SEATTLE (AP) - A point man for Seattle's efforts to keep the SuperSonics in town isn't exactly worrying through his wait for a federal judge's decision next week on whether the team will stay or move immediately to Oklahoma City.

"Some will go back to work. And some will party. I'll do a little of both," Seattle deputy mayor Tim Ceis joked immediately after the trial over the remaining two years on the Sonics' lease at KeyArena ended.

Seattle fans hope there's still reason to party.

First came a testy six-day trial that wound up Thursday. Seattle claims the Sonics have to fulfill a "specific performance" clause and play out the lease at the arena. The Sonics claim the city should get nothing but exhaust fumes from back of moving vans because of shameful tactics to drain team owner Clay Bennett financially. Negative vibes outnumbered courtroom occupants.

The Sonics asserted Bennett should be able to write a check to satisfy the final two years of the lease because this is a garden-variety dispute between tenant and landlord and specific performance should not apply.

Now both sides are joining the NBA and fans of the city's oldest professional sports team in an uncomfortable wait for U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman's ruling, which she will post on the court's Web site Wednesday at 4 p.m. local time.

"You have given me a lot to consider," Pechman told both sides after closing arguments ended Thursday afternoon. "Stay tuned."

Yet Pechman's ruling won't be the final determination on where the Sonics play next season. Ceis brushes off the prospect for now, but either side could appeal the decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. There also could be a separate trial in Seattle to decide exact monetary compensation, if Pechman decides any is warranted.

To hear Paul Lawrence talk, he already knows what's going to happen. Then again, he's biased.

"I'm sorry. I'm a litigator. I always expect to win," Seattle's lawyer said, laughing.

All these chuckles from the city's side are grounded in Seattle's belief that the lease's language of specific performance - that the team must occupy KeyArena through the 2009-2010 season - is the card that trumps all else in this complicated case.

Seattle mayor Greg Nickels has already rejected Bennett's settlement offer of $26.5 million.

"We intend to have the Sonics be a part of our community for a long, long time," Nickels said in April and reiterated last week while on the witness stand.

The Sonics intend to be a part of Nickels' community for only five more days.

They think they won the trial because they maintain there is no way former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton could have been involved in a plan to inflict financial harm on Bennett and force him to sell the team to local investors without telling Seattle's top leaders. City officials hired Gorton, now an attorney in the same firm as Lawrence, to lead their effort to keep the Sonics.

Evidence presented last week showed a document titled "The Sonics Challenge, Why a Poisoned Well Affords a Unique Opportunity," was carried by Gorton to a meeting at the home of former Sonics president Wally Walker last September. Also present were former Safeco Corp. CEO Mike McGavick and Microsoft Corp. chief executive Steve Ballmer.

At the time of the meeting, Gorton had been hired as Seattle's lead counsel, Walker had been retained as a consultant, and Ballmer was considered a potential buyer for the team.

Lawrence says, like all lawyers hope, that he didn't learn anything new during the trial because of adequate preparation.

But Sonics attorney Brad Keller made it sound like a godsend fell through the roof of the courthouse and landed in the team's lap with the revelation of computer-generated slides Gorton was discussing.

"You go from just a lawful exercise (of seeking fulfillment of the lease) into the realm of 'unclean hands,"' Keller said, referring to the legal principal which courts can use to void contracts.

The evidence was the Sonics' retaliation after months of public ridicule over damning e-mails between Bennett and his partners that showed they were eager to move the team to Oklahoma soon after they bought it in 2006.

"Enough is enough. The marriage is broken. Stop the bleeding," Keller said to end his closing arguments, which sounded more eloquent and impassioned than Lawrence's.

Bennett sat next to the defense table for each of the six days of the trial - not including the two days and part of a third he was testifying that he believed he could get a luxurious new arena built in the Seattle suburbs that would have benefited everyone.

A spokesman for Bennett said the Oklahoma business tycoon would not be commenting until after the judge's decision.