Article 01

Official NBA Announcement

9.21.2005

http://www.nba.com/hornets/multimedia/ok_city_050921.html

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Hornets to Play in Oklahoma City

NEW YORK, Sept. 21 -- NBA Commissioner David Stern announced today that Oklahoma City will be home to the New Orleans Hornets for the 2005-06 season, playing host to 35 regular season games. The team will also play six regular season games in Louisiana.

“The devastation of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region has made it necessary for the Hornets to move to a temporary location for the upcoming season,” Stern said. “Fortunately, the Hornets have received a gracious invitation from Mayor Mick Cornett and the business leaders and citizens of Oklahoma City to play their home games in the Ford Center, a first-class facility that we hope to fill with new Hornets fans this season.”

The team will also play six home games at the Pete Maravich Center on the campus of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

“It was important to the Hornets and the NBA that we maintain a presence in Louisiana in anticipation of a return to New Orleans next season,” Stern said. "Few American cities have experienced the level of tragedy as Oklahoma City,” Mayor Cornett said. “I think for that reason our community has a heightened sensitivity for those impacted by Hurricane Katrina. We accept that we are the best solution to solve one of the many problems and pledge our best efforts to support the Hornets."

“Like so many businesses and families uprooted by Hurricane Katrina, the Hornets were forced to leave New Orleans while the city recovers from this tragedy,” Hornets owner George Shinn said. “Fortunately, Oklahoma City is an ideal home for this season and we greatly appreciate the good will shown by Mayor Cornett and the local business community. We will play a majority of our games in Oklahoma City this season with great pride and gratitude, but remain devoted to our home and have set our sights on returning to a rebuilt and vibrant New Orleans for the 2006-07 season.”

Ford Center, built in 2002, is Oklahoma City’s state-of-the-art sports and entertainment showcase. The center is home to the Central Hockey League’s (CHL) Oklahoma City Blazers and the Arena Football League’s (AF2) Oklahoma City Yard Dawgz, and is designed to host major concerts, sporting events, family shows, ice shows and numerous other world-class entertainment experiences.

The 586,000 square-foot facility seats 19,6745 on four seating levels and features 3,380 club seats, seven party suites and 49 private suites. Ford Center is owned by the City of Oklahoma City, a city that has already welcomed thousands of evacuees from the Gulf region. The facility is the premier project of Oklahoma City’s visionary capital improvement program (MAPS) to finance new and upgraded sports, entertainment, cultural and convention facilities with a one-cent sales tax.

Ford Center is an SMG-managed facility. Headquartered in Philadelphia, SMG is the world’s leading private facility management company. With 168 Facilities, SMG controls over 1.4 million entertainment seats worldwide, and over nine million square feet of exhibit space.

Article 1

ESPN

11.02.2005

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/
story?columnist=stein_marc&id=2211077

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Everything's A-OK for Hornets on Opening Night

By Marc Stein

ESPN.com

Archive

OKLAHOMA CITY -- It's a town where the fans cling to the rather scholastic notion of standing until the home team scores a basket.

It's a place where the coach finds himself calling plays with hand signals sometimes because it's a lot louder inside than his team is used to.

It's a college community trying to shed its small-town stigma, but maybe that's why, for at least one night, the youngest starting backcourt tandem of all time looked so comfortable in the pros.

The NBA in OKC?

It's the address where the Hornets, after an evening that bordered on storybook, can say they've never lost.

Which was a pretty satisfying claim to make, however long it lasts, after everything this franchise has lost.

"In a million years I never thought it was going to be like this," said Louisiana's own P.J. Brown, reveling in the Hornets' 93-67 rout of the Sacramento Kings in the game that officially made them the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets.

"Can't paint a prettier picture."

It was hard to argue after Brown, known to his teammates as "Jurassic," rumbled for his first 20-point, 10-rebound game in more than two years. It sparked the NBA's victims of Hurricane Katrina to the largest Opening Night margin of victory in franchise history, and an understandable round of post-game exaggeration.

If ever a team was entitled to get carried away about a 1-0 start, it's this one.

Brown is the only Hornet with the veteran savvy to quickly tack on the "it's only one game" disclaimer, but even the 36-year-old couldn't conceal a broad smile when a familiar face from New Orleans jokingly asked if this was the start of his MVP drive.

