At a news conference in Minneapolis yesterday, NBA commissioner David Stern announced that the Sacramento franchise has applied to move to Seattle and play this fall in KeyArena.

This is step two of a process that will end in 70 days — on April 18 (Mark your calendars!) when NBA owners will vote on the proposed sale and move. Stern said that he has combined the vote on the sale and move, even though the sale requires a 3/4-majority, and the move only a 1/2-majority. Which makes sense — with the new owners wanting to move the team to Seattle, purchasing authority without moving authority would make no sense, and vice versa.

Stern clarified the nature of the pitch Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson will make before the Board: He will be able to suggest an “alternate plan,” and the Board will decide the issue on the merits of the two plans. If you were wondering why Chris Hansen wanted city and county backing of his proposed arena before going after a team, this is why — so he can demonstrate the strong probability that he will indeed be able to build a new arena in Seattle, just as Sacramento promises the same.

The drawback to Johnson’s plan is that the Hansen/Ballmer group already has a purchase agreement in hand. As Stern says, Johnson’s as-yet-unnamed investor group would have to “buy the team in Sacramento.” How they’ll do that remains unclear. Stern says the owners face “difficult decisions.” As previously discussed, the sale and move is considered very likely to be approved.

Here is the full transcript of David Stern’s comments on the move — or you can watch them yourself on this video from KING 5. For the latest news on the Sonics move and the proposed new arena, I strongly recommend following KING 5’s Chris Daniels on Twitter @Daniels5.

The latest with the Seattle/Sacramento situation is that have had submitted a signed agreement for the team to be sold to a very strong group from Seattle. We have had an application to have the team moved from Sacramento to Seattle. I have convened the appropriate committees and told them that as we get more information and more data, we will be sending the information to them because they’ll have to make a recommendation to the Board (of Governors), which will likely decide the issue both as to the sale and move in April at our board meeting. And the mayor of Sacramento has advised that he will be back to us soon with a proposal from a group to buy the team in Sacramento and build a building in Sacramento with a substantial subsidy from the City of Sacramento. And so we’re abiding events. The Seattle application is to play in KeyArena, which, we’d be there for two years, possibly three. There is no final approval with respect to a new building in Seattle, but events are well underway, moving in that direction. So they don’t currently have a building, but they propose to improve Key as a temporary facility while one is being built. And my guess is — it’s likely — that the mayor of Sacramento will appear before the Board with an alternate plan. And that’s why we have a Board of Governors: To make difficult decisions like this one.

(Here Stern responds to a questioner who is inaudible.)

I don’t think it’s a bidding war. There’s a series of issues that are defined by our constitution that have to be considered. And one of the things that our board is mandated to consider is the support for the team in the prior city. So there are real issues for the board to consider — about the buildings, about the likelihood that they’ll be built, about the support in both cities…I think I might have composed the standards, but sitting here today I can’t remember what they are. But there are a lot of them. And actually, to confuse it just a little bit, the application to transfer ownership requires a 3/4-vote, the application to move requires a majority vote. And so I did the sensible thing, I combined the committees and I said “You guys figure it out.” We’ll see how that works.

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