The Heart of the City

Matthew Kreisher was born and raised in the North Carolina with a love of writing, basketball and music. You can find him at The Fadeaway or follow him @makreish.

Sunday morning is my favorite time to walk along Hargett Street. There’s no traffic; most of the sound comes from brunch-goers on makeshift patios, and an unsettling quiet surrounds downtown Raleigh. Sunday neither belongs to the week nor to the weekend; past and present become one, and time slows to a crawl.

It was on one of these mornings, a few weeks back, that I walked into Father and Sons vintage shop and found myself staring at two game-day programs from the ABA’s Carolina Cougars, this state’s first foray into professional basketball. I was born and raised in Charlotte, and can attest to the fact that this state’s cult of hoops isn’t just about UNC and Duke. I recently admitted to a friend that I had owned a life-sized poster of former Hornets star Alonzo Mourning, a revelation that led to a contentious debate over whose vault of Hornets memorabilia was greater. The Cougars are forgotten traces of my state’s NBA heritage; Sunday was the perfect time to find myself thinking of how far North Carolina has come since the days of the red, white and blue ball.



In 1968 the Houston Mavericks, like most ABA franchises, were struggling to turn a profit, a problem they (like most ABA franchises) chalked up to their current market. They were sold and then relocated to North Carolina. In hopes of capitalizing on the state's fertile basketball soils, the newly-named Cougars became a regional franchise, splitting home games between Raleigh, Greensboro and Charlotte.

In theory, the regional approach made a certain amount of sense. At that point, the state was without a major metropolitan city, and the North Carolina basketball tradition was a statewide thing. But the plan backfired, as the Cougars never got enough of a local footing in any city. North Carolina has always been a hot-bed of rivalry between four schools (NCSU, Duke, Wake Forest and UNC); hoops was a matter of particularism, not the universal. With each city hosting roughly thirteen games a piece, the local pride so key to the state’s rabid hoops culture was never able to take root. The Cougars were built upon the supposition that North Carolina’s basketball history had built unity, when nearly the opposite was true.

In 1905 Wake Forest University was the first to bring basketball to the state of North Carolina, followed quickly by Trinity College (later named Duke University after Washington Duke, owner of Bull Durham Chewing Tobacco Co.). The two schools played the first collegiate basketball game south of the Mason-Dixon line on March 2, 1905. NC State and UNC followed, both forming teams in 1911. It was Carolina who, in 1945, became the first of the four teams in make it to the Final Four, led by NC State transfer Bones McKinney. In 1946 Chuck Taylor, then a traveling salesman for Converse, suggested Everett Case for the job as head coach at NC State. Case built a 12,000 seat arena and recruited nationally, caused Duke and Carolina to revamp their programs and planted the seeds of today’s Tobacco Road mega-rivalry.

The Mavericks were bought by a conglomerate of North Carolina businessmen hoping to add professional basketball to this history. They hired Bones McKinney as the franchise’s first coach in 1969; the team finished 42-42 and were swept by the Pacers in the first round of the playoffs. The team regressed in their second year; McKinney was fired halfway through the season, replaced by Jerry Steele and the Cougars finished 35-50. Steele was promptly fired at the end of the season to make way for third year coach Tom Meschery, (Russian immigrant, former NBA player, today a member of the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame). In those first few years the Cougars made a habit of hiring homegrown talent, like All-Rookie guard Gene Littles, in his first year out of High Point College, and former Duke All-American guard Bob Verga. This practice led to one of the biggest coups in ABA history as the Cougars signed former Tar Heel star Billy Cunningham away from the NBA Philadelphia 76ers while Cunningham was still under NBA contract.

