Sacramento to reveal plans for new Kings arena

City officials in Sacramento are expected Thursday to release details of a financing plan to build a new arena in that city designed at keeping the NBA Kings from relocating to Seattle.

And that unveiling will set off what figures to be a mad dash of activity in the four weeks leading to the April 18-19 meeting of the NBA’s Board of Governors in New York. That’s when the NBA is scheduled to vote whether to approve the sale of the Kings to a group that would move them to Seattle.

Some close to the process, though, say the decision could be all but made on April 3 when representatives of both cities meet before a smaller group of NBA owners, also in New York.

“It makes sense to me that by the end of that meeting on the third they will have a decision,” barring some complication, said Michael McCann, a legal analyst for NBA-TV.

The importance of the April 3 meeting is no secret in Sacramento. Officials there are scrambling to get all the pieces in place in their plan designed to dissuade the NBA from approving the sale of the Kings from the current owners, the Maloof family, to a Seattle group led by Chris Hansen.

The arena plan, though, needs approval by the Sacramento City Council.