You do realize I assume that if YOU, Sacramento, had at any point in the last dozen years gotten your act together and found a way to put up an arena -- something basically everybody else your size has done -- the team wouldn't be moving right? Whatever the NBA's problems, and it does have a number, trying to blame them for a civic failure doesn't really fly beyond hurt feelings. A dozen years. In that time approximately 1 out of every 7 people on the planet has passed away. There has been a new millenium. Kids who were in first grade are now freshman in college. Its a ridiculous length of time to blunder about and keep on expecting someone to wait. Are they supposed to wait 20yrs 30?
It really never was any more complex than building a suitable arena. It was made out as impossible, made into soem ironi shwo of smalltown obstinance or stick it to the rich guy pride, or I don't wan tanythign built ever with my money tax revoltism, or whatever. All B.S. It was simple. Build it and we would not be at this point. Or apparently don't build it, and then blame the other guy.
If the Maloofs had come swooping in in 1998, bought the team, and moves it away, I would have been there with this sentiment. Scummy and should not be allowed to happen. After waiting around for more than a decade, going from young men to middleaged men, one of them even had a heart attack here recently, this isn't somebody stealing the small town's team anymore. Its the small town forcing it out the door.