The Cougars signed Cunningham during the 1969-70 season to a 4-year $455K contract starting with the 1970-71 season. The contract called for a $125K signing bonus of which $45K was paid upon signing and Cunningham, who was getting old but still very capable, was to receive the remaining $80K upon turning down his option year in Philadelphia to join the Cougars; however, the Sixers star orally agreed to play out his option year in the NBA after claiming to have never received the full bonus. There is speculation as to whether a miscommunication took place or Cunningham was hedging his bets after fully realizing the financial instability of the league; either way he attempted to return the $45K bonus and then signed a new, 5-year contract with Philadelphia. Cunningham returned to the NBA for two seasons while a series of court cases decided his fate. Ultimately an injunction handed down from the US Court of Appeals barred Cunningham from playing for any team but the Cougars until his ABA contract expired. Cunningham would not join the team until the start of the 1972 season. In 1971, Joe Caldwell, not playing in the NBA but technically under contract to the Atlanta Hawks, jumped to the Cougars without spending the obligatory year in limbo. Five years before the Oscar Robertson suit, Caldwell and the Cougars circumvented the reserve clause, in effect inventing free agency. Caldwell was later traded when he attempted to hold the organization to the terms of his deal, and ended up causing so much trouble that he was blackballed.


In 1972-73, recently-retired ABA guard Larry Brown -- a UNC alum -- took Meschery’s place. It was Brown’s first-ever coaching job of any kind. The combination of Brown and Cunningham sparked the Cougars, who went 57-27 and became the first ABA team to shoot over 50% from the field. Cunningham earned MVP honors and Caldwell, no longer expected to carry the entire franchise on his back, flourished. The Cougars went on to win their only playoff series, sweeping the New York Nets, before losing in the second round to the Kentucky Colonels. Unfortunately, this success was short lived. Cunningham was plagued by kidney problems throughout the Cougars’ fourth year and they were eliminated again in the first round of the playoffs. The franchise was sold for $1.5 million to two New York brothers, Ozzie and Daniel Silna, and their lawyer Don Schupak, who moved the team to St. Louis.

The Cougars may have been doomed, but they stood for something bigger. The ABA was rife with experimentation -- even if most of was in the service of financial desperation. The NBA had not challenged its own conventional wisdom since the introduction of the shot clock in 1954; it was conventional wisdom that said players were bound to an NBA team for life unless the team said otherwise. It was this spirit of departing from the norm that allowed the Cougars to experiment, and ultimately fail. That is Raleigh’s legacy of professional basketball. In retrospect, that they failed to establish a regional franchise is less important than the fact that they tried at all.

I was born and raised in Charlotte, but now call Raleigh home. When I was growing up, Charlotte was a small banking city, whose goal of becoming a nationally recognized banking city unified a community. In 1989 the NBA rewarded the Queen City with the Charlotte Hornets. By the mid-nineties, Charlotte was somewhere between a small Southern past and a future of financial growth, an identity that took hold just as the Hornets took off. New NBA teams succeed when they’re integrated into the culture of the city, and capitalize on civic pride. This was why the Hornets succeeded at first -- that and Charlotte’s determination, as a mid-level city fighting for national recognition, to make sure they succeeded. Then George Shinn happened, and by the time the Hornets moved to New Orleans in 2002, the community was unified behind its dislike for one of the NBA’s worst owners (and worst people).

When the Bobcats started life in 2004, Charlotte was the worst kind of city for an NBA franchise. Today, the state is a very different place. The struggle for recognition that once galvanized the people of Charlotte ended in 1998 when the Bank of America merger turned it overnight into the nation’s second-largest banking city. With the struggle for recognition over, the civic pride that manifested during the city’s period of growth quickly eroded. Charlotte is now defined by the corporations that now call the city home. The NBA's second attempt to tap the basketball gold mine that is North Carolina now perennially ranks toward the bottom of the league in attendance levels. With the CBA negotiations going nowhere, David Stern has begun talking contraction; many point to Charlotte as the most logical team to cut.

However, Charlotte wasn’t the only growing North Carolina city. Raleigh has quickly risen to second largest metropolitan population in the state and along with Durham and Chapel Hill forms the Triangle part of the Research Triangle Park. In 1973, Cougars owner Tedd Munchak wanted Raleigh cut from the regional plan because attendance numbers lagged dramatically behind both Charlotte and Greensboro, where the Cougars were once attacked by bugs left over from the previous day’s cattle show. Raleigh now grows at a rate of 22% a year. The Research Triangle Park (RTP), located between Raleigh and Durham, has become a destination for technology firms. Since RTP was located on what was once farmland, away from the heart of Raleigh, there was no need to bend to corporate will in the way Charlotte did. Instead, Raleigh responded by renovating historical buildings in attempt to preserve the past. Small businesses began forming where once there were only government jobs and local culture was allowed to flourish and evolve. The New York Times recently described Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill as North Carolina's "Axis of Cool."

