DALLAS -- NBA owners have spoken: They, too, want the Kings playing in Sacramento.
Owners from the league's 30 teams met here Wednesday for nearly four hours and voted to reject the Kings' proposed move to Seattle, backing last month's recommendation from a relocation committee to keep the team in Sacramento. Sources say the vote in favor of keeping the team in Sacramento was 22-8.
NBA commissioner David Stern said afterward that the Maloofs' proposed sale of the team to a Seattle group headlined by lead investor Chris Hansen "ended effectively" with the results of the relocation vote.
Stern confirmed at an evening news conference that the Maloofs "have the right to retain ownership" of the Kings but expressed confidence that a sale to Silicon Valley billionaire Vivek Ranadive's consortium eventually will go through.
"It is my expectation that we'll be able to make a deal with the Maloofs and the Ranadive group," Stern said. "... It's not a certainty, but we're going to work [toward] that result."
The Maloofs, by all accounts, do not want to sell the team to the group led by Ranadive, who has worked closely with Stern during the past few months in Sacramento's scramble to try to prevent the Kings from leaving town.
Bitaw, tied si Noah & Chandler media votes.
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