Video: Bennett takes the stand in Sonics trial

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SEATTLE – Sonics majority owner Clay Bennett will be back on the hot seat Wednesday morning after being grilled by attorneys by the City of Seattle over those controversial e-mails with his co-owners, the team's financial situation and his efforts to secure a new Arena for the Sonics.

Bennett testified Tuesday that he remained committed to finding a new arena in the Seattle area before last season -- even as e-mails circulated among team co-owners portraying how eager they were to move the Sonics to Oklahoma City.

City of Seattle lawyer Paul Lawrence repeatedly questioned Bennett about an e-mail Sonics co-owner and fellow Oklahoma City business leader Tom Ward sent to Bennett on April 17, 2007. That was just after the Washington Legislature rejected Bennett's plan for a publicly financed, $500 million arena in the Seattle suburbs.

"Is there any way to move here for next season, or are we doomed to have another lame duck season in Seattle?" Ward wrote.

"I am a man possessed!" Bennett responded. "Will do everything we can. Thanks for hanging with me boys. The game is getting started!"

"That's the spirit!! I am willing to help any way I can to watch ball here next year," responded fellow Sonics co-owner Aubrey McClendon, a childhood friend of Bennett's.

Under oath in U.S. District Court Tuesday, Bennett said of his e-mail: "I am not responding to moving to Oklahoma. I'm reiterating my commitment to the process to stay in Seattle." He added that Ward and McClendon understood that position.

But six days later, in another e-mail to NBA President Joel Litvin, Bennett asks about the possibility of moving the team to Oklahoma City as early as the next season.

After some tough questioning, Bennett admitted he was "teeing up" the possibility of a move.

Lawrence then made a pointed statement, saying the man possessed to keep the team in Seattle is suddenly asking how he can move the team to Oklahoma City.

Bennett's lawyers countered with e-mails showing the Professional Basketball Club's efforts to keep the team in the Puget Sound region, including trying to recruit the influential help of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Ironically, it's Ballmer who recently led a group of investors hoping to get KeyArena renovated in order to keep the Sonics here.

Seattle Times

Sonics owner Clay Bennett en route to federal court in Seattle on Tuesday.

Bennett reiterated in court that despite being approached several times about a KeyArena renovation, he never had an interest in the idea.

Bennett is trying to move Seattle's oldest professional sports franchise two years before the KeyArena lease expires. The city is asking a federal judge to force the Sonics to honor their lease. The six-day trial is scheduled to end June 26, after which Judge Marsha Pechman will issue a written verdict.

When Bennett and his partners agreed to buy the Sonics for $350 million in July 2006, they also agreed to launch a good-faith effort to find a new arena around Seattle for 12 months ending Oct. 31, 2007.

Bennett understood team's financial losses

 The Sonics say they would lose up to $65 million over the next two seasons if forced to stay at KeyArena, the NBA's smallest venue, but could make more than $18 million if allowed to play in Oklahoma. The team characterizes the situation as a standard landlord-tenant dispute, and says it should be allowed to break the lease while paying the city no more than $10 million in lost rent.

The city argues the new owners were aware of the risks when they purchased the Sonics and that they should not now be able to claim financial hardship to break the lease.

Bennett said he knew when he bought the team that it was losing money at KeyArena, but thought "perhaps we could turn that around."

Bennett characterized the team's financial losses as "significant and ever-growing, but they would not significantly alter" his family's lifestyle. He said he understood the Sonics likely would keep losing money as long as they played at KeyArena -- the NBA's smallest venue -- but that he hoped a new arena deal would revive local interest in the team.

"We thought perhaps we could turn that around in the past year if in fact we had an arena development in process," he said.

Lawrence asked if he understood at the time that the team might not get a deal for a new arena.

"Didn't understand it well enough," Bennett quipped.

On cross-examination, Sonics lawyer Brad Keller asked Bennett why he'd buy a team he knew was losing tens of millions of dollars a year. One document in evidence, written by a consultant for the team, Jim Kneeland, said, "We paid $350 million in a rushed auction and subsequently learned that we paid too much."

"We thought it was ripe for a turnaround," Bennett said, citing a "dynamic marketplace" and "great economy."

And, he said, he thought his group could be successful in winning public support for a new arena where the local, previous ownership group led by Starbucks Corp. chairman Howard Schultz had failed.

"They never had the leverage to get it done," Bennett said. "Certainly that ownership group was never going to move that team. Inherently, we had that leverage."

Bennett was taken off the stand temporarily in order for Ivy League-educated economist Andrew Zimbalist to take the stand due to his tight schedule. Zimbalist drafted a report about the economic impacts of an NBA team in Seattle, but the defense poked holes in that report, showing sections that had apparently been lifted from a similar report he did in Los Angeles in 2005.

Bennett is expected back on the stand Wednesday morning for more questioning. Co-owner McClendon is expected to testify by audio or video deposition, but there is some talk he may appear in person.

KING 5's Chris Daniels, KING5.com's Travis Pittman and the Associated Press contributed to this report.