What makes the area unique is the strong sense of culture and community within each city. Chapel Hill is Chapel Hill, and Durham built a culinary empire around local, individually owned restaurants like Magnolia, Nana’s Steakhouse and Vin Rouge. Not coincidentally, that’s also the UNC and Duke binary. Raleigh, though, has found its own way, one whose strong local culture and love of basketball could make it a Southern version of Portland.

A few years ago, Ivan Howard of The Rosebuds invited me to a regular pick-up game at some outdoor courts tucked away behind Peace College. I play there regularly, along with Victor Lytvinenko, founder of high-end denim brand Raleigh Denim; writers like Grayson Currin, music editor of The Independent, co-creator of Hopscotch Music Fest; and musicians like Howard, Megafaun’s Brad Cook, and Steve Popson, bassist of FD favorite Polvo, who after his time in Chapel Hill moved back to Raleigh to open King’s Barcade. I’m close to convincing him to buy NBA Jam ‘93 for King’s. It’s people like these -- hoops fanatics who also now make Raleigh such a vital city to live in -- who remind me of the legacy of the Cougars.



The Bobcats will continue to have my support, but every time I watch them play in front of an empty stadium, I feel like I’m watching a wasted opportunity -- for the NBA and for my state. My whole life I have been proud to call North Carolina home. The glory years of the Hornets left a stamp on my childhood -- I experienced Larry Johnson’s rookie year, witnessed Jordan in the ’98 playoffs, and fought back tears after hearing the news of Bobby Phill’s crash -- and created a lifelong NBA fan. It was hard to embrace the Bobcats at first, mainly because of the once-strong ties to the Hornets, but ultimately I couldn’t resist. Yet they play in a city that barely cares, and part of me wonders what could have been had NBA officials ignored the conventional wisdom that has become Charlotte’s mother tongue.

Thirty years ago, Raleigh was home to an ABA franchise that challenged the norm, however disastrously. With labor negotiations stuck in the mud and the possibility of a lockout on the horizon, it appears both sides have lost. The spirit of the ABA and the changes it provided are needed now more than ever. The Bobcats are indicative of all that’s gone wrong with the NBA; we may never know how different things would be if, instead, they had followed in the footsteps of the Cougars.



(You can view both programs in their entirety here)

Toad Enclosed

Here are two things written elsewhere, by me, that I firmly believe you will like:

For the Awl, the new Knicks and why they will matter.

At FanHouse, Chris Paul's demand and, as they say, "who's the man"?

Planning something big here soon, as well as some guest stuff. Stay furtive!

Noisy Grabbers

Okay, we know the segment last episode with Josh Levin had some audio issues. We decided that the best thing to do was have him back on the show, in our first ever Make-Up Call. Ken joins in this time. New Orleans and the Hornets are discussed.



Ken and Dan also talk amongst themselves in regards to various excellent things other people wrote, such as this piece by Howard Beck in the NY Times, this post by Seth at Posting and Toasting, this one by Kelly Dwyer at Ball Don’t Lie, and this from Shoals at Fanhouse. Plus, a new twist on one of our segments, using the Pro Basketball Prospectus.

It all sounds normal. The audio part, if not the topics of conversation or the participants in said conversation.

Songs from the episode:

“Re-Ignition” - Bad Brains
“Once Again (Here To Kick One For You)” - Handsome Boy Modeling School
“Whatever” - Husker Du
“If You Don’t Get It The First Time, Back Up and Try It Again, Party” - Fred Wesley and the J.B.’s
“Another Batch (Play It Again)” - Madlib
“Never See Me Again” - Vivian Girls
“Try Again” - Big Star

Subscribe via iTunes, whydontya?

Fly Through All Ears

Yes, we’re back. It was only Dan that left the country for a week, but still, now the show is back.



Dan checks back in with Ken, and they talk a little trade action. Then Dan does something that’s never been done on this show.

