The New Orleans Hornets have started the season with 6 consecutive losses for new coach Byron Scott, plus they’ve lost Baron Davis for the next one to two weeks. If all that weren’t enough, they’re having a tough time getting a new practice facility built. The New Orleans Times-Picayune’s David Meeks gets us caught up.
There are ideas, and then there are better ideas.
In most communities, when someone comes up with a better idea, people celebrate the breakthrough.
In New Orleans, such developments bring nothing but trouble.
Such is the saga surrounding the Hornets practice facility, which was to have been built by now — part of the package the city and state offered to lure the team from Charlotte, N.C. The city agreed to contribute $6.5 million toward the facility, with the Hornets paying the balance. The deal specified that construction be completed by the start of the 2003-04 season, or no later than the start of this season. Yet the team is still practicing at the Alario Center in Jefferson Parish.
Maybe the deal was signed on New Orleans time. We don’t get in a real big hurry. Don’t forget, this is one of the few places in the world where voters arrive at the polls before the machines get there.
Here’s a prediction: Charlotte, which since the Hornets left has landed another NBA team, will be playing in its new $270 million arena next season before New Orleans’ politicians honor their pledge to help build a practice gym for the NBA team the city worked so desperately to attract.
Hornets ownership is at odds with the New Orleans city council over the proposed site for the team’s practice digs. Meeks seems to think the latter are being unreasonable and petty about the Hornets changing their mind about the location, and without knowing who is right or wrong in this mess, it’s amazing how quickly it took for George Shin (above) to endear himself with the locals (helpful journalists excepted).