I don't wish ill on the Maloof brothers, owners of the Sacramento Kings.

I just wish they would sell the team, leave the Kings in Sacramento and go annoy people in some other city.

Those guys don't know much, but they do know this: There are only 30 NBA teams in the world and if they hold onto the one they've ruined, a big payday could await.

As long as they pay their bills and do the bare minimum – the Maloof way of "running" the Kings through six straight losing seasons – they can sit courtside in the arena they've spent 10 years allowing to erode.

Some Bay Area media friends repeatedly ask me: Why don't the Maloofs just sell the Kings?

My answer: What else would they do with themselves?

They lost the family liquor business. They lost the Palms Casino in Las Vegas. If you follow them on Twitter, you see them hawking super-cool iPhone cases and occasionally promoting little skateboarding events. None of the brothers is married or has children. The Kings are it for them.

So the California capital is stuck with these guys. The happy ending that Sacramento wanted for the Kings – in a downtown arena at the old railyard – is the polar opposite from the happy ending that the Maloofs want.

Their strategy has been clear for years: Wait for an obscene deal to fall into their laps where someone else pays for everything while they control all the profits.

The arena plan Mayor Kevin Johnson had devised, one the NBA fully approved, came with onerous conditions – such as the Maloofs putting money into the building and pledging collateral on their loans.

Oh boy! Those were fighting words for the Maloof boys!

That's not to take anything from Johnson. He got AEG, the Los Angeles-based arena developer, to buy in. He had the NBA sold.

But the idea didn't work without the Kings, and no reasonable idea ever will as long as the Maloofs own the team.

So why have I been hitting the Maloofs so hard for mismanaging the Kings as they see fit?

Because they are so unbelievably disingenuous. Because they don't have the guts to simply say that Sacramento doesn't work for them.

Instead, they carry on the charade of looking for a way to blame Sacramento as a reason for relocating the team.

Don't listen to their words. Study their actions.

When they blew up Johnson's deal in April, they hired an economist who distorted the city's financial projections while saying a new arena would never work in Sacramento.

The Maloofs also cited strong arena "opposition" as a reason for killing the deal. Yeah, that opposition was so strong the local yahoos behind it couldn't even collect enough signatures to get an arena measure on the November ballot.

So where does Sacramento go from here? Toward willing partners in sports and non-sports ventures.

This week, you're going to hear some ideas bubble to the surface and they should – Sacramento isn't going to get anywhere with the Maloofs.

Because of them, Power Balance Pavilion sits empty as a concert venue.

Because of them, AEG can't use its clout in Sacramento as one of the world's largest concert promoters because the Maloofs killed the downtown deal.

But you can bank on this: The Maloofs and their employees will soon offer up some other phony stunt meant to distract and further their goals of finding a big payday while retaining control of the team.

Nobody knows if they will ever get it, and Sacramento can't control that. All Sacramento can do is never forget who they are dealing with and move in another direction with partners who know how to succeed and want to be in Sacramento.

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