The Phoenix Suns on Thursday vowed to look elsewhere in the Valley for a place to play if the city of Phoenix doesn’t agree to upgrade Talking Stick Resort Arena.

Suns CEO and President Jason Rowley told me the team would consider moving out of state only as a last resort and hasn’t gone looking elsewhere.

“We would look for another home here in the Valley but if that didn’t happen, if there wasn’t any option here in the Valley, what’s the other option after that?” he said.

Rowley flatly denied that anyone in the Suns organization has threatened city officials with leaving if the $230 million arena upgrade isn’t approved.

One Phoenix City Council member, meanwhile, backed away from his earlier comment to me that Suns owner Robert Sarver told him he would go to Seattle or Las Vegas if the arena deal isn’t approved.

That council member, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Sarver didn’t actually name the two cities but that he made it clear that he would leave if the City Council doesn’t approve the arena deal. This, in a conversation that came as the votes were becoming shaky.

“He said, ‘If you guys are not going to vote for this, let me go, just let me go somewhere else,” the council member told me Thursday. “He said, ‘I want out. If you’re not going to build my stadium then I want out.’ He did not specifically say Seattle or Las Vegas but that was my understanding.”

The city official said the context of the conversation, and other conversations he has had, made it clear to him that Sarver was talking about leaving the state.

Several other city officials have told me that Sarver, in negotiating the arena deal, has talked about “other options out there.”

Of course, “other options” could be within the Valley.

“What he (Sarver) would say,” Rowley explained, “is 'Let me out of it (the contract) so I can find another place here in the Valley.' He’s an Arizona guy. He doesn’t want to move the team.”

Rowley said the team has made no overtures to other cities because it is focused on downtown Phoenix.

Sarver, meanwhile, sent a message to Suns fans on Thursday, saying he has no plans to leave.

“The Phoenix Suns are not leaving Phoenix,” Sarver said, in a video released on Twitter. “I am 100 percent committed and have been for last for four years to find a solution to keep them in downtown Phoenix where they belong.”

The problem, of course, is that the City Council is not even 50 percent committed to the deal that calls for the public to kick in $150 million to renovate Talking Stick Resort Arena.

And without major changes, I don’t see that changing in a month.

Or in three months, when the city likely will elect a mayor who recently said "spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a huge renovation for the Phoenix Suns is not a priority for me.”

As for now, it takes four votes to kill the deal and already Council members Vania Guevara, Sal DiCiccio and Jim Waring are firmly “no’s.”

Interim Mayor Thelda Williams is promoting the deal and Councilwomen Debra Star and Laura Pastor are believed to support it.

That leaves Councilman Michael Nowakowski – who is facing the threat of recall -- and Councilwoman Felicita Mendoza – an appointee who will be replaced in the city's March election -- as the swing votes.

A no from either one would kill the deal.

If a deal ultimately can't be done, Rowley says the Suns would look elsewhere.

In the Valley, that is.

Oh, and sorry Glendale. Rowley told me that’s not going to happen.

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com.

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