Yup. It was that kind of everything-went-right night in this home-away-from-home opener. The Hornets received an unexpected boost when the Kings' flight in Monday had to return to Sacramento because of mechanical trouble, necessitating the use of another plane and delaying the visitors' arrival until just six hours before Tuesday's tipoff. The Kings indeed looked like a tired team and the Hornets, relying on Brown's steadiness and a relentless push from two two 20-year-olds -- with J.R. Smith and rookie Chris Paul forming the youngest starting backcourt in NBA history -- never stopped running.

The crowd, meanwhile, never stopped roaring once it soaked in a jazzy instrumental rendition of the national anthem by former Oklahoma star and NBA veteran Wayman Tisdale. One Oklahoma City newspaper columnist opined in Tuesday's paper that the NBA's arrival finally made this an actual city and, judging by the noise from a sellout of 19,163 at the Ford Center, it means a lot to the locals to be in the big leagues.

"These crowds are going to be like college basketball crowds," said Desmond Mason, the Hornets' newly acquired swingman from Oklahoma State. "It's unlike anything else you'll see at an NBA game."

Yet even the player who knows this terrain best found it a bit strange to be playing a real NBA game in the land of collegiate football. The proximity to the rest of the Southwest Division and the presence of a relatively new NBA-level arena were lures that, for the league and the Hornets, made Oklahoma City an obvious choice to take the Hornets in, but Mason was openly stunned to be back.

"My wife and I have had that conversation a few times already," said Mason, who married a former Oklahoma State soccer player. "I definitely never figured I'd play basketball here again -- period -- much less an NBA game."

Mason wasn't alone. Hornets owner George Shinn recalled, as he was sorting through the options just weeks ago, how shocked he was when NBA commissioner David Stern suggested Oklahoma City as the Hornets' relocation destination.

"My exact words were, 'Oklahoma where?' " Shinn said. "I said, 'You've got to be kidding me, David. Do they have an arena?' I knew nothing about Oklahoma City."

The locals must have thought the same when Shinn addressed them before the opening tip. In his attempts to give thanks for the warm reception his franchise has received, from Oklahoma City and Oklahoma at large, Shinn temporarily forgot where he was and said, "From the state of ... this great state."

The team's start was a bit shaky, too, with a flurry of empty possessions and nearly three scoreless minutes before Brown finally allowed the fans to sit with a putback. Yet you could forgive the stumbles on this night, all the way up to the much-maligned owner. It's a team with an average age under 25, and no team has a manual to turn to for how to handle all this. How many professional sports teams have ever been forced to move by a natural disaster?

As Scott noted, it's impossible for the Hornets -- with an OKC patch on their jerseys and shooting shirts -- to forget that they're not where they're supposed to be. Impossible even when they're throttling a perennial 50-win team to earn a Opening Night share of the Southwest lead with San Antonio.

"I don't think that's going to be done until we know if we're going to be here another year, or if we're going to be here for good," Scott conceded. "I don't think you can let it go until you know exactly what's going on. You're still wondering what the league's going to do. You're still wondering about New Orleans, how quickly the city can rebuild. There's still a lot of questions that probably all of us have."

Said Mason, refusing to let his popularity in the area encroach on his newcomer status: "I've tried not to ask anybody about [New Orleans]. The guys seem to be happy right now. They're moving on. I'm not going to reopen that wound by asking about it."

Those wounds, of course, aren't going away soon no matter what the Hornets try, with so much of their future unclear. Don't forget that there were plenty of questions about this franchise's viability in New Orleans, as well as its management and roster choices, even before Katrina struck.

You can understand, then, why they couldn't resist this unexpected opportunity to trumpet their new home as First Place, USA.

They won't start 2-29 again, like last season, but the Hornets are realistic enough to know that baby-faced rebuilding teams can't count on a lot of nights like these.

"Everybody is just happy to have us here," Scott said of the OKC welcome. Then, only half-joking, Scott added: "After about three or four months, they might be saying something different."

Said Brown: "I never thought I'd have to leave [Louisiana], especially in these type of circumstances. I'm rooted down there, that's home. But this is starting to feel like home. I definitely want this team to go back to New Orleans, but the region has a long way to go before they even talk about us or the Saints coming back.

