Hornets Hype

So let me sum up:

I'll be over here with my four friends, trying to process this.

Jeff Bower has been fired. The Hornets are in the middle of free agency and haven’t signed anyone but Aaron Gray. They were already dealing with a million and two rumors of George Shinn’s sketchiness, and now they’re dealing with more because they may have backed out of Luther Head’s contract for no good reason and his agent is pitching a fit. Oh, plus the rumors that Chris Paul wants nothing to do with this mess. Let us not forget the Tom Thibodeau drama. And the rumors that the sale of the team to Gary Chouest has been held up for … why? Who even knows what the deal is? The last time there was a public statement was back in May when the local New Orleans public was told the deal was done.

Whether you liked Bower or not (I’m personally ambivalent), having him here was infinitely better than having no one. Who’s making the basketball decisions around here? The Assistant GM is– Oh. That’s right. We don’t have one. The guy in charge is George Shinn’s brother-in-law, who was a food service executive before joining the Hornets in 2005 (leaving aside for the moment the fact that he thinks Chris Paul rumors are started by people like me who “live in basements, in their pajamas” and never the perfectly legitimate New York media who are soooo responsible simply because they have a desk in an office).

Oh hey, maybe the VP is a basketball guy? Ha. Maybe he’s George Shinn’s son who has only a high school diploma, but according to his bio in the media guide “relies on his 20 years of experience in basketball to provide insight about basketball-related decisions” and “has been closely involved with the Hornets organization since its inception in 1987.” That sounds like a lot of experience. Huh. Maybe I am wrong. Except I’m not. Y’all, Chad Shinn is 30. His biography actually, no joke, IS COUNTING THE VAST EXPERIENCE HE GLEANED AS A 10-YEAR-OLD AMONG HIS QUALIFICATIONS. But hey, we do have, like, two scouts though. Let’s give a Hornets Hype shout out to our two scouts! What uuuuuupp Basketball Operations Department! Keep on fighting the good fight there. Yeah.

I mean, have I missed anything here? Can we get some basketball people up in here?

Dear god, I’m surrounded by idiots. Get me six martinis. I’ll be over there, with my fingers in my ears till October. I… can’t… hear… you.

Huge sigh of relief.

I was pretty sure the “impasse” in the talks that supposedly happened in the last two weeks was just a bit of gamesmanship and bargaining strategy from Shinn, since it was pretty clear there weren’t ever any other investors involved besides Chouest, but you can never be sure. If the sale talks dragged on any longer, it was going to start affecting the coach search, draft, and free agency. I’m definitely glad it’s getting done.

The Times Picayune is saying the official announcement of the transfer of ownership will happen Wednesday Thursday afternoon. We know Chouest is a Louisiana native, who bought his one quarter share in the team in 2007 with the goal of keeping basketball in New Orleans. We know he’s the owner of Edison Chouest Offshore, which manufactures marine vessels for the oil industry. Since the company is privately held, no source is clear on exactly how much he’s worth, but it’s certainly more than George Shinn. If he is indeed a billionaire, as rumored, this would put him in the top half of the list of the NBA’s richest owners**. But beyond that, Chouest is something of a mystery man, preferring to remain Shinn’s silent partner. He has only granted one interview, to my knowledge, and that was at the announcement of the purchase of his 25% stake in the team. We don’t know his ideas about the direction of the team. We don’t know how he feels about going over the luxury tax to ensure that Chris Paul stays in New Orleans. And we don’t know the possible future effects of the recent oil rig disaster on his business.

What we do know is that two of this blog’s least favorite things,  1) stupid error-riddled articles about the Hornets being cheap and 2) stupid error-riddled articles about the Hornets moving to another city, are probably about to be gone. Permanently. It’s like going to your high school reunion and seeing that the people who made fun of you got fat and work in retail now. Are we allowed to steal free agents out from under other teams’ noses and then laugh in their faces, or at least their local beat writers’ faces, now that we’re super super rich? Please say yes.

This is a good day for Hornets fans.

