It's been such a traumatic, topsy-turvy year for the Sonics organization that the inauguration of incoming administrator Howard Schultz by the NBA's Board of Governors last week almost seemed like an afterthought. The event itself, a vote of ownership approval by the league's big boys on March 30, merited only a couple of sleepy fluff jobs in the Seattle P-I's sports pages. The whole shebang looked like a base-line cakewalk for the vaunted chairman of Starbucks. Apparently, after a season of turmoil both on the floor and in the front office, nobody has the critical energy to hold Schultz to the grill just yet. "The little boy in you can't help but come out," said Schultz about flying from New York to KeyArena in order to catch tip-off against the Los Angeles Clippers. So very Seattle--huggy-bear and glad-handed and well-wished, and no one even thinks of bitching until just after the shit hits the fan.Yet a few perspicacious eyes may have blinked at some of the info buried deep in the P-I's boosterish handjob about the approval of Schultz's ownership, way back on page six of last Friday's sports section. Most worrisome is this outfit called the Basketball Club of Seattle, a conglomerate of which Schultz merely owns the majority chunk. Euphemisms aside, the "club" is a sizable investment group brought together by Schultz and composed of high-powered local executives and elites, seven of whom will sit on a board of directors with voting power regarding major Sonics decisions. The list of investors makes up a who's who of Seattle's postmodern economy: Peter Nordstrom of Nordstrom department stores, and the CEOs of Western Wireless, VoiceStream Wireless, and InfoSpace, along with various Starbucks employees. It's estimated that there are now between 55 and 75 names with interest in the Sonics--an unprecedented stew of big money holding sway over an NBA team. Club, indeed.

While not all of these investors will have an official voice regarding team operations, you can bet that the clamor of conflicting demands about all things Sonic will be constant. Even Wally Walker, promoted to Sonics CEO, admitted that a sense of entitlement might lead this gaggle of bigwigs to shove the franchise in opportunistic directions. "I don't doubt there'll be some of that," says Walker, "but I'll be gracious." In other words: If you think the consumerist fanfare and sponsorship overkill that currently assaults spectators at KeyArena is a bit outrageous, just wait till next year, when every man-jack in the Basketball Club of Seattle starts chomping a piece of the franchise pie--players schlepping across a hardwood floor plastered with ads, each with a cell phone strapped to his hip, wearing color-coordinated Nordstrom sportswear, and cheered on by brand-new mascot "Double-Tall," a sipping straw poking jauntily out of his plastic cap/head. And you'll be able to track all the action on the fancy laptop screwed to your courtside seat.

Red Auerbach is rolling over in his grave.

One can only hope that the Basketball Club's corporate reorganization doesn't extend too recklessly to the internal mechanics of the team itself. Obviously, some key changes are needed, yet I believe one of the reasons the Sonics have been playing so superbly of late is that they've finally come to understand one another and shore themselves up as a team. There have been too many roster upheavals in the last five years, too much alienation and disorder. An overly meddlesome group of soft-soap businessmen pimping the bottom line could bring about the worst kind of mediocrity on the floor.

rick@thestranger.com