"It's a very unique situation, but I'm going to represent two cities."

Article 2

ESPN Page 2 Daily Quickie

11.2.2005

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Two Words For You:

'HOMA. COURT.

OKC is OK with the NBA!

And the best fans in the NBA are ...

From Oklahoma City?!

Any fans that can inspire the lousy Hornets to beat a West playoff contender like the Kings by nearly 30 have to be at the top of the argument.

The amazing thing is they have no track record as an NBA fan base; they host the Hornets only because of the disaster in New Orleans.

The Hornets may not want to leave. The sellout crowd was frenzied. The team was inspired.

And, given their brutal support back in New Orleans, who would blame them or the team and the NBA from wanting to make this permanent?

(This isn't the same as the Saints' relocation debacle: New Orleans fans still love their football team, even if Baton Rouge fans boo. The Hornets have been a bad fit since Day One.)

Sure, it's been only one game, but instantly, OKC has morphed the team into the Celtics of '86.

The Hornets might improve last year's overall win total (1 by 50 percent simply off their home games.

I'm so impressed with the fans in OKC that as of today, I'm willing to rank them the best fans in the NBA. I've even got a slogan for them:

"'Homa-Court Advantage."

Article 3

Philadelphia Inquirer

11.6.2005

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/
sports/13091102.htm

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On the NBA | Oklahoma City should remain Hornets' nest

By David Aldridge

Inquirer Staff Writer

Russ Granik, the NBA's deputy commissioner, recalled the phone call from Oklahoma City mayor Mick Cornett in the days immediately following Hurricane Katrina's making landfall in New Orleans in September.

"We've had tragedy here," Granik recalled Cornett as saying. "We see what's happening in New Orleans. We can help."

And so it came to pass that the Hornets temporarily moved lock, stock and barrel to Oklahoma City, the nation's 45th-largest television market - and a place that knows from tragedy, having gone through the domestic terrorist attack of April 19, 1995, that killed 168 people.

And you know what?

The Hornets should stay there - permanently.

A sports team provides a diversion from reality. In the specific case of New Orleans, it represents a connection to what used to be, providing some semblance of normalcy for a city that has been turned upside down. Surely, the citizens of the city need the team now more than ever.

But what happened in New Orleans trumps standard operating procedure. We are not talking about people who need to take a load off after a hard day's work; we are talking about people without work - and without homes, without schools, and without much hope.

The infrastructure of a city - a tax base, corporate dollars, public transportation, basic emergency services, a middle class with discretionary income - is something New Orleans is currently not capable of providing.

In New Orleans, people have better - and more important - things to do with their time and money than go to games.

Oklahoma City's powerful are trying to do everything not to be viewed as taking advantage of New Orleans.

"Certainly, we're respectful of the series of events that led to the relocation," Cornett said Tuesday, when a sellout crowd of 19,163 filled the Ford Center for Hornets' improbable 93-67 rout of the Sacramento Kings in their regular-season opener.

"But from Oklahoma City's standpoint, this is an opportunity to prove that we're a major-league city. We're excited about it. At the end of this year, the sports world's going to have an opinion. Can Oklahoma City support a major-league franchise? We intend for that answer to be a solid yes."

Support has come from all economic sectors of the city, which is stocked with big companies in the oil and energy businesses as well as such companies as Lopez Foods, one of the country's largest Latino-owned firms. The Hornets have already sold more than 10,000 season tickets in Oklahoma City, putting them in the top 10 league-wide.

"We view it as the ultimate real-time test," said local businessman Clay Bennett, one of the movers and shakers who coalesced the local business community around the Hornets.

"The one great thing about this process was that it didn't require a sales pitch," he said.

The truth of the matter is that it was a tough go for the Hornets in New Orleans before the hurricane. Like Sacramento, Calif.; San Antonio, Texas; and Memphis - and Oklahoma City, for that matter - New Orleans might be too small to support two major-league teams. The more established Saints have four decades of history in New Orleans, and the benefits to a city of having an NFL team, frankly, are greater than those of having an NBA team.

(Along those lines, shouldn't the NFL dip into its stadium building fund and publicly commit to helping build a new football stadium in New Orleans that would assure that the Saints remain there? The league has made untold millions hosting Super Bowls in the Big Easy over the years. It's time to repay that debt.)

