Like everyone else in America, the New Orleans Hornets are broke -- and their brokeness is going to revive talk of the NBA returning to Kansas City.
Hornets owner George Shinn is too cash-strapped to run the team and can't find a suitable buyer, ESPN reported on Sunday. So the NBA, for the first time in league history, is on the verge of buying the team and trying to sell it off. And while the league prefers to keep the team in New Orleans, its first priority will be finding the best owner possible -- even if that owner wants to move the team.
Further fueling speculation that the Hornets could move is their paltry attendance, which -- despite a surprising an 11-1 start and one of the league's best point guards -- is on pace to be so low that a new owner could break the team's lease with the city
So: If the league can't find an owner who will keep it in New Orleans, where would the team move? League sources told ESPN that Seattle, Kansas City and Anaheim are the most attractive cities to the league; Las Vegas, once a favorite to land a team, is no longer high on the list, the sources said.
For local NBA fans, it's an exciting turn of events. But it's hard not to be pessimistic.
Yes, we have an NBA-ready arena -- probably the best of the three cities mentioned -- and while we're smaller than Orange County and Seattle, there's way less competition for the public's entertainment dollars here than in those cities.
But we're still left with what we'll call the Maloof Principle. When speculation surfaced that the Sacramento Kings might look to move, the Maloof Brothers, who own the Kings, immediately squashed the idea of moving the franchise back to Kansas City for one simple reason: They didn't want to go to Kansas City. (Hey, they live in Vegas; they're obviously weird.)
Unless I'm missing something -- it's been known to happen, so chime in if I am -- bringing a team here will require someone really rich wanting to run a business in Kansas City rather than Seattle, the OC, or other cities that might make a play, like San Jose and Vegas.
They may have exactly that scenario in Seattle, where Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer recently sold off $1.4 billion in stock and is apparently keen on bringing pro ball back to Seattle. Here? Not so much. So unless there's some local rich guy with a secret NBA fetish -- anybody have a Kauffman in their weekly pick-up game? -- it seems unlikely a new NBA owner would invest in an NBA team with the intend on moving it into the Sprint Center.
Showing 1-5 of 5
Interesting take, @Kev. Some people take it further and say even getting the team wouldn't make the Sprint Center worth the investment. We'll try to answer that question here at some point.
This is another reason why building the Sprint Center in the first place was not a good idea. It was a political firestorm that fueled voters to pass legislation for the SC, and it will be Funkhouser's demise after he fails to bring in a team to fill it. The SC will have the same fate as Tropicana Field in Tampa; built to attract potential tennants, able to fill for concerts and other entertainment for a few years, and left standing dormant for 20 years until someone finally moves in, only to take a decade to become competitive. Kansas City had its chance for basketball and failed. "Further fueling speculation that the Hornets could move is their paltry attendance" sounds very, very familiar. Go to your local library, pull the KC Star's archive from 1985, look at the sports section...ney, front page...and you'll find something like, "Further fueling speculation that the Kings could move is their paltry attendance". Yet another reason I thank God I live in Johnson County.
Wait, ESPN isn't Gospel? Isn't it Matthew, Mark, Luke and Who Ever's Hosting the Six O'Clock Sportscenter?
Nice take, Robert. Chouest, for the uninitiated, is Hornets minority partner Gary Chouest, who until recently was thought to be the team's next owner. And who knows -- maybe he's still in it?
Man, ESPN spits it out, and everyone takes it as gospel. I happen to personally know George Shinn. All this BS about cash-strapped is just that, BS. He's not cash strapped. Are his pockets as deep as Paul Allen's or Mark Cuban's? No. Most people's aren't. He's not hurting financially. But he does want to sell the team prior to the end of 2010, for tax and health reasons. And the league doesn't want him dumping salary to reduce the future value. It will mess with league integrity. And with the lockout looming, who can blame Chouest for wanting to wait? After the lockout, Chouest will be back in the game.
like
dislike
