federal officials assured us that Washington state is not under any credible threat.

For generations, people have come to U.S. shores to seek opportunity. It's what my grandfather did a century ago, when he came to Seattle, and worked as a houseboy just one mile from the Washington State governor's mansion that I was privileged to inhabit for eight years.

Washington is one of the better teams in the state and has a really nice ball club. At crucial times in the game, we missed shots. We got to be able to finish games, but we haven't been able to this year.

Too often in Washington special interests urge us to fight one another just because we belong to different parties. It is time for this to stop and for Washington to focus on what needs to be done.

They take all of our passports and disappear ... Finally they came back. They had called Washington and cleared us all again and we were able to get on the plane.

Larry Hughes's agent informed us that Larry is not returning to Washington, ... He rejected our final offer which we regarded as very fair and very meaningful. We have a lot of outstanding players on this team including All-Stars Gilbert Arenas and Antawn Jamison, and we will add players that will continue to make us a very competitive ball club. Our goals remain the same which is to be a perennial playoff contender.