No city will support a team with an 18-64 record - the one the Hornets had last season - for long, and Oklahoma City is surely no different. The Hornets are going to continue to be bad for a lot longer than this season. But geographically and financially, it makes sense to leave them in Oklahoma City. Equally important, people in the city are uniquely capable of understanding the pain of loss and shared suffering.

"They were sympathetic because of what they went through," Hornets owner George Shinn said last week. "They understood, and they stepped up. They made it clear to the NBA when they called that [they were not] trying to steal the team. They just want [the Hornets] to have a safe place to land."

And any notion that Oklahoma City isn't a major-league town evaporates the moment you reach the corner of 5th and Robinson.

That's where the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building used to be, before Timothy McVeigh's act of madness reduced much of it to rubble.

Now a wondrous memorial to the dead - and the living - has risen from the ashes. And there is a nearby museum that details every second of that horrible day and many of the seconds that have come and gone since. There also is a serene outdoor mall with a reflecting pool that connects one end of the memorial to the other. There are 168 chairs lined up on one side of the memorial, one for each person killed in the explosion.

And on each wall these words are engraved:

We Come Here To Remember Those Who Were Killed, Those Who Survived, And Those Changed Forever. May All Who Leave Here Know The Impact Of Violence. May This Memorial Offer Comfort, Strength, Peace, Hope And Serenity.

Oh, Oklahoma City is big-league, all right.

Article 4

ESPN Insider

11.7.2005

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By Chris Sheridan

The franchise formerly known as the New Orleans Hornets considers Oklahoma City its temporary home, with an emphasis on the word temporary.

But owner George Shinn has an option to stay in Oklahoma City for an extra season, and it's already becoming clear that the team's temporary home might be more viable than New Orleans as an NBA city.

Shinn and NBA commissioner David Stern both spoke at length Thursday to ESPN.com regarding the future of one of the league's most troubled franchises, allowing for an early handicapping of what's ahead for the Hornets.

Stern and Shinn both sounded committed to returning to New Orleans, though Shinn made the point that the ultimate decision on the team's future rests with the league's board of governors.

"It'll depend on the circumstances, and I'll have to wait and see," Shinn told ESPN.com. "But our goal is to come back. I'm working closely with David Stern on this, and if you know David Stern like I know David Stern, you don't mess with the pope."

Shinn said he wants to do his part to rebuild New Orleans, but he has questions about how much the population base might shrink. He has already paid out more than $4 million in refunds to ticket holders who wanted their money back.

Shinn also brought up the story of a friend from the New Orleans banking community who moved to Houston after Hurricane Katrina and subsequently decided to make his relocation permanent.

"People in New Orleans accepted us in a positive way, and I have to return the favor. We're going to do our part to make that city come back," Shinn said.

But speaking of the viability of Oklahoma City as an NBA city, Shinn couldn't contain his enthusiasm.

"This is a unique place and a really well-kept secret. I've been extremely impressed," Shinn said. "It reminds me a lot of the early days in Charlotte."

Shinn said the team has sold the equivalent of more than 10,000 full season-ticket packages in Oklahoma City, ranking the Hornets among the league's top eight teams in that category. Last season, in New Orleans, the Hornets ranked last in the league in attendance.

Another hint that the Hornets are quickly warming to their temporary digs came when coach Byron Scott described the atmosphere at the team's home opener as resembling that of a playoff game in Sacramento, where Arco Arena is considered by many the league's foremost home court.

So what happens if Oklahoma City proves itself to be a better NBA city than New Orleans?

"It's unfair to New Orleans to even raise that issue," Stern said. "They are the New Orleans Hornets, and that's our intention. The issue can't be how well they're supported somewhere else. The issue is whether New Orleans is ready to have them back. If they are, they'll be back."

For now, it appears the Hornets have four options: Staying in Oklahoma City for just one season, staying for two seasons, playing a bifurcated home schedule splitting time between the two cities, or trying to make a permanent move to Oklahoma City.

Based upon Insider's reading of Shinn's and Stern's comments, and the overall situation as of Friday, here are the morning line odds on all four scenarios:

Option 1: Play in Oklahoma City for only one season. Odds: 15-1.

