Stern made the announcement during a conversation with reporters about the possible relocation of the Sacramento Kings.

Bennett purchased the Seattle Supersonics in 2006 and while he publicly expressed a desire to keep the team in Seattle, e-mails later surfaced that suggested Bennett's plan all along was to move the team to Oklahoma City. The Sonics were moved there in 2008.

"I think it's absolutely shocking that David Stern made this move," said Jason Reid, a diehard Sonics fan and director of the film Sonicsgate . "To have the guy who stole the Sonics from Seattle (and) moved them to Oklahoma City chairing the relocation committee -- I feel really sorry for Sacramento fans, because obviously he made a move to move our team to Oklahoma City and he's going to approve a move for the Kings to move to Anaheim, or any team to move anywhere for that matter."

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The Sacramento Kings are in the process of likely relocating to Anaheim.

Stern's announcement was a popular topic of conversation among Seattleites on Friday. "Clay Bennett" and "David Stern" were among the most mentioned phrases on Seattle-area Twitter accounts. Seattle Times reporter Danny O'Neil posted a story about the news that mostly contained witty jokes about the obvious contradiction.

A lot of what KIRO 7 Reporter Deborah Horne heard from Sonics fans couldn't be put on TV (or kirotv.com).

"Clay being on that relocation committee, I guess he knows more than anybody about how to rip a team out of a city," said Steve Pyeatt, who formed the group "Save Our Sonics" to try to keep the team in Seattle.

Pyeatt also said, however, that he thought there may be a silver lining in Bennett being appointed to his new post.

"What a better way for him to fix a lot of that PR nightmare by proving he was a man of his word when he said he really wanted to see basketball here in Seattle," Pyeatt said.