I understand that he can’t force the Maloofs to sell and he can’t guarantee that the team will stay in Sacramento forever.

I also get that he heaped a lot of praise on Sacramento.

But his comments like, paraphrasing here, “They’re scheduled to play in Sacramento for the 2013 season, beyond that it wouldn’t pay to say” are bullshit. They’re the words of someone setting themselves up with a future out, if needed.

Were he truly committed to doing everything in his power to keep the Kings in Sacramento, he should have said something like “I remain committed to finding a solution to keeping the Kings in Sacramento permanently”. It’s the least he could have done after Sacramento spent a year investing thousands of man-hours and hundreds of thousands in resources doing exactly what he (Stern) told them to do.

Sacramento deserves more assurance than an open ended, non committal pat on the head.

That’s perhaps the most disappointing (and concerning) thing here for me. We don’t need Stern playing Switzerland, we need him on our side.

The NBA needs to step up and say that they’ll not support a move since Sacramento met its end of the bargian.

Obviously they can’t force owners to vote any particular way but Stern is the face of the NBA and I have to think that many owners would follow his lead on this issue.