Category: Golden State Warriors

by Jerry Feitelberg

SACRAMENTO–Sacramento Superior Court Judge Timothy Frawley made his second major ruling in favor of the Sacramento Kings to start construction on their new arena at Downtown Plaza. The construction was about to face a delay after a recent lawsuit filed by foes opposed to the arena claiming that the new arena would be an act of gentrification and would displace many single occupancy hotel residents in downtown Sacramento.

The ruling by Frawley would clear a path for the arena to start construction but also would force those single occupants to move from their homes in hotels that they stayed in for decades to make way for new buildings in the neighborhood. The foes who learned of their lawsuit loss on Friday had filed the suit under the California Environmental Quality Act. The opposition said that traffic, noise, and pollution issues amongst other complaints were reasons for the suit to get a injunction to block the start of construction for the Kings arena.

Frawley back in Febuary in his first ruling against another opposition group who wanted to place an initiative on last June’s ballot saying that voters should have a vote on whether public funds and building a new arena should be allowed to go forward. The opposition group in this attempt found that that they were caught in a political triangle which went back to Hedge Fund manager Chris Hansen who tried to buy the Kings and move them to Seattle.

Hansen later admitted being behind funding the campaign to put the arena initiative on the ballot. Frawley ruled that the legal language in the initiative was flawed and that the Sacramento Registar of Voters found many discrepancies of unregistared voters who signed documents to get the initiative on the ballot and legal flaws in the language of the ballots were stained. At the time Mayor Kevin Johnson said “I can smell the stench off those ballots” regarding the initiative push.

The opponents lawyer Kelly Smith said in Sacramento Superior Court on Friday to Frawley that the bill that protects new arena projects such as the Kings arena proposal is unconstitutional. The bill was sponsored by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg that give teeth to any arena proposal and that any lawsuit trying to block it’s construction could only be successful in the event of a health and saftey issue or if American Native artifacts are threatened.

The state initiative SB743 was signed by California Governor Jerry Brown that stops CEQA lawsuits from injunctions. Opposition after opposition group tried everything to try and halt the construction of the new arena and Frawley had played a key role in ruling in favor of the new arena with stopping some major lawsuits against it’s construction.

The project was originally scheduled to breakground this week but after this latest lawsuit filed the groundbreaking will be recheduled. The Kings new arena is expected to be completed and ready for the NBA season in 2017. The Kings will spend $222 million for their share on the arena project and the city will spend $255 million. The opponents had objected to the city’s use of public subsidies and the use of public parking lots owned by the city to pay back the money barrowed from the general fund another suit that was overruled. Opponents said that the money should have been used towards the arts rather than building a new arena for the Kings.

Jerry Feitelberg is covering the new arena developments for the Sacramento Kings and the Golden State Warriors for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

by Jerry Feitelberg and Amaury Pi Gonzalez

SACRAMENTO–Opponents who have filed a environmental lawsuit against the city of Sacramento and the Sacramento Kings over traffic conditions, drunks and rowdy fans in the Downtown Plaza neighborhood, and objections over subsidies which includes city owned parking garages that would pay off the monies barrowed from the general fund to pay for the new Kings arena.

There are two separate law suits filed one from a group led by Caltrans retired director Adriana Saltonstall who is challenging the city and Kings against building the new arena for the above reasons and Saltonstall’s group also is challenging California Governor Jerry Brown’s bill that he signed that makes it harder for opponents to file a lawsuit against new arena construction in the state specifically the new Kings arena. Saltonstall group says that the disallowing or strengthing laws with more teeth in them to prevent filing lawsuits against arena constructions is unconstitutional.

The second opposition group has filed a CEQA suit siting similar issues the cases will be heard in two differents court hearings. The major issue at hand now is the costs that the Kings and the city will incur if the project is delayed there is a laundry list of them and the city is asking the judges in each of the cases for the opponents to pony up $100 million as bond money to cover loss expenses in the event that the Kings and the city win the lawsuits and are allowed to begin construction at Downtown Plaza.

The Kings are scheduled to open the new arena which will seat over 17,000 fans as a smaller scale NBA building the new arena is scheduled to be ready in October 2016. The lawsuit that has been filed can take up the better portion of the year and the scheduled construction for groundbreaking is set for the end of this month. The delay at best could have the new arena ready sometime in early 2017 past the deadline set by the NBA. The NBA has the right to buy the Kings and move them in the event of a schedule delay or if the Kings lose the lawsuit filed by the opponents.

