The National Basketball Association enters a new era this week as the opening games are being played.

International superstar Kobe Bryant is moving onto the next piece of his life; LeBron James has fulfilled his dream of bringing the city of Cleveland; Dwayne Wade has gone home to Chicago to live out the twilight of his career; but the blockbuster move everyone is talking about is the Golden State Warriors adding superstar Kevin Durant. Which brings us to where Durant started his NBA career: Seattle, Washington.

For eight years now, the fall and winter months have been absent of professional basketball in the state of Washington. (Any true fan knows that rooting for Portland is just not possible). Luckily, the Seahawks have been a force to reckon with since the addition of Pete Carroll as head coach and Russell Wilson as a dual-threat and resilient quarterback. But it was not always this way.

Thus, we look back on the dreary years as a Seattle sports fan; we try to forget the ineptitude of what we tried to cheer for. The Mariners were again not in the playoffs and coming off a 101 loss season; the Seahawks were trying to find their identity after the Mike Holmgren era, and it wasn’t smooth (those fluorescent green jerseys tell it all); we had the generous gift of a professional soccer team; but the hole left by the Sonics was evident. To make matters worse, Russell Westbrook and Durant were looking like a dynastic duo.

But with Durant’s departure out of Oklahoma City, there seems to be a breath of fresh air. Enter Chris Hansen, a hedge-fund guru out of the Bay-Area who has decided to be the savior for those who simply can’t let go of their beloved Sonics. Two words best described for Hansen are persistent and passionate.

For the better part of five years, Hansen has been trying so hard to land an NBA team to relocate and move them back up to Seattle so he could build a brand-new arena in the South Downtown district of Seattle. But even those with brimmed pockets can’t always get what they want.

But a new development has arrived from Hansen’s group. His group is going to fund the entire arena project instead of relying on a $200 million investment from the taxpayers, and as a cherry-on-top, the group is offering to fill the coffers of a local project to fix the Landers Street Bridge, a project the port of Seattle saw as a viable project that the arena would hinder.

The ball is now in the Seattle City Council’s court. They can now either approve or reject the building of the arena and the vacation of Occidental Street. The council voted 5-4 in opposition of the arena because of concerns for taxpayers and worries that congestion would cripple traffic in the arena district.

Hansen took the issues head-on and has personally offered to fix the concerns of the city council. Now we play the waiting game. In the meantime, we are left with the notion that we have a man possessed to bring basketball back to the Emerald City.

Update: As news broke of the possible game-changing deal, the Mayor of Seattle, Ed Murray, has asked for an open dialogue on renovating the KeyArena, the former home to the Sonics.