But the Schultz sale wasn't the same since he chose to sell to Bennett over Ellison, Schultz was the owner. The scenario here is that the Maloofs are the owners, they chose the sale, and the NBA is rejecting it. The two situations aren't the same.
I agree too that the delay has nothing to do with the Maloofs. Again I'll say I think the league is exploring expansion, and someone can come back with a tweet from someone who says they're in the know, but actually don't know anything. I've been following this whole thing from Seattle's end basically since the team was sold in 2006, and I honestly thinking back on this whole saga, I think the NBA has kind of been orchestrating a lot of this in order to get two new arenas done in two politically difficult NBA cities. Both our cities have had problems building an arena for a long, long time now, so it seems to me that expansion is the logical conclusion to a decade long battle for Stern. One thing is for certain, Hurricane Katrina screwed it up for everyone, cause I doubt the league would have ever allowed the Sonics to go to Oklahoma had that market not been thoroughly tested.
I'll never quite understand Stern's insistance to keep an NBA team in New Orleans, even when they had Chris Paul and were in the playoffs, you'd see that arena half empty. Now that is a city which is undeserving of professional basketball.