Shinn does not have to decide on his second-year option until July, but Stern would like him to make a decision by January. Given the uncertainty over how quickly reconstruction and rebuilding will take place in New Orleans, the earlier timetable enhances Oklahoma City's chances of keeping the team for a second season.

Option 2: Play in Oklahoma City for two seasons, then return permanently to New Orleans. Odds: Even.

Stern appears to be giving Shinn no wiggle room to stay in Oklahoma City for more than two years, and the commissioner does not want to leave a legacy of having failed twice in the Crescent City. (The Jazz played in New Orleans before moving to Utah in 1979.)

If Oklahoma City's support for the Hornets stays strong through two seasons, Stern might push for the city to be the home of a future expansion team.

Option 3: Play in Oklahoma City for one or two seasons, then play a bifurcated home schedule with half the games in Oklahoma and half in Louisiana. Odds: 40-1.

Shinn said he hadn't even considered the possibility, and Stern quickly dismissed it.

"We did that once. It's an unpleasant memory," Stern said, making a reference to the Kings' splitting their home schedule between Kansas City and Omaha for three seasons during the mid-1970s.

Option 4: Move to Oklahoma City permanently. Odds: 40-1.

Shinn has taken up more of Stern's time than any other owner over the past three years, and Shinn sounded as though he was in no mood to pick another fight. If, however, numerous other owners supported a permanent move of the Hornets for the greater good of the NBA, the issue could be brought to the board of governors for a vote.

"Right now, I can't make a decision," Shinn said. "Days, weeks and months need to go by, and lots of things need to fall into place. Then we'll make the best judgment call we can make."

Article 5

Kansas City Star

11.10.2005

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/
sports/13127100.htm

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Kansas City Penguins?

Leiweke eyes possible Sprint Center tenants

By RANDY COVITZ

The Kansas City Star

Keep your eyes on the Pittsburgh Penguins. Tim Leiweke certainly is.

Although Leiweke, president and chief executive officer of Anschutz Entertainment Group, is being careful not to tamper with an existing NHL or NBA franchise, he’s aware what clubs could be available when the 18,500-seat Sprint Center his company will manage opens downtown in the fall of 2007.

The NHL’s Penguins, who play in antiquated Mellon Arena, remain the most viable candidate, considering their lease expires at the end of the 2006-07 season.

The Penguins are trying to acquire a casino license and use the proceeds for a new building, but if that does not materialize, the club could be sold and moved to another city.

“If Pittsburgh doesn’t have an arena deal done a year from now,” Leiweke said, “they’re gone. The Pittsburgh Penguins can be the Kansas City Penguins, no question about it. That team here … it will sell out every ticket in advance, end of story. That team will be a huge instant home run here.

“And that kid, Sidney Crosby,” he said of the first pick in the 2005 draft, “is unbelievable.”

Leiweke was in Kansas City on Wednesday attending a breakfast reception for business leaders and meeting with those working on the Sprint Center. With 60 of the 72 luxury boxes already sold at a cost of $110,000 to $115,000, he was buoyant about the city’s chances of landing either an NHL or NBA team.

He was impressed with the way Kansas City, with less than six weeks lead time, drew 12,686 at Kemper Arena for an NHL exhibition game between St. Louis and Nashville. The Predators, too, are a possible candidate for relocation.

“The NHL has seen all our blueprints, they’ve seen all our plans, they know exactly what we’re doing here,” said Leiweke, who as president of the Los Angeles Kings is a member of the NHL’s executive board. “I am bullish on this market for hockey.”

Bill Daly, the NHL’s deputy commissioner, acknowledged the Sprint Center but did not offer any encouragement concerning a team in Kansas City, where the league had a team during 1974-76.

“While we’re pleased that the people in Kansas City have a new, state-of-the-art arena to look forward to,” Daly said, “the National Hockey League has no current intention of either relocating an existing franchise or adding an expansion franchise.”

If an NHL team doesn’t materialize by 2007, Leiweke has not given up on landing an NBA club as an anchor tenant.

The Orlando Magic is unhappy with the outdated TD Waterhouse Centre and could relocate if the community does not come up with a new arena. And the long-term future of the New Orleans Hornets is very much in doubt.