Kings Chief Financial Officer John Rinehart says that the Kings would suffer a tremendous financial hit for any delay to the project and James Moose a prominent Sacramento lawyer told the Sacramento Bee this week that it isn’t uncommon for judges to ask opponents in environmental cases like these with time sensititve constraints for bond money to be held by the court until the case is decided.

There lies the question as to whether or not the opponents have $100 million to forward to the court in bond money until the case is decided and the judge in considering the bond money and is taking into account the financial status of the opponents and the strength of the case. The Kings are about to lose close to $2.5 million in construction loses, the city’s share of loses could mount up to $5.7 million primararly because of street planning and scheduled construction to block the streets from traffic during that time, the Kings have already spent $36 million on buying the Downtown Plaza proper and Kings have shared in the land purchase at $60 million.

If the Kings and the city were to lose the case entirely the Kings and the city would be on the hook for the Downtown Plaza property with the team facing the strong possibility of being forced to leave Sacramento by the NBA. One thing that could be considered in the event any new owner who buys the Kings would absorb the costs and loses at Downtown Plaza which would total $96 million plus the purchase of buying the team.

Jerry Feitelberg is covering the Sacramento Kings and Golden State Warriors new arena developments for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

by Jerry Feitelberg

SAN FRANCISCO–The State Lands Commission who filed a lawsuit against Proposition B the measure that limits height development on the San Francisco Waterfront argued in the suit that the state owns the land and that the Port of San Francisco is managed by the Port not by the city. The city said that they will aggressively defend the vote of the citizens of San Francisco who passed Prop B.

This is a different school of thought coming from City Hall as previous to the election the Mayor and some members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors wanted to see Propositon B or wanted it off the ballot so that the Warriors could have a chance to build a new arena at Piers 30-32. Just before the measure passed the Warriors bought land at Mission Bay from Salesforce and will start construction on the new arena with planned retail, condos, and hotels at that location.

It was also noted that San Francisco’s populaton has grown from 750,000 to a reported 1 million that figure came out on Tuesday which gives incentive to developers, real estate companies and the Lands Commission to try to overturn Prop B as there is a lot riding on getting B overturned financially. No San Francisco mayor came out for Proposition B current of former except Art Agnos who was a advocate to stop highrise building on the Embarcadero when the Warriors touted the idea of a new arena at Piers 30-32.

Former San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom who is California Lt Gov is on the Lands Commission with State Controller John Chiang and Finance Director Michael Cohen are set to fight the City and Prop B. The Commission will be in for a fight against the City and San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera who was a supporter of Proposition B and says the city has jurisdiction on how the port is governed, “With (Tuesday’s) lawsuit, the State’s Land Commission seems to have embraced the notion that any local initiative and by extension, any land use regulation by a Board of Supervisors or Planning Commission affecting Port property is barred by the state and therefore invalid.” said Herrera

Ironically some of the people that Newsom will be going up against to overturn Prop B are the very people who worked for him when he was Mayor. It’s a different turn of events as the strategy to get measure B overturned will take it’s legal twists and angles in this lawsuit, “while the commission respects the power of the initiative as it relates to local and municipal affairs, when it comes to the management of state property including public trust land, the Legislature has specifically delegated the management resposibility for those lands to the San Francisco Port Commission.” said Jennifer Lucchesi an executive officer for the Port Commission.

Piers 30-32 was offered up to George Lucas and Lucas Light and Industries after the Warriors were turned away by the waterfront neighborhood but Lucas who was looking at three cities to move to which included San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago didn’t want to sort through San Francisco politics anymore after being forced to move out of the Presidio where his offices were located selected Chicago. Lucas could have moved to Piers 30-32 without the problems the Warriors had to face but left for the Windy City anyway.

Herrera meanwhile said he plans to defend Proposition B tooth and nail to protect Waterfront development, “That view (Lucchesi and the Commission) represents a radical departure in law and practice from land use decision making in San Francisco and elsewhere. While the city must certainly honor it’s obligations as trustee in managing public trust property, it is a legally and practically untenable position to argue that San Francisco’s voters and elected officials have no direct say over how our City’s waterfront is developed” said Herrera.

