Originally Posted by
redrum
Bricklayer,
I get what you see in this fan base but, there is a lot more to the paranoia than just wins and losses.
If we start this story from the beginning there was tons of hope and enthusiasm when the Hornets arrived. A nice young nucleus of Baron Davis and Jamal Mashburn formed an exciting team.
Until, of course, both were robbed of there greatness by injuries and the rebuild began. This happens all the time in the NBA, no biggie.
Then the big break a few years later with the drafting of Chris Paul, basketball was gonna be fun again, IN OKC. This fan base was robbed of the 1st 2 years of a young teams formation, and were left hoping the team would even return with rumors flying that George Shinn loved it there or was going to sell the team to OKC investors. Eventually, the NBA forced the team home and OKC stole Seattle's team, but the city of New Orleans was put on notice with ticket benchmarks to keep the team year after year. The 1st year back was great, 56 wins, benchmarks met, a basketball loving city, a not quite rich enough owner looking for local investors, but benchmarks still hanging.
Each year the record got a little worse, those ticket numbers got harder and harder to meet, no local investors come forward, and where the team might end up was speculated ad nauseam. None of this endeared the team to its fanbase, It became more of a civic duty for big companies to buy blocks of tickets to reach benchmarks to keep an important business in town than anyone watching or caring about basketball.
So Shinn finally has to sell, who buys the team? the NBA. First order of business, get CPme out of town and to the big market he deserves. Again none of this uncertainty endears the team to the city. Plus the fanbase was left wondering if they would ever be lucky enough to get another superstar like Paul, and if so, how long would they stay in our small town.
Finally the NBA sold the team to a local owner in Tom Benson, the Hornets did get lucky enough to draft another superstar in Anthony Davis, which of course set off the time clock in the collective fans brains, how many seasons till AD leaves.? Can we win in this amount of time? This is how the NBA works we had learned, so the desperation you sense is more of a paranoia.
The team changes its name to try to connect with the city, I don't think it made much of a difference.
Now the trade that brought Boogie to town has had an effect, people are following the team again, but the paranoia creeps back in, Damn we have 2 of the best players in the NBA, one a free agent after this season, the other can leave soon after. If we don't win now we are done. This is how we have been taught the NBA works. Boogie signs with Cleveland, AD traded to Boston, and our little city goes back to basketball irrelevance. Our local owner is old, will the relocation talk start again, will there be more benchmarks? It seems a never ending cycle.
I am not gonna complain about all the ridiculous injuries, or about having a gm that creates Monty's teams that would have better fit Gentry's style, and Gentry's rosters that would be better off with Monty. I will mention however a few other bizarre happenings that make the Pelicans soap opera a tad different than most. We have had to endure a players girlfriend hang herself and how that affected the team,. My prayers for strength still go out to 33. Then one of the Pels is shot to death for walking into the wrong apartment.
Maybe now you can better understand, we are different, but our NBA journey is different than most. You are probably right with most of your observations, but you need to look at our past to understand why.