The Hornets, who were displaced by the hurricane damage to the New Orleans Arena, are playing 35 home games in Oklahoma City, but Leiweke is convinced Kansas City would be a better home.

The Hornets toured Kansas City and considered it as a temporary home but preferred Oklahoma City’s 19,675-seat Ford Center, which is managed by the same firm that runs the New Orleans Arena, over Kemper Arena.

“My opinion is Oklahoma City is a temporary situation,” Leiweke said. “They’ll either move back to New Orleans, or they’ll move again. With all due respect to Oklahoma, I see what’s being built here …”

To secure the Hornets, Oklahoma City had to make some huge guarantees. If the team does not earn 5 percent more in local revenue than it made in New Orleans last year — when it ranked last in attendance — taxpayers and local businesses must pay the team as much as $10 million.

Oklahoma City also put up about $2 million to cover housing expenses, team offices, improvements to the Ford Center and for game-day expenses, they may not recoup.

Before Wednesday night’s Hornets-Magic game in Oklahoma City, NBA commissioner David Stern said that although the league has no plans for expansion, the Hornets’ success in their temporary home has made Oklahoma City the favorite city if a team were to relocate.

“I can say without reservation that Oklahoma City is now at the top of the list,” Stern said.

However, Leiweke is confident the revenue streams created by the Sprint Center would entice an NBA or an NHL tenant. He expects all the suites to be sold by the end of the year, and a large portion of the money from suites and club seats, as well as slices from advertising signage and naming rights, would go to the anchor tenant.

“Whatever Oklahoma City gave away is miniscule in comparison to the opportunity for revenue in this marketplace for an anchor tenant,” Leiweke said. “Oklahoma City locked in 10,000 season tickets. Whether it be hockey or basketball, if we went out today and began a campaign to get deposits for season tickets, I think we would get 10,000 ticket deposits.

“This is all about economics, bottom line,” Leiweke said. “This is about how much money can a team generate in a given marketplace to stay competitive, and will the marketplace support them long term. If there’s an NBA owner who looks at this marketplace, they’re going to find it is substantially bigger than, say, Oklahoma City.”

Although it’s still conjecture on whether the Penguins, Predators, Hornets or some other NBA team will play at the Sprint Center, Leiweke said progress has been made on bringing a WNBA franchise to Kansas City in 2008.

WNBA president Donna Orender was sent to the Sprint Center’s groundbreaking by Stern, and Leiweke said a local group is seriously examining pursuing a franchise.

“Anytime you get David Stern’s attention,” Leiweke said, “that’s a good thing.”

Article 6

Times-Picayune

11.22.2005

http://www.nola.com/hornets/t-p/index.ssf?/
base/sports-1/1132642952247910.xml

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TIME ISN'T ON N.O.'S SIDE

NBA wants to see progress, but is city getting a fair shake?

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

John DeShazier

It's not personal, simply business.

That, Hornets owner George Shinn said, is why NBA commissioner David Stern set January as the deadline for the league to determine where the Hornets will play their home games next season.

"All NBA teams start planning for the season and renewing their season tickets in January," said Shinn, who was in New Orleans on Monday to attend the wall raising of the first of 20 houses that the franchise is collaborating with Habitat for Humanity to build for needy families.

I don't know all of the signs of recovery that will sate Stern and give him reason to "re-award" the Hornets to New Orleans and send them to New Orleans Arena for all or part of their home schedule next season. But the likelihood is that two months hardly will be sufficient time for the ravaged region to prove it can support an NBA team, and that the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets could be a lot more Oklahoma City than New Orleans in the immediate, and distant, future.

If the deciding factors are having more businesses reopened and more fans returned home, we can't realistically expect either to be up to Stern scrutiny by the beginning, middle or end of January.

"Your brain will tell you if things are heading in the right direction," Shinn said.

It's already taken longer than it should have for city and state leaders to appear as though they are heading in the same direction -- not necessarily the right direction, just the same direction.

Which means expecting a commitment from Stern, who seems a lot less likely than NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue to bind the pro sports franchise under his watch to Louisiana, is a long shot.

The Hornets don't have roots as entrenched or as spread out into Louisiana and Gulf Coast soil as the Saints. Passions over their possible relocation haven't erupted on a similar scale as they have with the Saints, partly because of their relative newness, partly because Shinn has had the good sense to say from the start, and at every ensuing opportunity, that it's his intention to return to New Orleans.

