“The other owners didn’t know Oklahoma, and they had no experience with Oklahoma City,” Bennett said. “Could we really do what needed to be done in terms of the financial underwriting, being a major league city and all that goes with that?
“When David decided to temporarily relocate the Hornets here, and I think he had a sense we could do an acceptable job of hosting for that period of time, it was the experience that developed the market, that exposed the market, that enabled us to build on that experience and that achievement to push on.”
Bennett met Stern while serving on the San Antonio Spurs board of directors in the 1990s.