In case you’ve been hiding under a rock, one of the biggest stories around the NBA right now is Clay Bennett attempting to move the Seattle Sonics to Oklahoma City. Fans around the entire league have joined the crisis facing Sonics fans, with much discussion going on over at SonicsCentral and SuperSonicSoul.

Today, April 18, all 30 of the NBA’s team owners voted on the proposed move to Oklahoma City. However, numerous fan petitions and threats were not enough to sway owner voting in their favor. In fact, the decision was somewhat of a landslide, 28-2. Thank you, Mark Cuban and Paul Allen.

Unless we see some miracle in the future (i.e. forcing Bennett to sell), everybody will be losing in the situation. While a deserving Oklahoma City community receives a franchise with solid building block in Kevin Durant, it’s an expensive move for the city. Needless to say, Seattle would prefer to keep their historic franchise.

Clay Bennett and David Stern are drawing a lot of criticism. Some of its unnecessary, but most of it’s reasonable. Wasn’t it apparent that Bennett would eventually take the team back to his home in Oklahoma? Take a quick look around the NBA blogosphere, and you can find plenty of evidence that Bennett never planned to keep the team in Seattle. However, if the case is awarded to Bennett, the team still has to get out of its lease.

The legal promises to keep the franchise in Seattle seem fairly iffy, but right now, the future of the Seattle Sonics (as far as I understand) is dependent on what seems to be a turn in the plot fit for a movie. Howard Schultz, the team’s former owner, plans to take on Clay Bennett in a court case sure to be as monumental as Marbury v Madison. Okay, maybe not, but Schultz and his now-loyal fans won’t be going down without a fight.