Now, if the Saints were allowed to make a break for it, the Hornets would be happy to fill the void. It's a lot easier to be prosperous in a one-horse pro town, like it was for the Hornets in those giddy first years in Charlotte, N.C., before the NFL Panthers came to town and before the relationship between Shinn and fans in Charlotte soured.

But not knowing whether the Saints actually will be allowed to bolt, no matter how vehemently owner Tom Benson wishes it to happen, the Hornets and Stern might be seeking a fast break of their own.

The team could -- emphasis on "could" -- play three games at the Arena in March , moving the last half of its six-game scheduled appearance at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in Baton Rouge to its home facility. But that, too, contains more liquid than solid.

"I'd really like to play the three games in March (in New Orleans)," Shinn said. "The Arena looks like it will be ready. Will the city be ready? I don't want it to be an embarrassment to the city. I think it would be great, but it would only be great if it can be moderately successful.

"It will be a combination of two things. The Arena has got to be ready, and we've got to use our brain to make sure everything is right."

From New Orleans' perspective, so many factors, so little time.

From the NBA's perspective, just business.

Article 7

Minneapolis Star Tribune

11.22.2005

http://www.startribune.com/stories/511/5742928.html

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Oklahoma City: A host with NBA hopes

An NBA franchise landed in Oklahoma City under the worst circumstances. But the locals have embraced the relocated Hornets and, frankly, wouldn't mind if they made the deal permanent.

Steve Aschburner, Star Tribune

Last update: November 22, 2005 at 11:56 PM

OKLAHOMA CITY - Little did Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor know that, when he stepped in to keep the sputtering NBA franchise in Minnesota in 1995, that he was rescuing it from a season of steamer trunks in Oklahoma.

Seriously, if you connect the dots, you can make a case that the Wolves, not the Hornets, would be the NBA team renting in Oklahoma City, displaced from their home in New Orleans by the trauma and destruction of Hurricane Katrina. That's where the Minnesota club, at least temporarily, was headed before NBA Commissioner David Stern blocked a sale and found Taylor as investor and savior.

Which means that, in some alternate reality, when the Wolves take the court tonight at the Ford Center for the first time, they will be facing ... themselves? Not literally, of course. But the visitors from up north might have a little empathy for players, coaches and support staff who have had a city yanked out from under them.

"They actually have played better, done better, than people expected," Taylor said Tuesday. "People would have been very sympathetic to them if they had started out hardly winning any. But [at 4-6] they have not done that.

"This is one of those times when we're not looking at another team as competition. We look at them as one of our family members. We're part of the NBA, and when a city has a disaster and a team is in trouble, the whole organization steps up to help.

"Now that I've said that, I hope we beat them anyway."

As disruptive as the Hornets' move from New Orleans has been, it pales next to the devastation visited upon that city, and their fans, in late August. Ain't nothin' easy any more about the Big Easy, and hosting 41 NBA games ranks far down its list of priorities. Still, folks there have begun to wonder if they will get their team back at all.

"I've got to be very careful of what I say because I don't want the commissioner to wring my neck," Hornets owner George Shinn said recently. "We're still planning to go back to New Orleans, but this is a situation here that I can't say enough positives about Oklahoma City."

New Orleans' pain has been Oklahoma City's gain in this storm-driven switcheroo, which is looking like equal parts evacuation, relocation, flirtation and infatuation.

Neither the New Orleans Arena nor the battered populace was capable of supporting an NBA season in 2005-06. But the dirty little secret is that the market was no raving success even in the best of times. After leaving Charlotte in 2002, the team blew through its curiosity factor in three seasons, sinking to the bottom in league attendance rankings. Finishing 18-64 last season didn't help, but the Hornets were a 41-41 playoff team in 2003-04 and still ranked 29th out of 30.

So far, through five home-away-from-home games, the Hornets have averaged 18,566. Financially, the franchise has a sweetheart deal with Oklahoma City: free rent at the NBA-worthy Ford Center and a guarantee of $40 million in revenues, with up to $10 million in shortfall covered by the city, the state and investors. If income exceeds $40 million, the city will be compensated for housing and other costs it kicked into the deal, and anything beyond $42.5 million will be split evenly between the team and the city.