Jerry Feitelberg is covering the new arena developements for the Golden State Warriors and Sacramento Kings for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

by David Zizmor

LeBron James return to the Cleveland Cavaliers will also be a homecoming as he’s from Akron Ohio. LeBron played seven seasons with the Cavs. The main reason why LeBron signed with the Cavs is he saw the writing on the wall, the Miami roster based in the finals in San Antonio LeBron saw they were going to have a tough time being competitive even in the Eastern Conference given the players that they have the Heat went out and picked a couple of players in case LeBron wouldn’t come back.

A mural in Miami that depicts the entire Heat team was defaced, just LeBron’s face only and talk shows in Miami were the abuzz about how fans would respond to LeBron leaving Miami for Cleveland. It’s almost like the time when he left Cleveland the first time, the fans feel like they were stabbed in the heart.

The Heat’s Dwayne Wade is a shadow of his former self, four years ago LeBron signed with the Heat and Wade was still a superstar and a starting player in the All-Star game and people wondered if Wade and LeBron could co-exist and frankly in the first month or two that was the big problem.

Wade had trouble giving up the ball conceding that LeBron was the better player and it made for an adjustment in the first couple months in November last season in Miami. Eventually that problem went away and the Heat won more consecutive championship series. In this last one you kind of saw Wade was on the downside of his career. If you look at it Wade sat out a lot of games and when he sat it allowed him to rest and be fresh in the playoffs.

Wade’s defense was a liability in the finals and his defense was awful and he wasn’t helping much on the offense side of the game. If LeBron moved back to Miami Wade was going to stay there and Wade still might. The simple fact that Wade is not a superstar and you can’t consider him an NBA top ten player. At Miami they have multiple top players and Wade doesn’t fit the bill anymore.

The Cleveland roster has a lot of young players on it who are on the upswing and they aren’t so expensive and they can add pieces to help them be title contenders. They have, Tristan Thompson, Anderson Varejao, Dion Waiters, Andrew Wiggins who was taken in the draft and Anthony Bennett. There is a lot of talent on the Cavs that can help Cleveland become top dog in the Eastern Conference.

Now the question is would they become a good enough team to beat San Antonio? Who knows at this point. When LeBron was there in his first run with the Cavs 2003-04 (rookie year) he help take them to the NBA Finals and they lost and that roster was worse than the one he’s on now.

David Zizmor covers the NBA for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

by Jerry Feitelberg

SAN FRANCISCO–The Mission Bay properties for housing in recent developments are going like hotcakes and no wonder the rents in the city are being driven by the high tech firms purchasing of land and real estate developing condos and the future home of the Golden State Warriors is no different. You can only imagine what it’ll be like once the arena is completed.

Bio tech developer Alexandria Real Estate Equities had built out over one million square feet of property space that is already tenant occupied at a rate of 99 percent. There are 5,000 units that Alexandria is still constructing before the gap is filled in and you can best bet that these units are already spoken for. As it turned out this might be a better or equally good investment than where the Warriors originally wanted to build their new arena at Piers 30-32.

Mission Bay is showing tremendous growth and development for housing at nearly 100 percent and the Warriors who purchased Mission Bay land from Salesforce, once the new arena is developed the Warriors plan on adding retail, hotels, and condos the latter three are designed to off set the costs of building the arena.

The Warriors designs for the new arena will seat 18,000 and will be on 12 acres of property owned by the team, the Warriors have not selected an architect yet but in the selection process the team is reportedly consulting with other NBA teams about architects who designed their buildings. There is no question the Warriors want a state of the art building that is futuristic above other NBA arenas.

Sources also say the Warriors are considering installing an NHL regulation ice at the new arena. The San Jose Sharks’ CEO John Tortara this month said that the team would explore the possibility of moving out of SAP Center in downtown San Jose and build their own arena. The Sharks are considering Santa Clara and being next to the 49ers. If that deal doesn’t work out the Warriors could share the Mission Bay facility with the Sharks and make the arena NHL campatible.

The Mission Bay development still is hitting record levels for development for businesses too as just three blocks away from the arena site Kilroy Reality Co whose had a lot of success with development in the Mission Bay too said they are planning to build a $450 million R & D project for offices that include a 12 story building at 680,000 square feet.

