team to its former owners. I wondered if his argument had taken into account the "side letter" that Schultz says called for Bennett's "best efforts" to keep the team in Seattle.

Edelman later addressed that in the comments of his blog:

Several posters (most recently 8:37) asked the question about how, if at all, my analysis would change given the presence of a side letter signed by the Oklahoma group promising to "honor the four-year lease in terms of the 2010 terms, and use ... best efforts over the next 12 months... to get something done." The most honest response that I can give is that I would need to see the side letter, as well as how, if at all, the side letter is referenced in the main contract. Does the original contract have an integration clause? Does the original letter reference the side letter? What exactly does the side letter say? Does the side letter make any statement about rescission? (As to the last point, I strongly presume the answer is "no" because if it were otherwise, Schultz surely would have mentioned this already).

Nevertheless, the main problem for Schultz, even if he can show breach based upon language in the side letter, remains whether the drastic remedy of rescission is appropriate. According to all media reports, Schultz is not asking for monetary damages, and is leaving the court with no choice other than to award full rescission (and unravel a consummated deal) or grant no reward at all.

If Schultz asked for monetary damages, this case would present the kind of situation where it would make little sense to make any predictions until all of the facts emerge. However, because he is asking for full rescission two years after consummating the deal, I am far less concerned with the factual subtleties, presuming the public quotes from the parties accurately present the big picture.

In short: rescinding a $350 million deal based on peripheral promises by a buyer, almost two full years after a buyer pays in full, is not a traditional remedy. And, this is true even before considering whether Schultz had clean hands in bringing this suit (a potential defense for discussion at another time).

In a must-read Q+A, ESPN legal expert Lester Munson agrees that Schultz has a daunting legal challenge ahead of him.

Munson also points out that one reason leagues tend to go along with owners' request to move is that they are powerless, legally, to stop them. If they block the move of an owner, the owner can then win an antitrust case against the monopolistic league (this has happened in the NFL). So the league, in the end, according to Munson, essentially has no choice but to let owners move if they are so inclined.

Munson has lots of other interesting insight, including:

Does the NBA gain anything if the Sonics move to Oklahoma City?
It is hard to see what the NBA gains, but there are a couple of intriguing possibilities. Some conspiracy theorists suggest that a move out of Seattle would help other teams obtain public money for new arenas. If, for example, Sacramento wanted tax dollars for a new venue, it could use Seattle as an example of what happens when local leaders ignore the pleas from team owners for public funds. Another theory is that the NBA is clearing out the Northwest for Paul Allen and his Trail Blazers. With the Grizzlies in Memphis and the Sonics in Oklahoma, Allen would enjoy a huge market. The problem with the help-Paul-Allen theory is that Allen also owns the Seahawks and wants to remain at least somewhat popular in Seattle.

What is the best hope for Sonics fans in Seattle?
The best hope is Seattle's effort in a lawsuit to enforce the terms of the Sonics' lease of KeyArena. Although Bennett has offered $26 million to buy out of the lease, city officials insist that the team play the next two seasons in Seattle as required in the lease. The city has taken the team to court to enforce the lease, and a trial is scheduled for June 16. The city likely will win. Bennett could then offer more money to buy his way out. If the city refuses Bennett's buyout offer, the team would play two more seasons. During those two seasons, Microsoft's Steve Ballmer or other Seattle business moguls would have a chance to save the team for Seattle.