In the next segment, Dan talks with Josh Levin, of Slate.com, writer and host of the Hang Up and Listen podcast. Josh is originally from New Orleans, which gave them a chance to talk about the sports scene there (Super Bowl relevant!) as well as the Hornets (NBA Podcast relevant!)

We’ll be honest, there’s some static-y noise in the talk with Josh. We did the best we could about it. It’s probably Ken’s fault.

Songs from the episode:

“Come On Feet” - Quasimoto
“All Tomorrow’s Linoleum” - Autechre
“Perception” - Kylesa
“Ease Back” - The Meters
“The Saints Are Coming” - The Skids

Subscribe via iTunes, whydontya?

Bony Tenders

Nothing much of note, just thought I'd check in.

I now write with the disclaimer that I may no longer know what the f I'm talking about. I've been in a post-Al Jefferson knee injury daze for the past few weeks, and then with the news that Amare is out for the postseason, I almost just gave up. Instead, I've been watching all of the games without the sound on, and I actually cannot understand what is going on. As soon as I started watching the games on mute, LeBron seemed like way more of the MVP than Kobe, the Spurs look outstanding, and I am now on the verge of liking Dwyane Wade,

Now Imagine my confusion when I was watching the Wolves game and they flashed the faces, four in a row, of Antawn Jamison, OJ Mayo, David Lee, and Emeka Okafor. What could those four possibly have in common? Turns out it was one of those promos for fans to buy tickets for the upcoming next four games at home: Washington, Memphis, New York, and Charlotte. Depressing for sure.




















Yes, enough has been made of the fact that Bynum's out, KG and a ton of Celtics are out, Al Jeff's out, Amare's out, Gilbert is still out, Iverson is teetering, T-Mac is out, most of the Bucks are out, Oden is out, and now Rudy Fernandez but let me make more out of it. We are entering into a swaggerless vortex that might extend into the postseason. Already, I don't want to see the Suns win it simply because it won't "count." Same goes for Rockets if T-Mac isn't there (yes, I know), and that goes double for Portland if Oden and/or Rudy aren't in the mix.

And if KG isn't at full speed, would a Cavaliers or Magic title count? And if the Spurs beat the Suns again, it certainly wouldn't have the same significance as it would if Amare was on the court. Remember those jokes about how the Rockets' mid-90s titles didn't count because Jordan "loaned" them the trophy? I'm starting to get that itchy feeling again.

Right now, the only teams I can fully get behind winning the whole thing is the Denver Nuggets and the NO Hornets (and on a good day, the Jazz). The Nuggets and Hornets aren't expected to beat anyone in the playoffs even an Amare-less Suns. They both have guys in Melo and CP3 who are more deserving of titles than anyone I can think of. Their teams are in tact. Their coaches' futures depend on their success this season. And they dunk a lot.

With a month left in the regular season, I thought I'd have more than that to cheer about. Please give me some other good news, if anyone cares to.

It's Anyone's Pattern

For starters, there's something cosmic about the Chandler-to-OKC trade. The Hornets hadn't quite had it this season, and I hate Byron Scott. Squelching Julian Wright is foolish. And now this, delivering a big man recently considered Olympic-ish material into the mitts of the most FD team since the '06-07 Warriors. If the word "FD" still means anything, or remotely the same thing, in this very different league we live in. So go ahead and type it with me, because I know you've been saying it in your head since yesterday:Kevin&Jeff&Russell&Tyson&Blake. That, my friends, is a monster.

However, as much as I'd (prophetically?) been down on New Orleans, you can't like what this says about the direction the league is headed. I already did a TSB post on it, coming to the conclusion that we're headed toward baseball. Combine that with the Morey/Battier revelations, and this week we're practically staring down the barrel of the future of front offices.

First, you've got the Thunder, a bandwagon you need to be finding if you haven't tracked it down already. All the payroll went to heaven, causing much controversy and embarrassment, or was of the walking corpse variety—save for the rookie contracts belonging to the team's nucleus. And now, even if Chandler improves them greatly, OKC's most likely landing a choice lottery pick. A once-in-a-generation phenom—LeBron is the exception that proves everything, which is why Durant can still be once-in-a-generation—combined with very astute use of high picks, and one big contract stolen off of team's not blessed with such meager payroll. Will this last? No. Does it take a mastermind to pull off? Probably. Does that mean, in the wartorn economic future of the NBA, it's not a viable model? Only if there's a cheaper alternative that promises such a strong chance of competing. Blow the team up before it takes your hand with you, then start all over again. It's not nihilistic, it's living each second like it's your last, and having the balls to believe your front office can repeat the process every five years.



