Stern to Seattle: How Dare you Not Pay Extra to Keep Your Crappy Team

David Stern’s absolute power may have gone to his head. (Back when he had a mustache, it went there.) He recently criticized Seattle for not sufficiently funding the Supersonics’ potential new arena with public funds. He said that it was unlikely that the NBA would ever return to Seattle. (Which kind of indicates he’s looking to expand more. Will nothing sate his appetite?)

“To have the speaker of the house say well, they just spend too much money on salaries anyway, so we need it for other things,” Stern said, casts aspersions on the whole league’s operations. “We get the message. Hopefully, maybe cooler heads will prevail.”

He was referring to a remark by House Speaker Frank Chopp last February when funding for a new arena in the Seattle suburb of Renton was proposed.

“They ought to get their own financial house in order when their payroll is over $50 million for, what is it, 10 players? I think that’s a little ridiculous,” Chopp said at the time. “They need to get their own financial house in order and if they did, they wouldn’t have to ask for public help.”

Seriously, when politicians think you spend too much money, it’s probably gotten out of hand.

It’s about damn time cities started standing up to teams that want to charge exorbitant amounts for tickets and have their facilities be publicly funded. Of course, for taking the stand, their going to lose their team as Oklahoma City swoops in, but that’s the price you pay for sticking it to the man. I guess.