SEATTLE, Washington -- American senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell on Wednesday made an eleventh-hour effort at keeping the Seattle SuperSonics from moving with a letter to the NBA head office.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported Wednesday that in a letter to commissioner David Stern, the senators, from the state of Washington, said a move away from Seattle would be "a breach of trust and set a damaging precedent for the NBA."

They ended the letter with a plea to Stern to give the franchise a chance to stay in its current home and not move to Oklahoma City, where new SuperSonics chairman Clay Bennett has proposed to relocate the club.

On Tuesday, Governor Chris Gregor wrote a similar letter to Stern, asking him to postpone a vote by the NBA owners on the relocation.

The letter came just one day after former Sonics owner Howard Schultz threatened to file a lawsuit to keep the team from moving, according to the Seattle Times on Tuesday.

Schultz, who sold the franchise to Oklahoma City investors nearly two years ago, has hired a lawyer and wants Bennett to rescind the sale made in July 2006.

Bennett had purchased the franchise for $350 million with a stipulation that he would try to keep the teams in Seattle, according to Schultz.

With a trial set for June 16 and Seattle seeking to hold the owners to the remaining two years of the team's KeyArena lease, lawyers for the city obtained e-mails that show Bennett and the other owners may not have been honest about their plans to keep the Sonics in Seattle.

NBA owners are expected to vote on the proposed Sonics move Friday in New York City.

Late last week, the league's seven-member relocation committee unanimously gave its approval to the move.