Howard Schultz, mulling 2020 run, apologizes for role in NBA team leaving Seattle -- but not all accept

Former Starbucks CEO and Chairman Howard Schultz smiles as he is introduced during the kickoff of his book tour, Monday, Jan. 28, 2019, in New York. (Associated Press)

As he mulls an independent run for president, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz apologizes in a new book for selling the NBA's Seattle SuperSonics to an Oklahoma City-based ownership group, making him the most reviled figure among Seattle sports fans when the team relocated two years later.

In the book “From the Ground Up: A Journey to Reimagine the Promise of America,” Schultz expressed regret over the $350 million deal in 2006 that led to the relocation of the beloved NBA franchise, which had played in Seattle for four decades and won the league's championship in 1979.

He called it “one of the biggest regrets of my professional life. … It’s a public wound I cannot heal. For that I will forever be deeply sorry.”

After failing to secure a new arena, Schultz sold the team to Clay Bennett, an Oklahoma City businessman. But Bennett moved the team to his home city two years later and renamed it the Thunder.

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Seattle has been without an NBA team ever since -- although the city held on to its women's pro team, the Seattle Storm of the WNBA.

“Almost everyone blamed me, and after some initial denial, I realized they were right to do so,” Schultz wrote. “I had squandered the very public trust that I had bought into.”

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“Almost everyone blamed me [for the SuperSonics' move to Oklahoma City], and after some initial denial, I realized they were right to do so. I had squandered the very public trust that I had bought into.”

— Howard Schultz, former Starbucks CEO and former NBA team owner

In his book, Schultz writes that he should have waited for a local buyer to emerge.

“The sharpest pains hit me not when I’m publicly insulted, but when I’m walking or driving and see someone wearing a SuperSonics T-shirt or cap,” KOFR-TV in Oklahoma City reported. “If it’s a boy with his dad, it’s like a stake through my heart,” Schultz wrote. “Losing the Sonics has been tragic for generations of fans, especially kids who are growing up without the benefit of an NBA team in their city. It’s a public wound I cannot heal. For that I will forever be deeply sorry.”

But some Seattle sports fans see Schultz’s mea culpa as self-serving as he publically considers run for president.

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"It’s hard to think we’d have seen an apology from Schultz had he not been eyeing the presidency,“ a Seattle Times columnist wrote. “It’s hard to think we’d have heard 'I’m sorry' if he wasn’t selling a book.”