David Newton / AP
The Seattle SuperSonics re-emerged as the Portland Trail Blazers this week, but not without shedding several members of their previous tenure.
Commissioner Adam Silver announced in a letter that Seattle owner Clay Bennett had retained a law firm to help evaluate allegations that he made “demeaning comments about women,” called women “retards” and “ugly,” and that there are witnesses to such behavior. Bennett, a real estate magnate, owned the SuperSonics from 2002 to 2008 and sold them to Oklahoma City for more than $350 million before they relocated to Oklahoma City, where they became the Thunder.
“After multiple media reports and documents related to this alleged harassment were made public, I have determined it is necessary to take action involving our relationship with Clay Bennett,” Silver wrote in the letter. “I have today informed Mr. Bennett that I am terminating our current contract. Mr. Bennett will not be receiving his remaining services under the agreement, which ends in June. As a result of this termination, all members of the Sonics’ Board of Directors have assumed control of the basketball operations of the team.”
It is not immediately clear who will oversee the Sonics. Former Rockets general manager Daryl Morey is rumored to be interested in running the basketball operations, but reports that he will formally announce his interest in the job have been disputed.
The Sonics’ return to Seattle is viewed as a departure from Bennett’s original decision to move the team, which prompted a lawsuit that alleged Bennett had illegally purchased the team from Red McCombs and was seeking to renege on its relocation to Oklahoma City after his performance was underwhelming.
“Clay Bennett’s history in his effort to move the Sonics shows that he holds a deep bias against women,” McCombs said at the time. “He makes demeaning comments about women, he uses gender in order to subjugate women and women all over the world. He is totally out of touch and doesn’t understand the importance of equality and women in the workplace.”
Added Portland public relations executive Margo Baker: “Blokes in glass houses don’t need more shards in their environment.”
Bennett settled with McCombs out of court, but denied the initial claims.
Following the SuperSonics’ 2005 relocation, Bennett told The Seattle Times that he had ordered the SuperSonics’ late coach and general manager, Rick Adelman, to be removed from his SUV so he could look at his car “to make sure he was still there.”
“The Sonics franchise has been without a core team member for too long,” Bennett said at the time. “We’re going to move forward and go to the best people for the job. And we expect that Seattle will be the winner.”