FanHouse Joe Maloof

The Sacramento Monarchs, one of the WNBA's original eight franchises folded Friday, leaving the league to scramble to find a new ownership group, possibly in the San Francisco Bay Area, in time for the 2010 season.

The league announced Friday that it is in talks to find a Bay Area ownership group prepared to take the team over.

WNBA president Donna Orender confirmed Friday evening that negotiations with an investor group are underway.

You could easily forgive Joe Maloof for publicly freaking out about Tim Donaghy's recent allegations. The soon-to-be-sentenced referee alleged that the Sacramento Kings lost a shot at a world championship because the NBA wanted the 2002 Lakers - Kings series to go at least seven games.

But oddly, Maloof is staunchly of the opinion that there was no conspiracy against the Kings during the Western Conference Finals. And he told ESPN Radio -- 1100 in Las Vegas -- as much today, pointing out that the refereeing during that game was arguably the worst in NBA history, but not necessarily indicative of a conspiracy.

We lost the game. It was a very, very poorly officiated game. Our family has been in the NBA many years now ... it was probably the worst officiated game I've ever seen.

[...]we've been around the NBA and our family has a wonderful relationship with the league...I don't believe in any conspiracy at all.

[...]It was disapointing, it was a very poorly officiated game but as far as anything else, I don't believe it ever happened.

Maloof's stance will likely be referred to by some media analysts in a manner that will involve the phrase "company line". While I (am admittedly eager to) agree with Maloof, his continued statement of poor officiating -- which it was -- does have a slight whiff of denial.

And no longer just to Kenny Thomas!

Kings owners Joe and Gavin Maloof gave away suitcases full of $100,000 in cash to seven contestants participating in "Oprah's Big Give." From the Sacramento Bee:

"The premise is similar to the pay-it-forward idea," Gavin Maloof said. "They have to try to help as many people as possible."

[...] "It's incredible the amount of organizations and people they were able to help," Maloof said of his experience on the show, which was previously taped. "It's an incredible, invigorating show. It was one of the greatest experiences I've had."

Giving away $700,000 is a wonderful act that shouldn't be marginalized or diminished, but for a couple of guys whose family made its fortune capitalizing on human vices, wouldn't it be cool if one of the contestants donated their suitcase to a local Gamblers Anonymous chapter or some such? Tune in this Sunday to find out. (I kid, but seriously, the Maloofs do deserve props -- they're apparently pretty good at the whole "giving money away" thing, donating $13 million to various Sacramento charities over the past decade, which is approximately $12.9999 million more than me.)