imgreat95
05-20-2002, 07:37 PM
Hush, hush, sweet Charlotte, don't cry now that the Hornets, after 14 years, are no longer your NBA home team.
Owners voted 28-1 Friday to allow owners George Shinn and Ray Wooldridge to move their team to New Orleans.
Actually, I wouldn't blame Charlotte for crying. The town has a right to feel hurt. In fact, I feel sorry for the city and it may count on me for a tear or two because I believe it got a raw deal. I just hope the next expansion team or the next team allowed to relocate will find its way back to Charlotte, one of the best basketball hotbeds anywhere.
"I continue to state that in the long run, the NBA's made a bad decision,'' Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory said. "But in the long term, Charlotte's made a good economic decision because we weren't going to get in a bidding war.''
A bidding war was unnecessary because Charlotte had already proved itself. It is still an NBA city as far as I'm concerned. I judge it more by the way it averaged 23,726 fans for regular-season games and 23,066 for playoff games during its first 10 years. Those figures better defined its NBA worthiness and ability to support a franchise, not the last four seasons, when fans were discouraged from supporting a scandal-plagued ownership that grossly mismanaged the team.
"I wanted the Hornets to stay in Charlotte,'' McCrory said. "But the fact of the matter is we had an ownership team that made fans not want to come to ballgames. They didn't think about how much the Hornets were doing for Charlotte and giving to Charlotte.''
Meantime, Hornets players continue to play winning ball.
"It's like a kid when his parents go through a divorce,'' coach Paul Silas said. "It affects him, but really he has nothing to do with it.
"We've done what we're supposed to do. We've won games.''
Yes, but the sooner the Hornets are eliminated from the playoffs, the better. I don't like what's happening to the good people of Charlotte. I commend the city for standing up to Shinn and Wooldridge, showing them with league-low attendance and half-filled arenas that if management is not responsible and dedicated to keeping its best players and to being on its best behavior, Charlotte fans will not patronize its business.
I definitely don't appreciate the negative message the NBA is giving its fans. It is suggesting that accountability is a one-way street. Fans are obligated to support the team regardless of how badly it is managed and regardless of the unsavory lifestyles of players, front office executives and owners. There ought to be some standards set for NBA management for the sake of quality control.
For 18 years, the NBA enjoyed unprecedented prosperity and stability--with no teams changing cities. Now, we have had two teams relocating in as many seasons. So what's to stop the Golden State Warriors or New Jersey Nets from relocating if another city offers them an impressive new arena and an enticing package of goodies?
Three years ago, the owners used a lockout--not a player strike as some are incorrectly saying--to serve notice that no player or players will dictate labor policy. Owners were willing to lose a lot of money to prove their point. They won the battle, and a labor contract with salary caps and wage scales that guarantee cost certainty.
Now, for the last two years, by allowing Michael Heisley to relocate his Grizzlies from Vancouver to Memphis after owning them for just one year and now allowing the Hornets to move, the NBA serves notice on markets that if they don't satisfy the arena demands of management, they will allow teams to skip town.
I believe that in the long run, the NBA will lose the war. If it continues such moves, it will turn off more markets and fans.
Owners voted 28-1 Friday to allow owners George Shinn and Ray Wooldridge to move their team to New Orleans.
Actually, I wouldn't blame Charlotte for crying. The town has a right to feel hurt. In fact, I feel sorry for the city and it may count on me for a tear or two because I believe it got a raw deal. I just hope the next expansion team or the next team allowed to relocate will find its way back to Charlotte, one of the best basketball hotbeds anywhere.
"I continue to state that in the long run, the NBA's made a bad decision,'' Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory said. "But in the long term, Charlotte's made a good economic decision because we weren't going to get in a bidding war.''
A bidding war was unnecessary because Charlotte had already proved itself. It is still an NBA city as far as I'm concerned. I judge it more by the way it averaged 23,726 fans for regular-season games and 23,066 for playoff games during its first 10 years. Those figures better defined its NBA worthiness and ability to support a franchise, not the last four seasons, when fans were discouraged from supporting a scandal-plagued ownership that grossly mismanaged the team.
"I wanted the Hornets to stay in Charlotte,'' McCrory said. "But the fact of the matter is we had an ownership team that made fans not want to come to ballgames. They didn't think about how much the Hornets were doing for Charlotte and giving to Charlotte.''
Meantime, Hornets players continue to play winning ball.
"It's like a kid when his parents go through a divorce,'' coach Paul Silas said. "It affects him, but really he has nothing to do with it.
"We've done what we're supposed to do. We've won games.''
Yes, but the sooner the Hornets are eliminated from the playoffs, the better. I don't like what's happening to the good people of Charlotte. I commend the city for standing up to Shinn and Wooldridge, showing them with league-low attendance and half-filled arenas that if management is not responsible and dedicated to keeping its best players and to being on its best behavior, Charlotte fans will not patronize its business.
I definitely don't appreciate the negative message the NBA is giving its fans. It is suggesting that accountability is a one-way street. Fans are obligated to support the team regardless of how badly it is managed and regardless of the unsavory lifestyles of players, front office executives and owners. There ought to be some standards set for NBA management for the sake of quality control.
For 18 years, the NBA enjoyed unprecedented prosperity and stability--with no teams changing cities. Now, we have had two teams relocating in as many seasons. So what's to stop the Golden State Warriors or New Jersey Nets from relocating if another city offers them an impressive new arena and an enticing package of goodies?
Three years ago, the owners used a lockout--not a player strike as some are incorrectly saying--to serve notice that no player or players will dictate labor policy. Owners were willing to lose a lot of money to prove their point. They won the battle, and a labor contract with salary caps and wage scales that guarantee cost certainty.
Now, for the last two years, by allowing Michael Heisley to relocate his Grizzlies from Vancouver to Memphis after owning them for just one year and now allowing the Hornets to move, the NBA serves notice on markets that if they don't satisfy the arena demands of management, they will allow teams to skip town.
I believe that in the long run, the NBA will lose the war. If it continues such moves, it will turn off more markets and fans.