The Hornets now become the consummate underdog, handicapped by forces beyond their control but expected. One superstar, surrounded by passable role players and guided by a coach determined to make up the difference. If that sounds like the 2000-01 Sixers, congraulations. They went to the Finals, and so we can imagine the post-Chandler Hornets making a similarly inspirational push—provided they change coaches in the off-season. That's when you end up with a peculiar merger of "this is a league of stars" with "this is a league of coaches," where these proclamations apply only to the most elite, who in secret compacts join forces to overcome the system's strictures. That's the real lesson of those Sixers—that when you have a single-minded MVP and a stubborn coach with a fully-formed basketball worldview, it's hard to tell exactly who is establishment, which means they must both be out in the cold, tossing flaming bottles at something else.

You're right, I've skimped on baseball comparisons, because I can't always make them. But I do know that, if Morey's research comes to anything, you could find another model in which incomplete or flawed players are brought together to complete each other. Not the flawed or incomplete the FD book so concerns itself with—not towering figures with great, bleeding holes in their sides. Instead, a team of guys who are at once, like Battier, useful and detrimental, but without any hierarchy. Such that no single individual, or his flaws, can overwhelm the balance of the whole. It's often said that D'Antoni's ideal team is comprised of 6'9" guys who can shoot, run, and pass. The Knicks may be one of the few teams that can do this, because as other teams look for efficient and affordable models, free agents will increasingly accumulate in one place willing to pay them an above average salary. Morey, though, could make due with a team of Battiers, provided one had just a little bit more scoring ability in place of a little less rebounding. But not too much. A team of multi-purpose yeoman immune to all yearning and glory, one that might eventually swallow up the likes of Marion and Odom.

Will we ever see this come to pass? That depends on how long the economic crisis lingers in basketball. Certainly, though, if teams suffer a major hit this year and the next, and the summer of 2010 finds the large market teams cashing in (sorry for the mixed, if not oppositional, metaphor), we might see contracts signed that extend a relatively brief window of disaster across the foreseeable. Who knows what will be discovered, or what will pan out? Front office philosophies could find themselves twisted into a grimace that, over time, becomes a sign of worldliness and thought most deep.

Muse and Mechanics

Skeets and myself are both very busy men with a constant need to consume virgin blood and walk on ice. But when we aren't so busy, or need to take time out from said business to determine the future of basketball, the topic often turns to the alley-oop. It's often decried as the ultimate in showy, bombastic play—and not surprisingly, has been a hallmark of all the most FD teams ever. However, it's also money when executed by a pinpoint guard and masterful leaper. In fact, it can be so hard to stop, such an easy way to get points, that it sometimes feels like the new low post. That's one of those moments where I really understand why Hubie Brown constantly observes that the game is now above the rim, has an added dimension, and all that. Certainly, the likes of Paul and Chandler view it as a set play. And I can get bored by players who can only get points off of alley-oops, which certainly strengthens their case as something worthwhile.

If you accept the alley-oop as more like the pick-and-roll than the windmill, all sorts of perceptual doors begin to loosen. Remember McGrady's off-the-backboard self-oop? Why not use the backboard as a second floor, thus adding another (fourth?) dimension to the game. It sounds fancy and frivolous, but again, we're talking set plays, or at least shit that's been worked on in practice. Take a look at this Hedo/Howard connect, about 1:48 in.



Now, this might have been a botched shot. But the timing is so perfect, and the point of impact so high, it's hard to not see a glint of intentionality in there. And it was out of a timeout. If you buy that, then follow, and tell me it's not every bit as smart as a bounce pass into the lane. Plus, this is Hedo Freakin' Turkgolu, a player known to style a little, but hardly a hot dogger. Despite the sheer kookiness of the play, on the whole it feels a lot less trangressive than pretty much every possession of the 2006-07 Warriors.

