Contributed by: filbert Wednesday, September 07 2005 @ 11:39 AM CST
Kansas City is one of several non-NBA cities volunteering their facilities to the Hornets. Oklahoma City, San Diego and Nashville have made offers, though it’s more likely the club would prefer to remain closer to home and play at LSU’s Pete Maravich Assembly Center in Baton Rouge or the University of Southwestern Louisiana’s Cajundome in Lafayette.
“We’ve made clear that we certainly would be responsive to that opportunity,” Barnes said Tuesday. “On the other hand, I understand that the team might very well want to be as close to New Orleans as possible. I think we’ve done everything that is appropriate for us to do, which is express our willingness to have the Hornets be here for a period of time.”
SportzAssassin has an opinion about the Hornets’ owner George Shinn:
Most people around the organization and the league do say that this is all just rumors. The team has a long lease with the city and received a lot of fabulous cash and prizes for arriving on the Bayou.
And like a plague of locusts, Shinn is trying to go around the country and kill the NBA dreams of various cities. Though Charlotte has the brand spanking new Bobcats [and the new arena Shinn wanted]….attendance is still under 15,000. Only New Orleans, the ho-hum Hawks, the aforementioned Magic and the soon-to-be moving-to-Brooklyn Nets have smaller numbers attending games. But Shinn broke a lot of hearts in Charlotte….and some that are slow to accept a new team.
I stil would rather see an NHL team in Kansas City than an NBA team–even a part-time temporary NBA team.