Jerry Feitelberg is covering arena developments of the Golden State Warriors and Sacramento Kings for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

by David Zizmor

OAKLAND–The Golden State Warriors who did make a draft selection on Thursday said they’re confident with who they selected back in the 2012 draft. In that draft they had a four player selection and feel that it should hold with those young players inspite of not selecting any players this year, “We’re pretty good at making our lives exciting, but we couldn’t do it tonight” said Warriors general manager Bob Woodward.

The Warriors who spent $3.2 million in trades said they were capped out during the fiscal trade period and that parting with a player would have been their only other choice during the draft something that Woodward wasn’t prepared to do. Thus the team for the first time ever did not select a player in the draft.

The Warriors are one of the more involved teams in the NBA at this time of the year had a fairly quiet selection at the draft on Thursday. Costs played a part in the top 11 draft picks in contract signing however it was reported had the draft selection went past number 12 and went to 13 the Warriors who were hoping that Doug McDermott would drop to the 13 or below in the selections would have changed that picture.

Nothing doing as McDermott went to number 11 and was selected by the Denver Nuggets and was traded to the Chicago Bulls. The Kings during the draft kept active selecting Nik Stauskas. In recent weeks the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Warriors have kept active in keeping their eye on Kevin Love. Love might have been a Warrior if the Warriors had been able to obtain either Stauskas or McDermott and trade for him.

Since there was no deal the Warriors walked out of the draft empty handed but again don’t feel slighted as they are satisfied with their past selections from drafts since 2012. NBA sources who are following the Warriors and Kevin Love situation said that a deal still is not impossible. The Warriors are still very interested in Love and the Timberwolves still expressed interest in forward David Lee and guard Klay Thompson but the Warriors didn’t want to take back Kevin Martin and $21 million that Martin has left on his contract.

There is some talks left the other option is that Love finish out his last season with the T-Wolves this year and become a free agent and tell the T-Wolves that he will not sign with them for 2015-16. Right now Golden State is $11-12 million under the luxury tax. With the July free agency approaching the Warriors can look at offers in the $5.3 million to $9.8 million range. The traded-player-exception expires on July 10th.

David Zizmor covers the NBA for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

by Jerry Feitelberg

SACRAMENTO–With $255 million approved for funding by the City of Sacramento for the Sacramento Kings new arena lawyers opposed to the new arena due to environmental and housing issues and accusations of the city making funding possible by private susidies. Attorneys representing three citizens Patrick Soluri and Jeffery Anderson are working on blocking the Kings new arena which is scheduled to go under construction at the Downtown Plaza.

The city plans to spend upwards to $755,000 to defend itself against the suit that says that the appropiration of the funds to be spent by the city on the arena were done in a back room deal and that the funding transaction was not tranparent as the city and Kings are spending $477 million for the new Kings digs at the Downtown Plaza.

The suit was filed but a Sacramento Superior Court judge ruled that the lawsuit didn’t have merrit because a preliminary term sheet was approved last year by the city council when working on the financing plan. Soluri and Anderson readjusted the suit and adding a $255 million contribution which had been approved from the council and that difference allowed for the amendment.

The suit says that the parking lot properties in Sacramento were not listed as gifts when Soluri and Anderson said that the city’s proposal is fraud and they are asking the court to block the construction of the Kings arena. The city has argued in their previous appearence in court that the value of the garage property is worth almost nothing.

The city also argued that the parking properties need extensive upgrade improvements and the city had made it clear to the public that the garage and other particulars of the agreement was made to the public through public meetings and the media.

The city has hired the law firm Myers Nave to defend the city against the suit, funding for the law suit would come out of the city’s general funds. The city so far has dropped some $500,000 already fighting the three citizens in legal fees, represented by Soluri and Anderson. With the additional $755,000 that will bring that figure up to over $1.2 milllion fighting the arena opposition all out of the general fund.

Sacramento Coucilman Jay Schenirer said that the city is already bleeding red ink and this is money that should be going to other city departments that badly need funding rather than fighting arena opponents in court, “it’s $750,000 that we cannot spend on police, that we cannot spend on community centers and cannot spend on providing services for young people, all of which should be our priorities.” said Schenirer.