What's the next step? Maybe this clip—granted, from high school, but introducing a totally volleyball element to the mix that echoes Wilt's never-ending devotion to that second sport.



When floating bodies become a passing surface, then all of a sudden I get dizzy and you're in the realm of basketball gadget plays. Exceptions, not a considerable planar extension of time and space. Still, this could work, people, and the more the NBA begins to see the 'oop as foundational, the more possible this kind of thing becomes. In effect, it becomes the new alley-oops.

Maybe we're putting the heads ahead of the other heads. But remember, the dunk itself was once thought of as useless tomfoolery. Now, most people would agree that relatively sane dunking is the easiest way to ensure the ball goes through the hoop. The paradox of progress is that imagination is always linked to style, and yet it also provides the seed for innovation that changes the face of function. Think about the way the Suns or Warriors use to alter the dimensions of the court (scrapped book idea: using advanced physics to prove this), all through a mode of play dripping with style. Is a team like the Magic or Hornets this close to another great, sustained breakthrough?

(Further, unrelated reading: Shoals Unlimited on losers and All-Star selection. Also, note all the questions posed herein. In one of the older chats I looked at to craft this post, Skeets and I decide that asking questions is the key to audience participation. What do you think?)

An End to Thick Resistance

I'm really going back and forth on this one. Those offensive fouls were bullshit, but aren't most Spurs flops? The hit on David West was fucked-up and unfortunate, sure. Was it all that different from their usual screening practices? I've become so numb to these two questionable aspects of San Antonio's play that, immediately following the game, I didn't even register outrage. The Spurs did the Spurs, the Hornets were susceptible to it, and it worked. The acting, the hit . . . I've lost the capacity to call them wrong. They happen every year, and at this point, it's pointless to resist or protest. My initial reaction, lame as it sounds, was "well, that's par for the course, not especially malicious or arrogant." At least it wasn't Horry on Nash.

The thing is, I actually find San Antonio quite watchable these days. Manu is brilliant, Parker's directional changes have come into their own and provided a great metaphor for his emergence as someone I don't fervently hate. Oberto passes well. Duncan in small doses allows you to appreciate his impeccable movements. Even more so when he's either perfect or ineffective. However, today the utter resignation I feel toward the Spurs is like never before. It's even gone past the "they win by faith healing" thing I propose on Deadspin.

This team is dirty, disingenuous, sanctimonious, and have conditioned us to expect nothing less, to excuse them, even. The sad thing is, they could probably win games without that element. If you just said "Barry Bonds" to yourself in your head, I won't blame you one bit. And there is totally a media conspiracy to preserve their reputation. The entire lexicon of post-season commentary is designed to lionize their strengths, gloss over their weaknesses, and turn their sins into feats of wonder.

Burp In Rest's Name

The degree of frustration I'm feeling right about now cannot be put into words. But since I can't link up the webcam and dance for all of you, I suppose I set forth on a sloppy, piteous post about these playoffs.

But first, a documentary in two languages (at the same time) about my favorite international prospect. DraftExpress has him going lottery next year. You can draw your own conclusions from the one snippet of court action in this video:



Now, the immediate business. Seriously, I am numb from toes to shoulders. The home court dominance utterly flummoxes all attempts at drama, or odds-defying, or myth-building. Plus, as I've said several times before, shouldn't teams with acid in their step be stoked to play on the road? Not overwhelmed by young confidence, but ready to step up and fight back the city worth of hostiles. That aside, the cold calculus of these playoffs really drains the life out of these games. The Jazz/Lakers games have been the most dramatic, and intense, but in the end, they fall beneath the cruel blade of determinism. Plus, it makes the Celtics' ordained title even more rote.

Once again, the Celtics match the Spurs of yore, but times a thousand.

The home team advantage has short-circuited the very notion of playoff greatness. It's like there's an unseen force deciding these games. A command Chris Paul performance at home is all in the cards; were LeBron to really up his stock, he'd win on the road. You know, like Louis Williams and Rafer Alston managed to against far longer odds. That's what makes it so spooky—this was a problem in the more skewed first round, but not this egregious. Deron Williams is my playoff hero only because he's the one guy struggling mightily against the New Playoff Order. He takes it personally, or missed the memo. West, too, has had some of that, but in his case it's been a stage to prove his real worth. Still running into that large, ordinary wall of law.



