So it’s come down to this – if we let Clay Bennett take the SuperSonics to Oklahoma City, he’ll let the region keep the name, the colors and the logo.

That’s what the current owner of the team has apparently told the City of Seattle as part of his continued attempts to win clearance for the departure of the National Basketball Association team.

He wants to reach a deal with Seattle before a league meeting in April and before the city’s lawsuit goes to trial in June. He must not be as sure as NBA commissioner David Stern that the team transfer is a done deal.

Or maybe, unlike Stern, he has money on the table and knows the alternative to an exit deal is two years of litigation and two years of financial losses.

Or maybe he doesn’t want the name and the logo in the first place. Maybe he’s offering to trade something that has no value to him. No wonder he’s done so well making business deals with his father-in-law’s money.

And that’s how he continues to treat this issue, like another deal to be negotiated. At first he figured that if he offered enough money, the city would let him out of his lease to play in KeyArena through the 2010 season.

He now realizes that there are psychic as well as financial considerations, so he’s offering to leave the name and the green-and-gold colors in what will be an empty building. That suggests that the name can then be attached to a new team, even though Stern acts as though Baghdad has a better chance of being a member of the NBA clique than Seattle.

If this had anything to do with capitalism or free enterprise, Bennett might have a point. He owns the team and should be free to do whatever he wants with it, if his fellow owners agree.

But the NBA and all other professional sports in America lost any connection to capitalism a long time ago – probably when baseball was granted an exemption from antitrust laws or at least when the first team held the first city for ransom in exchange for a tax-supported stadium.

The NBA is a self-governing collective that’s completely propped up by tax dollars. In fact the only way the Sonics could make a go of it in a small market such as Oklahoma City is through tax subsidies. If it were really private enterprise, the league wouldn’t abandon the 13th-largest media market for the 45th.

Instead, the owners have the best of both worlds – private ownership of assets and a near-complete insulation from risk thanks to the taxpayers. The artificial limit on the supply of teams gives owners tremendous leverage. Any threat to that leverage – like when Seattle and Washington state don’t immediately roll over to league demands – upsets the system.

Which is exactly why Stern has to huff and puff and threaten and claim that a KeyArena renovation proposal that was OK three years ago has now become inadequate. He has to make sure that other NBA cities or potential NBA cities don’t start saying no to huge public subsidies.

Because if the league allowed that to happen in Seattle, it might spread. And if it spreads, the whole house of cards tumbles.

That’s why cities such as Seattle have to go to court – the one branch of government that might actually hold pro teams to their commitments, the one branch the leagues can’t bully with threats or smooch up to with expensive seats in exclusive suites.

Want to make it a business deal? Here’s our offer – Bennett can take his players and coaches to Oklahoma City and nothing else. The league directs the owner of the New Orleans franchise to sell to the group of Washington state investors willing to buy it, move it and pay half the cost of yet another remodeling of KeyArena.

Bennett can call his team whatever he wants. But this team is called the Sonics. This team retains the banners and the retired numbers and the history. And this team retains the 1979 NBA championship trophy.

Peter Callaghan: 253-597-8657

peter.callaghan@thenewstribune.com

blogs.thenewstribune.com/politics