Jerry Feitelberg is covering the new arena developments for the Sacramento Kings and Golden State Warriors for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

by David Zizmor

San Antonio (4) Miami (1): When San Antonio’s AT&T Center didn’t have cool air in game one of this series and it disabled the Heat to lose the first game of the series it almost set the tone for this match up. The Heat did come back and won game two and the way the Heat played it it looked like it would be a repeat of last season’s championship.

Last season’s finals was a lot closer with these same two teams but this year they traded body blows, and this series didn’t turn out that way. It was not going to be a complete loss for the Spurs as the Spurs took game three in Miami. After the Heat lost yet another game in game four the Spurs took a 3-1 advantage.

The Spurs really took it to Miami and it was the typical in the way that this series went. The Spurs flipped the script by winning game seven by a big margin. No one really believed Miami could come back, the Heat had a very good swarming defense. The Heat was not able to keep up with San Antonio’s passing. This is not the same Spurs team compared to last year.

The Spurs did have some ability to swing the ball out at the parimiter at a whole new level, last year they were able to swing at the parimiter but they were still a post up team. They would throw it down to the Spurs Tim Duncan and get it down to him whenever they had the chance and they would also throw it down to one of the bigger players like center Tiago Splitter.

This year there was none of that this year’s team is primarily a parimiter team they definitely worked some of those post up swings and the options were there but this Spurs team is all about making the extra passes. As good as the Heat defense is and let’s face it their one of the best in the league the Spurs were so good.

The Spurs passed the ball around and they had that extra guy to move the ball and the Heat just couldn’t keep up the Spurs were always one pass ahead of them and over the course of the series the Heat just couldn’t hang with the Spurs speed on passing and working the ball outside the arc. The Heat were just not deep enough.

Miami just could not keep up in this series, they don’t have back court guys like the Spurs have, the problem is everybody thinks that Miami is all about the Big Three but the fact of the matter is that Dwayne Wade has really fallen off. He got a lot of rest this season, this is not the same guy who lead the Heat to the finals in game six over Dallas.

Wade has had knee injuries, he is just simply sapped, he doens’t have the speed to run the parimiter and he doesn’t have the agility anymore to hang with some of the top players and at times he became a liability for the Heat. LeBron James and Chris Bosh played well but Wade definitely took a step back.

David Zizmor covered the NBA for the 2013-14 season for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

by David Zizmor

Miami (1) vs. San Antonio (3): These past two games (games three and four) both played and lost by host the Miami Heat was a surprise. It was assumed that the Heat was going to come out swinging and sure enough it was the complete opposite as the Heat were blitzed by the San Antonio Spurs 107-86 on Thursday night.

The Heat just stunk it up in game three and in game four it wasn’t even close and LeBron James (28 points) did everything in his power to keep Miami in this game but it wasn’t enough and the supporting cast didn’t come through as Chris Bosh looked terrible 12 points, Dwayne Wade did nothing ten points on three rebounds and 3-13 shooting.

There was no help for LeBron and that’s ultimately the story here, nobody from Miami showed up on their own home floor. LeBron is a great player there is no doubt about it that he’s been the best player in the last five to ten years but you cannot win an NBA Championship all on your own.

When former Bulls player Michael Jordan won those titles yeah he was the biggest part of the puzzle but keep in mind he had a cast around him, he had Horace Grant, Scottie Pippen, Steve Kerr, Dennis Rodman and head coach Phil Jackson. There were so many different players who contributed to those winning Bulls teams.

Were not seeing that all with this year’s Heat club in this championship, last year’s Miami team had contributions all over the place and on the other side of the ball you have to give praise to San Antonio and they have been playing fantastic basketball. Everybody kind of assumes that the Spurs Tim Duncan who is approaching 40 years old is going to get tired and because a Tony Parker and a Manu Ginobili have been around forever these guys are just going to be slowing down.

It’s true their not as fast as they used to be and they might have lost a step but these guys are fantastic. The Spurs have the best coach in the NBA with Greg Popovich who can be one of the best of all time. He’s selected the right players to play in the right amount of minutes and kept them in the game and his X’s and O’s paid off in this series.

The Spurs succeed when their out on the floor and their smart what they got from a lack of a step from their ages, their still incredibly effective. You look at Duncan he didn’t have to do too much he had only ten points, 11 boards, Parker had 19 points, Kawhi Leonard was the top scorer with 20 points.

David Zizmor is covering the NBA Championship Finals for http://www.sportsradioservice.com