A little more than 12 hours after we heard that Vivek Ranadive's Sacramento investment group and the Maloof family had struck an agreement to transfer ownership of the Kings, the city of Sacramento held a press conference today to formally announce the good news. Mayor Kevin Johnson praised the city for never giving up on the Kings, and also confirmed that Chris Hansen isn't involved in the deal, so he won't be a minority owner of the team (Twitter link via Chris Daniels of KING5). As the new ownership group prepares to officially take over the Kings, here's a number of other items related to the sale and to the team:
- Assuming Keith Smart is not retained as the Kings' head coach by the new ownership group, Warriors assistant Michael Malone is expected to be a top candidate, writes Sam Amick of USA Today. Amick also points to Chris Mullin as a potential front office candidate, with Geoff Petrie likely on the way out.
- The Sacramento Bee's initial story on the agreement between the new ownership group and the Maloofs has been updated with plenty of additional details, identifying a number of the investors in Ranadive's group.
- Chris Mannix of SI.com reports (via Twitter) that the NBA's 30 owners offered to repay the $30MM non-refundable deposit Hansen's Seattle group made to the Maloofs, but Hansen declined. Mannix adds (via Twitter) that Hansen and Co. don't intend to file any lawsuits related to the Kings situation.
- The 7% share of the Kings that Hansen bought in bankruptcy, pending NBA approval, will likely be auctioned off again, tweets Dale Kasler of the Sacramento Bee.
- In an Insider-only piece for ESPN.com, Kevin Pelton examines the next steps for the Kings.