Every person plugged into the Sacramento Kings battle sighed when David Stern indicated on Wednesday that the issue could remain undecided beyond the April 18-19 Board of Governors meetings. But think back to January. Think back to when Chris Hansen announced he had a deal to take the Kings to Seattle. All we wanted was time back then. All we wanted was the NBA to give Sacramento time to come up with a deal and present its case. That was never a certainty: there was certainly a fear that Hansen would ram through his proposal before Sacramento could get its house in order.

Instead, the NBA gave Sacramento a bit of time, the city hustled, whales stepped swam up in a major way, and now we're looking at a protracted investigation by NBA staff on the two arena plans. This is a good thing in the macro sense. I understand frustration we have more sleepless nights ahead, more days spent biting our fingernails and more jockeying for peace of mind with fans from Seattle. It's all very annoying to be reading about environmental law instead of Travis Outlaw. But we're not dead yet. This is good news.

We don't know how this will shake out. NBA staffers could determine that Sacramento's financing plan is too open to litigation. They could decide that Seattle's arena plan is too susceptible to legal action. Stern could decide that he can't recommend the Board turn down Sacramento's effort. He could decide he can't convince the Board to deny the wish of an owner. This thing could go a hundred different ways. We don't know.

But it's April, and we're still alive. That's something, darnit. Something to celebrate.