That arrangement is more intuitive and less a "silly technicality" than having team records follow a franchise as it moves, unless we're fetishizing private property to such a point that a chain of title becomes the sole defining... oh wait, now I get it.
The Browns and Ravens one maybe is because it was constructed as a clean break, though the NFL doesn't seem interested in doing it in any other situation like the Rams and specifically tried to use it against the Raiders and Chargers IIRC, but neither of the NBA ones are clean breaks. One's a backdated partial ownership change of the history/records tied to the land. And the other is a duplication of the history/records that will be in the hands of two potential franchises with one set that's tied to the land.
Before 2008, and especially before 2014, the NBA always went by the principle that the history/records moved with the franchise. That's how the Rochester Royals, Cincinnati Royals, Kansas City-Omaha Kings, Kansas City Kings and Sacramento Kings are all one franchise with one history and set of records. The Chicago Zeyphyrs, Baltimore Bullets, Capitol Bullets, Washington Bullets and Washington Wizards are one team. The Syracuse Nats and Philadelphia 76ers are one team. So are the Philadelphia Warriors and Golden State Warriors. And so on.
The Hornets history went with them to New Orleans,
until new ownership renamed the team to the Pelicans, then a year later the league swapped the Bobcats expansion status to the New Orleans Hornets and backdated it two years, and gave the Charlotte Hornets history up until they moved to the Charlotte Bobcats team which was declared to have been on hiatus for two years. One franchise (the Hornets/Pelicans) held sole title until the league swapped part of the history/records with a franchise that didn't actually exist for another two years. Ten years after both franchises had been operating under the prior status for the whole ten years.
If a Sonics expansion team started next season, there'd be two NBA franchises with the same history and records prior to 2008 because the Thunder/Seattle agreement doesn't allow them to be split. The Sonics just took a nap for 10+ years, while the Thunder didn't play any games for their first 40 years. Both the Thunder franchise and the "Seattle" rights holders (the City or somebody, maybe whoever owns KeyArena) have ownership to the history/records. The franchise moved to Oklahoma City and took all the players, history and records, while also leaving behind the history and records for a future team to resume part ownership of.
I actually agree with your argument more than you may suspect, but in the NBA's case it's certainly become far more a silly set of technicalities more than any kind of principle in either direction. The history/records aren't tied to either the land or the franchise. (Nor are they at this point seemingly even tied to a specific franchise at a specific location during a specific period in time. Or even a single set of these.)
Personally, I would begin my NBA reign of terror by assigning the Lakers' Minnesota history to the Timberwolves, and then assigning the Lakers entire LA history to the Clippers franchise, the Celtics history post-1978 to the Lakers franchise (a 1978 expansion team) and the Clippers history to the Celtics franchise. And the Buffalo Braves were simply a team that existed from 1970-1978 before going defunct.