So heading into tonight, I plan to leisurely watch the Spurs play clean-up man while snacking and soaking my feet.

NOT speaking of Skeets, and the Hornets, he and I had a conversation some time ago about the alley-oop, and whether it wasn't the most indefensible (in a good way) play on earth. Usually, we think of them as statements of facility, arrogance, or daring. But New Orleans has made it into a key feature of the offense. Not even a variation on cutting and leaping—they genuinely rely on the Paul/Chandler connect. It's the heart of this attack, not an incidental or ornamental feature. The other night, I suddenly realized that there hadn't been one in forever. Suddenly, one happened, the crew proclaimed "first in three games," and the Hornets took off.

That's sublimated style in a nutshell. You could say this is a step back from the Suns or Warriors—after all, there's a lot that's fairly conventional about the Hornets. Or is that same maniac spirit turned into something viable. Chandler is functional, not a looming isotope. Weirdly, there's a seven-footer who spends a lot of time away from the paint but doesn't take jump shots. He just waits to swoop in. Also, the "put your finger on David West" game is through, so what about Chandler? Have you ever noticed how unimpressive his stats are? Yet he comes across not as a hustle, intangibles guy, but rather a dominant defensive big man. It's like his presence alone is a major statement.



What's funny is that so much potential glory awaits in the next round. Lakers/Hornets or Jazz/Hornets would be positively important, I guess, but the pall of "home team wins" really makes we wonder what the purpose of it all is. Inevitability doesn't cheapen play, but it certainly reinforces conventional wisdom, which operates on a broad level and cares little for the more nuanced sparks and parries of, well, style. Competitive and otherwise.

Oh, and for the first time in history, I fully believe in an NBA conspiracy. D'Antoni to New York, then in Beijing, then in a position to woo LeBron. . . you'd have to be an idiot, or from Cleveland, or have some sort of perverse attachment to noble suffering and life in a hole, to not want that. And that's when conspiracies happen: When it's in enough people's interest to put that ominous undercurrent out of me and go with the fun.

I only hope Dolan understands that he's now back in the good graces of Stern.

Okay, out of gas. I'm reading Loose Balls for the first time, and am frankly a little humiliated I never got to it before. For what is Hawks/Bobcats, if not a league of hard-to-assess talents doing amazing things in an empty gym with little or no record of the matter?

And a Child Shall Lead Us

SEE, BASKETBALL IS NOT JAZZ

Someone needs to speak to Tom about NBA Electability (scroll down to the table at column's end). Chris Paul's FBP quotient is through the roof.

FD Guest Lecture: Where Tchoupitoulas Meets Poydras

The All-Star Game is nearly upon us. We've brought in one Avery Lemacorn to reflect on what this big gala means for New Orleans, its team, and its people.

The Hornets comeuppance and the lack of support from fans, isn't due to some Midwest Dustbowl hangover or even an eerie Lake Pontchartrain effect. It's the efficiency, stupid.

New Orleans has never been rocked by such a sleek machine as the Hornets —in a cluttered town with only one Fortune 500 company, banker's row is non-existent in NOLA and it's an anomaly that such a small town could have two professional teams. New Orleans residents are used to having their housing torn down, in the dearth of any affordable housing, their D.A.'s office going broke, and their second-highest ranking state official losing a city election. The Hornets have always been a sideshow to the great hope that are the Saints, which broke the city's heart this year after being last year's NFL darlings. No one knows what to think of a Hornets team that wins consistently. Like a dog returning to its vomit, the city is more comfortable with its vices than its potential successes.

That this winning team is a carpetbagger is not lost on the local consciousness. First, they were George Shinn's recluse from a scorned and once promising lover in Charlotte, and then not surprised by the wooing of OKC. In a Storyville tale come true, New Orleans is used to being the whore; the other lover. It's only success was when the native Pistol made his home with the Jazz, but that team ended up an ill-suited location, like Satchmo to Chicago--it just never felt right.



