In the years following the Seattle Speed’s controversial relocation to Oklahoma City, numerous efforts had been put forth by the community to bring professional basketball back to the city. None were greater than an exhausting public campaign that eventually convinced the Regional Basketball Association to award Seattle with a blank slate during its league expansion in 2012.
Headquartered in Burdette Gardens, a repurposed stadium tucked away in a remote subdivision of the city’s metropolitan area, Andre Arline assumed his role as the team’s primary owner and quickly hired in his top choice for general manager, a controversial move that saw an unknown athletic director from a local community college at the helm of a professional sports franchise. Arline was also heavily criticized for rejecting a clause in the agreement made during the relocation of the team’s original incarnation, a stipulation that gave any future franchise in Seattle the option of sharing its original team history with Oklahoma City. Arline had agreed to adapt the original team’s pictography and color scheme but outright refused to share any of its history with Oklahoma City. The official history of professional basketball in Seattle was to begin completely anew.
In conjunction with the newly founded Las Vegas Aces, the Seattle Speed participated in an expansion draft that allowed the team to flesh out a very basic and untalented roster, the ashes from which Arline hoped a phoenix would soon rise.