** Quoth the TP: “Many sources in the New Orleans area have indicated that Chouest’s financial resources are vast, easily in the 10-figure range.” The NBA apparently has eight other billionaire owners.

I don’t feel super pumped about last night’s blowout win over the T-Wolves to close out the Hornets’ home schedule, but I don’t feel bad about it either. They didn’t lose. They didn’t play down to a terrible team. They didn’t blow a lead. They managed to pull themselves together enough to do the right thing for the fans.

Where are we going? Where have we been?

Byron Scott is gone. Rasual Butler, Tyson Chandler, Devin Brown, and Hilton Armstrong are gone. The Hornets overcame a terrible start to give us a scrappy, fun January and February, only to lose the franchise player to what pretty much ended up being a season-ending injury. (Oh, if it weren’t for that one errant pass and that one unfortunately positioned cameraman! What might have been!) Once they realized they were missing the playoffs, you could see the fire sort of go out of them, as we watched the inevitable slide toward the end of the season.

George Shinn is reportedly in the midst of selling the team to (local! richer!) minority partner Gary Chouest. This may mean big front office changes are on the way, heading into the offseason. This may mean the end, finally, of those pesky rumors we read every five minutes about how cheap the team is and how they’re going to move. We might have seen the last of Jeff Bower, as both coach and GM. The Hornets had one of the best drafts in the NBA in 2009. I discovered a new favorite player. We’ll most likely have the 11th pick in June.  Lots of stuff went down this season. It will continue to go down as we head into the draft and the summer.

I have not given my opinion on this blog about the upcoming sale of the team, but anyone who’s read Hornets Hype long enough can guess what it is easily enough. From the beginning, we’ve been about exactly two things: 1) Watching this team rise, under the leadership of the basketball magician Chris Paul, and 2) Keeping the team in New Orleans. Period. And I just don’t see how Shinn selling the team is anything but great news, when it comes to those two things we  care about the most. Chouest is local.  He’s got deeper pockets than Shinn; he’s got money coming from other places and therefore more resources. He doesn’t just want a basketball team– he wants a basketball team in New Orleans.

Looking back on the season, I realize I had more fun watching this year than I did in 2008-09, even though the team won 14 less games. So I can’t really say it was all a waste. It wouldn’t be true. Last night before tipoff, the rookies took the court to address the crowd (Lil Buckets is not the best public speaker– he not only looked 10 times more nervous than he’s ever looked while playing, but he hilariously started off his speech with, “Yeaaahh, so I know we didn’t have a real good season, but… “). I can’t think of anything more fitting– more than any other players on the team, this was their season. Watching Marcus Thornton go from wearing a suit to being a 20 PPG starter was worth the price of admission. Add in Collison’s masterful turn in substituting for the injured Chris Paul, and these two were the reason to watch. And you know what? I’m also going to shout out David West here, who, in case you didn’t notice, turned it on in the last two months of the season and particularly outdid himself in terms of assists, passing better this spring than he has in his entire career.

On a personal note, the Hype is doing the house-buying thing, so that’s why I haven’t been around much in the last couple weeks. Of course, the Hornets haven’t been around much in the last couple weeks either… It is what it is. We’ll probably have something to say about the playoffs. We’ll definitely have stuff to say about the draft. We’ll be around.

I don’t know. I just feel very strongly that all is not lost. I feel like big things are around the corner.

We’ll be here, waiting.

Last night we were lucky enough to be able to attend the Hornets annual Top Hats and High Tops gala to benefit the George Shinn Foundation. We had never been before, and we had a lot of fun. It was at the Roosevelt Hotel. Didn’t take too many pics, or really stalk the players, but here’s a short recap, bullet-style.