Also, while New Orleans had only one major corporation sponsoring the Hornets, Oklahoma City has five, including Devon Energy Corp., Kerr-McGee and Chesapeake Energy. That's why city officials, even with modest calculations -- average attendance of 12,000 for 35 games, average ticket price of $50 -- project a boost to the local economy of $55 million to $60 million.

City has felt ready

Not a bad windfall (literally) from a deal put together in three weeks in September. But then, Oklahoma City has felt ready for this for some time. It was one of six finalists when the NHL expanded by four teams in 1997, when the Wild landed in St. Paul, and it was considered briefly a few years later when Calgary was looking to move. And in April 2004, mayor Mick Cornett met with Stern to tout Oklahoma City for NBA expansion or relocation.

The Ford Center, after all, was built to NBA specifications, with almost 50 luxury suites and 3,000 club seats. And the league has a healthy history in so-called "one horse" markets, cultivating fan bases in places such as Sacramento, Orlando, San Antonio and Portland.

The basketball part has not been easy. Already referred to in some circles as "NOOCH" -- New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets, get it? -- the team might have an identity crisis for months. Lettering on the court at home reads "Oklahoma City," lettering on the road jerseys reads "New Orleans." The home white jerseys straddle, deadlocked simply as "Hornets."

"It's going to feel like we're on the road for all 82 games," guard Speedy Claxton said before the regular season. "Even when we come home, we're going to be living out of a suitcase."

Rookie stirs up excitement

On the court, rookie point guard Chris Paul has generated Allen Iverson-like excitement. But the Hornets traded a one-time All-Star center, Jamaal Magloire, as the season began for Milwaukee swingman Desmond Mason, a solid player but possibly marketing insurance (Mason attended Oklahoma State).

Said forward P.J. Brown, a Louisiana native: "This is new territory, new ground for everybody. ... These are tough circumstances but we'll have to manage them and do the best job we can do."

Should New Orleans be nervous? For now, Stern, Shinn and city officials are saying the right things. Oklahoma City knows what it is to suffer unexpectedly, tragically, and doesn't want to be seen as capitalizing on someone else's plight. Make no mistake, though: This is business as much as it is charity. For the puffed-up civic leaders, if this isn't an abduction, at least it is an audition.

"New Orleans is down and out," Taylor said. "There's a lot of pressure, even if you say business-wise it makes better sense to stay, where you don't want to pull a team under those circumstances.

"But Oklahoma City has done a lot of good work already. They shouldn't have to compete real hard after stepping up so well this year."

Article 8

USA TODAY

11.23.2005

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/basketball/nba/hornets/
2005-11-22-oklahoma-city_x.htm

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Oklahoma City all abuzz over the Hornets

By Greg Boeck, USA TODAY

OKLAHOMA CITY — "Live your life so that whenever you lose, you are ahead."— Will Rogers, humorist and political satirist, 1879-1935

Oklahoma's favorite son would be proud of this city, 140 miles southwest of his Oologah birthplace. Some 80 years after he doled out that down-home advice, this reborn city has bear-hugged a team it will one day lose — but be ahead.

Fueling a vibrant renaissance of a downtown rocked by the federal building bombing that claimed 168 lives in 1995, Oklahoma City, almost overnight, has stamped itself as a red-hot big league sports property with its rousing embrace of the New Orleans Hornets. They're the NBA team displaced by Hurricane Katrina in September.

Love at first dribble. That's one way to explain this western-flaired city's instant attachment to a team relocated from the Deep South. Another is the kinship born out of shared tragedies.

"We can identify with New Orleans, big time," says Oklahoma City native Mike Wilson, 55.

Mayor Mick Cornett agrees. "It made us more sensitive to what they were going through. One (tragedy) was man-made, the other wasn't. But both cities probably went through a 'why us?' that's tough to come out of."

The Hornets sold 10,000 season tickets after the move was announced. After five games of 35 set for NBA-ready Ford Center, the team is playing to 97% of its 19,163-seat capacity — and feeding off the crowd with a surprising 4-6 start entering tonight's home game against the Minnesota Timberwolves.

"They've made us feel at ho