FanHouse AubreyMcClendon

Things aren't terrific in Oklahoma City. The Thunder had trouble selling out the Ford Center early this season, though the sales team managed to fill the building for Wednesday's epic matchup with the similarly terrible Clippers. (Mad daps; that's the upset of the year so far.) But more fans in the house meant there was a bigger opportunity to disappoint. Falling behind an awful team by more than 20 points will do the trick: the Thunder heard their first home boos of the season.

It's hard to blame Seattle fans like SonicsCentral's Brian Robinson for crowing about the predicted reality in OKC.

Even I thought that the honeymoon would last longer than this. ... The biggest problem I see coming forward is that the franchise has no tools in place to get better. ... [B]ased on complaints about the in game product it sounds like they are trying hard to save money. Skimping on everything from mascots giving out T-Shirts to music, etc. Now they are in a situation where ownership had to make a Nov. 1 capital call from partners, [Aubrey] McClendon, [Tom] Ward, and [Clay] Bennett have completely lost their asses in the stock market and McClendon is even reportedly trying hard to sell his share of the team.

How can this team put out the money for major free agents? They know they will have to overpay to get a guy to play for the worst team in the least desirable city for an NBA player to live. ... It is stunning that it has fallen apart so quickly. I would have never, never expected them to have boos and critical articles written just 11 games into the season.

From Seattle, the sour grapes are perfectly understandable. For the rest of us, it's sad to see a newborn franchise wilt so effortlessly. Cap space and draft picks don't give you carte blanche, it appears.

Don't worry, that awful suggestion has not stuck or anything. But it was a suggestion Sonics minority owner Aubrey McClendon sent to a friend back in July 2006, according to a list of evidence buried in pre-trial documents published by the Tacoma News-Tribune in advance of the team's court date with the city of Seattle and a federal judge. (Link via Enjoy the Enjoyment, who has a good breakdown on the summary arguments for each side.)

Among the various documents on the city's list of evidence to be considered in the case is a slice described as "E-mail string from A. McClendon to KM8881@aol.com" re: FW: The Oklahoma City Sonic Boom (or maybe Sonic Boomers!) Baby!!!!!!!!!!," which has to break some sort of record for exclamation marks. The audacity of the tongue-maiming nickname is rivaled only by the audacity of continued claims by Sonics ownership that it never made eyes at moving the team to Oklahoma City.

That email -- again, forwarded on by a part-owner of the Sonics -- was sent on July 12, 2006. The new owners didn't even hold a press conference to announce the purchase until July 18, 2006! Before the sale was final the guy was talking about moving the team to OKC!

But David Stern still says Clay Bennett and Friends made "good faith" efforts to stick in Seattle, and no one ever talked about OKC. The sheer volume of blatant dishonesty involved here is astounding.

Via Deadspin, the Sonics ownership got caught with its jubjub in a grinder again. The Seattle Times published quotes from another set of incriminating emails again Saturday, these ones hosting Aubrey McClendon as the star. McClendon, you'll remember, last summer told an Oklahoma publication that the OKC-based ownership group had planned to move the Sonics all along, a statement for which he was fined $250,000 by the league.

The Times' Jim Brunner reveals what followed:

Later that year, McClendon apologized to principal Sonics owner Clay Bennett for telling an Oklahoma newspaper he'd always intended to move the Sonics. But McClendon added, "the truth is we did buy it with the hope of moving to Oklahoma City," according to a copy of his e-mail read aloud during the deposition.

Couldn't these guys come up with a code name for OKC? "Enchildaland" would have worked.

That's not all. Remember the first set of e-missives which drew headlines, in which a third owner, Tom Ward, asked Bennett if he could get the Sonics to play ball "here" (assumedly OKC) in 2008-09, to which Bennett replied that he was doing everything he could and that he was a "man possessed." Well, in an April deposition now public, McClendon asserts the fellas were talking about Seattle!

"Clay is talking about his efforts to get a deal done in Seattle. He frequently would refer to himself as a man in motion, a man possessed. He's just been kicked in the stomach by Olympia the day before and he's saying, I'm not quitting, the game is just getting started. This is John Paul Jones saying I've not yet begun the fight," McClendon said.

Never mind that all Bennett (possessed or not) would need to do to have the team playing in Seattle in 2008-09 would be to ... play in Seattle in 2008-09 by not trying to slip out of his lease in federal court. McClendon's lack of respect for truth is insulting, frankly. We are not idiots, brother.

From now on, I'm guessing Clay Bennett and the rest of the Sonics ownership group will stick to telegraph and messenger pigeon, or at the very least conference calls. Even more emails have emerged that put the group in bad light, suggesting they never intended to keep the Sonics in Seattle (shocking!), and that the NBA began to suspect as much last year.

After minority owner Aubrey McClendon went on the record last summer saying they always intended to move the team to Oklahoma City, Bennett warned the group that he was worried about the legal ramifications, since the team was contractually obligated to make a "good faith effort" to stay in Seattle. From Jim Brunner of the Seattle Times:

"Yes sir, we get killed on this one. I don't mind the PR ugliness (pretty used to it), but I am concerned from a legal standpoint that your statement could perhaps undermine our basic premise of 'good faith best efforts'... "

Bennett also told his fellow owners that McClendon's comment had prompted the NBA to take a closer look at their "good faith" promise:

In an e-mail last August, Sonics owner Clay Bennett told fellow owner Aubrey McClendon that NBA executive Joel Litvin was "looking into certain documents we signed at closing that may have been breached."