• Emeka Okafor pulled up and handed his car to the valet just as we arrived. It was a black Benz. Surprise, surprise (if you’ve ever gone to the airport to greet the team after a road trip, you know that this is THE official NBA player car or something).
• Everyone was there, even Sean Marks, Ike Diogu, and Peja. Marks had his arm in one of those huge immobilizing casts that looks like a box. Ike looked fine, but Peja had a bit of a limp. I would not expect him back on the floor just yet.
• Julian Wright sang a John Legend song on stage. He was pretty good!
• Emeka’s date bid on his signed Mardi Gras jersey and photo at the silent auction. And I am pretty sure I saw them walking out with it at the end of the evening too. LOL!
• I didn’t really stare at any of the players’ wives/girlfriends/dates, so don’t even ask for details on them or what they wore.
• We got a player at our table, and they pulled names out of hats to see who. It turned out to be Aaron Gray. He and his date were super nice and put up with everyone at the table talking nonstop about Twitter. Aaron (as George Shinn gives a speech about his cancer): Are you all twittering right now? … We were. We are all horrible people. Haha.
• Aaron Gray ate two dinner plates.
• The event was 1920s themed. Turns out that’s what the ’20s photoshoot the Hornets players did last month was for. They had big, sepia versions of all the players on the wall and in the silent auction.
• One of the coolest silent auction items was the entire team’s signed shoes. It took up like a whole table. I’m not sure what you would do with it.
• I only saw James Posey from afar. Sigh. For those of you who remember, last year Posey was in a bad shooting slump, and the day after I took a picture with him at an appearance, he came out and went off like crazy from three. I took credit, and the joke was, any Hornet who touches me will have a great game the next night. Unfortunately, I forgot about this until late in the evening. The only players who touched Lucky Ticktock6 were Marcus Thornton, Darren Collison, and David West, and let’s face it, they were all going to have good games anyway. Wasted opportunity…
• My goal for the evening was a pic with Buckets. I ended up getting both rookies, because they were sitting beside each other talking when I walked up, and I didn’t want to leave Lil Dimes out. I did not explain to Thornton that I am responsible for him getting stuck with being called “Lil Buckets.” (Niall at Hornets 247 recently told me it says Lil Buckets on his sheet that the Hornets hand around to the media.) Maybe another time…
• The ladies love Peja. I don’t get it. Haha.
• Chris Paul was wearing a velvet blazer and gray and white (I think) Dunks. And glasses. Stylin.

Our table (except mW, who's taking the picture)with Aaron Gray. His date is sitting. I'm on the right. He was popular with the ladies, as you can see.

And… wait for it… wait for it… the highlight of my night:

ROOKIE SANDWICH!!

In person, this looked like he was hugging him around the waist. It was heart-warming and stuff.

Besides this picture.

• Aaron “BIG NASTY” Gray and his random yet masterful D-ing up of Dwight Howard in the Hornets win over the Magic on Friday
• The Hornets giving away a prize a day this month, which you’re eligible for if you renew your season tickets (oh all right, fine, the reason this is on this list is because I won something…)
• Marcus Thornton’s game-icing three on Friday. Everyone had already risen to their feet before he took the shot. It was a moment! It was fun!
• D West’s 40-10 game. Mr. West is in the building! (for people who don’t come to home games, this is the sound clip that plays after every D West bucket… this is its first season. At first I didn’t like it but it’s sort of grown on me. His prior clip was “Wake up, Mr. West-est-est!” Good thing we have Kanye around to provide D West with all his nice beats.)
• Darren Collison’s last 5 games: 24.2 pts/7.6 ast in 43 minutes (43! Oof… CP! Come back!)
• Marcus Thornton’s last 5 games: 22.6 pts/4.8 reb/shooting 49% from the field (seriously) and 43% from three in 32 minutes. Can we please please please put more emphasis on per minutes stats instead of points per game? The Buckets Monster is crazy good at what he does (get buckets) and his stats still look like crap from all those games early in the year when he got 5 minutes of garbage time. Boo.
• Crazy comebacks! This team doesn’t die.
• Myself and mW went to a Hornets season ticketholder dinner on Thursday and Jeff Bower told us that CP is “one to three weeks” away from returning. He’s shooting and riding the bike right now and progressing well in his therapy. Chris Paul himself, when interviewed by ESPN last night, said he doesn’t plan to come back until he’s “110%, because of the style of ball I play.” Let’s hope he’s smart about this!
• THE MARDI GRAS BABY IS GONE! It wasn’t at the game Friday.
• Last night I had a totally weird dream that was probably the result of playing Mass Effect 2 all afternoon and then watching basketball: I dreamed that, while scanning a planet, we unlocked an upgrade that would turn Darren Collison into Chris Paul. Now I’m all fascinated by what kind of an upgrade that would be… “Sticky Gloves — your Shepard holds onto the ball better for 30% less turnovers.” “Prothean Visor– plus 15% to court vision.” “Mental Quickness Implant– you are now a veteran, working the refs in a craftier manner for a 10% free throw bonus to your entire team.” Oh, the possibilities! (Wow, I need to stop gaming… just kidding, no I don’t…)