The OKC chapter is one of the most unusual relocations since the Braves became the Clippers. OKC team welcomed the team like cities all over did to New Orleans' evacuees (these just happened to be millionaires). The Okies displayed open arms, only to chagrin at the team's true intentions. It wasn't that this team couldn't read or had too many Creole cultures for them to adapt to OKC, it was the uneasiness of being too readily accepted by people that weren't yours. People that didn't understand the culture of disruption. To say that a New Orleans team belonged in Oklahoma City is like believing Romney could win Alabama. There are just too many differences.

And from the overpass that disrupts neighborhoods all down Claiborne and into the ruins of the Ninth Ward, the New Orleans Arena is shadowed by its longstanding cousin, the Superdome. That figurative and literal hell occurred in these walls is no understatement, but inside the next door Arena, joie di vivre and hope springs eternal. There is no lingering history of consistent failure, only snatches of success and rumors of a superhuman named Zo and a rocking chair bound Grandmamma. Now there is a new cast suited to the divided demo of NOLA.



Chris Paul, of NPR fame and private school background, may appeal to the Garden District aristocracy and provide entertaining basketball all the same with his rapid fire dribbling and bulls-eye passes. He has taken a city upon himself, not rebuilding with any appeals of failed brute strength (Deuce, Bush and the Saints), but with quick zips of efficiency. He is a man that any aspiring middle manager could pin his wishes on. But TY C provides the muscles and the tats and the affinity to Lil Wayne to win over the rough Holly Tree neighborhood crowd, with smartly timed blocks and scowls proving that the Bulls picked the wrong defensive stopper (But I can't make the love of Cecil DeMille, fit into this schema).

Peja, once viewed as the lynchpin, has fulfilled his destiny as the solid contributor he always was, no matter the tantalizing potential of a 6'10" shooting guard. He has never been the instigator, nor the creator, but just a freewheeling astronaut needing space. David West on the other side has developed a mid range shot that draws the defense further, to create the room for Paul to Peja.Though West may lack recognition, he makes up for it in salary. His 10 mill is more than fellow (and more accomplished) All-Stars Rip and Billups, not to mention three times more than CP3's rookie contract. But one Krewe member that shouldn't be discounted is the oft-forgotten Byron Scott. Two straight trips to the Finals, and unceremoniously dumped for an egghead. Still with three rings and two trips to the Finals as a coach, Scott has something brewing here.

One casualty of all this change was Milwaukee's Desmond Mason. He came to New Orleans right before Katrina did, flourished in OKC where he played college ball, and then instead of taking a challenge at a rebuilding city, scooted back to Milwaukee to find a glut of small forwards that can't shoot. The former highflying dunk champion would've provided a different feel off the bench to Peja's accurate shooting. Just with Jannero and Bobby and only the potential of Julian Wright, the bench is a confederacy of dunces, thinner than a Bush promise in front of Jackson Square. Bench issues, however are Scott's own fault—he lacked the patience for J.R. Smith to emerge, and is now watching Brandon Bass become a key sub for the Mavericks.



But for the Hornets to continue this streak seems as rare as catching a Zulu coconut. The NBA will exalt in the fortune of having its pity-picked host also being a winning team--only to have the Hornets realize again that they are from New Orleans, and that this couldn't possibly be happening, and to have Spurs in their side or the Suns rising again. How Chandler handles Tim Duncan's craftiness or Shaq's wheezing Diesel engine, much less a rejuvenated Amare--no one knows. Peja is the only one with significant playoff or big-game experience and for the Hornets to survive in the West, he may have to summon his inner Serbian dictator for any success.

Perhaps the greatest nemesis of the Hornets, of all improbabilities, may be the one team they sent packing from Creole country to Mormon mountainsides. With strengths at all positions except for the SG, the Jazz replicate the Hornets on almost every level--in a sort of bizarro world. Much has been made of Deron vs. CP3, where formidable scowls meets efficient ecstasy. That these two are becoming viewed as opposites, but with similar value. Though it is not Magic vs. Bird, it at least qualifies for Thomas vs. Price. It may come down to the foreingn imports--where AK47's flexibility is a greater advantage to the Jazz than Peja's dead eye from outside. While NOLA is built for ephemeral pleasures, SLC has a foundation for considerations that are not passing, but everlasting.Where does that leave the Hornets? With not much more than hope--the only guarantee this city has.