Sacramento Kings owner George Maloof’s visit to Anaheim City creates a buzz: NBA Update
On the weekend night, Sacramento Kings owner George Maloof Junior attended a dinner to help raise the funds for The Eli Home for Abused Children in the City of Anaheim. With Maloof’s family plan of shifting their franchise to Anaheim
still in the pipeline, the presence of one of the brothers in the city has certainly ruffled some feathers.
The Maloofs have been planning to shift the Kings to Anaheim as they believe that they have a better arena and more options to increase their earnings there. However, their decision faced a lot of resistance from the people of
Sacramento. The Mayor of the city, Kevin Johnson held a number of meetings with them and assured them that the city will raise funds in order to provide them a new and better arena, but things did not work out between the two sides.
The move also reportedly received opposition from some of the franchises. Los Angeles Clippers and Los Angeles Lakers are already operating in the California state and the relocation of another franchise is bound to cut the earnings
of the former. This raised another obstacle in the relocation, as the Maloof’s require a sanction from the majority NBA owners to relocate the Kings.
This all and the assurance by the Sacramento city officials to NBA, that a new arena will be built to facilitate the Kings forced Maloofs to put their plan of relocation on hold until March.
However, when George was found shaking hands with Anaheim mayor Tom Tait and city council members publically on Saturday night, it opened the whole issue again. George however immediately rubbished the impression by saying that
he came to know about the charity when he was in Anaheim for the relocation process.
Maloof said, "I just felt a special connection to this charity; that was the reason. We also felt (that) the city was so welcoming to us, we wanted to give back. Wherever we are, we give back. In Sacramento, we've given back millions
of dollars to the community charities. We're used to doing that. That's why I'm here."
He also added that he’s "very familiar with Anaheim and it has a special place in my heart," as the Sheraton-Anaheim on Ball Road was once owned by his family and this was the very place where he received his initial training for
the business.
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