My non-favorite thing about this week/weekend was the losing. Boo losing. It ruins everyone’s fun. Let’s not do it anymore.

Last time I checked, Mardi Gras was over yesterday. And yet… and yet… I could not believe my eyes when, at the Hornets/Jazz game last night, I looked up and beheld the Cousin of Chucky, with its slightly less terrifying friends the King and the Jester, lining up for its nightly scooter race. When will the terror end, people? WHEN WILL IT END?

Look at its FACE. You cannot tell me it doesn't mean me harm. I won't believe you.

It’s not just that, deep within my soul, I am afraid of this diabolical creature. I now suspect the Baby is causing us to lose. I think (I could be slightly off on this, but hold on, because the stats are still going to bear me out whether I’m off one or two games or not) the Baby made its first appearance in the Clippers home game on January 13th..

Prior to that, the Hornets had an impressive 14-3 home record, enough to rival top teams in the conference and especially impressive considering they were an under .500 team. Since then? SINCE THEN? 3-6. Oh, Chris Paul is out? I call B.S. Chris Paul was out in late November/early December when the Hornets were winning all those home games. Oh, the schedule is stronger? I call B.S. again. The Hornets have recently lost to the likes of the Bulls and the Sixers at home. They even at one point had lost four in a row, something that hasn’t happened all season.

I hope that little boy was still in possession of his soul when the baby was finished with him... No, seriously, I'm really worried about him. This pic gets bonus points for how friggin EVIL the Jester looks. I hadn't noticed it before because I was focused on the baby but wow.

Here it is on a scooter

Thanks to reader Robbie, who emailed me pics, we now have more photographic evidence of the Baby’s existence. Serious props to him. Photographing the Mardi Gras Baby is akin to catching the Sasquatch on film. Actually, I’m surprised it even shows up on camera…

While you’re sitting around waiting for the Super Bowl to start (WHO DAT!), check out Chris Paul’s bowling event, which airs on ESPN today at 2 PM EST/1 PM CST. Here’s a preview:

The Mardi Gras baby creeps me right out. Here, a rare photo of the elusive creature in the wild. Any small children sitting in the vicinity of the courtside seats, I am sure, shrieked in terror at the sight of it.

I’m sure those of you on Twitter have heard me talk about the crazy life size Mardi Gras baby that’s been appearing in one of the Hornets’ timeout “entertainments” during carnival season. Well, last night I put the call out on the Twitterator for someone to send me a picture of it, and here it is.

This description of the phenomenon is from Toney Blare’s SLAM Online recap of the Spurs/Hornets game a couple of weeks ago:

During a break, there appear in the crowd three mascots, each with a large plastic head: a king, a baby, and a jester. We are within breathing room of Mardi Gras, when you eat King Cake, sort of like a super-sugary circle of cinnamon roll. Inside each cake is a small plastic baby, and whoever finds it buys the next cake. Let me say, it gets out of hand in offices all over town for upwards of a month. Now, I’m telling you all of this because I can’t imagine what the Spurs must think. The three mascots “race” down to the court, the baby looking especially ghoulish and slow. They circle through some yellow cones, with the King winning by crossing a purple finish line held by Hugo the Hornet and the Geico Gecko. I didn’t mention him until the end, because he really was the most innocuous of these newcomers. That baby actually scared me, like the clown from IT or some sh*t.

I am not gonna lie, this thing freaks me right out. Maybe it’s because I am also irrationally terrified of the creepy Burger King that lurks around women’s windows in the commercials like a plastic-headed peeping tom. This baby looks way too similar to that for me to be comfortable with it. Maybe it’s like how some people have a fear of clowns. Either way, you better believe that my uneasy truce with the Mardi Gras baby is SOLELY due to the fact that I sit in the last row of the lower bowl, far enough from the court to feel fairly safe from it coming after me.

The baby always loses the race, by the way.

We just had to say congratulations to New Orleans’ other team. Geaux Saints!

And, um, there might be a small, temporary change in the header…

About a week and a half back, I got a ticket to attend the ESPN taping of Chris Paul’s annual celebrity bowling event. Well, here’s my big shiny recap of the day, complete with pictures. Be warned, though, since this is going to be on TV, I can’t tell you who wins. But believe me when I say the ending was about as exciting as you can get in bowling.

The trophy

Upon my arrival at Harrah’s Hotel to catch the shuttle to the event, I immediately see Ludacris wander out (on the phone) and stand right next to where I am. He’s wearing sunglasses and a red leather jacket with his name stitched on it. (I tweet: “Ten minutes ago I was standing right beside Ludacris. He DEFINITELY is not tall. He may be shorter than me.”) Jack Del Rio, coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars, was also there to bowl, as well as LaMarr Woodley and Hines Ward of the Pittsburgh Steelers. (Tweet: “Am standing beside Hines Ward and LaMarr Woodley. I guess they are football ppl or something. They’re not very tall.”) I’m not sure what my strange obsession with celebrity height is. It just seems that every time I meet someone I expect them to be tall, and they’re not. Haha.

Everyone was waiting around for Chris Paul to arrive. Which he did, quite ironically, as I was leaning on a column in the hotel lobby tweeting on my Blackberry about how none of the celebrities were tall. He literally strolled through my field of vision about two feet away. It will probably not come as a shock to you that he is not tall, either. Chris Paul is wearing a Yankees cap and a pair of navy and orange Nikes. I immediately decide to start an obnoxious Twitter rumor about him signing with the Knicks.

We hopped on the shuttles to the event (I was on the one with the Hornets people and PBA people, not the celebrities), which was held on the Belle Chase Naval Base. The audience was basically all servicemen and women, in uniform, and some of them brought their kids. The minute we got there I realized A) the place was really, really small, and B) I was sitting in the front row. I was definitely going to be on TV at some point. Yuck. I pulled my stuff out of my bag and began to furtively tackily do my makeup. Meanwhile, the celebrities and the PBA bowlers they were matched up with started to warm up, as the ESPN crew gave instructions to the crowd.

Jason Belmonte, Pete Weber, and Ludacris

This was the first TV taping of anything I’ve ever been to. I can tell you that it was mostly three things: 1) Hot, 2) Long, and 3) Late. Everything was late. It started late. It ended late. Mostly this was due to the “commercial breaks” they built into it, even though it wasn’t live. So the guy would get on the loudspeaker and tell people they had ten minutes to get food or go to the bathroom. And whenever he did this, the entire audience would– you guessed it– get up. And then it took forever to get everyone back in their seats and continue with the tournament. The event started with a play-in round between Jack Del Rio and LaMarr Woodley to see which of them would be on the fourth team in the main tournament. (I’m not sure that part is going to be televised.) But after that, we didn’t get to take any more pictures, so as not to spoil how it all turns out. Yes, I know who wins, BUT I’M NOT GOING TO TELL YOU. Muahahaha… Chris Paul, however, has never won his own tournament, which, considering the supercompetitor that he is, must really really irk him, so I can tell you he was gunning for it.

Chris & Ludacris

One of my favorite moments involved little CP, Chris Paul’s baby son who was sitting with his parents two rows behind me. At one point, Chris was about to bowl, and little CP starts loudly going, “Da-da! Da-da!” The whole place was silent, so everyone heard him. Chris turned around and gave him a smile and a little wave. Then he bowled a strike. It was super, super cute. My other favorite moment was when Hines Ward dived down the lane on his stomach after making a really big shot. The guys were being goofy and making it fun to watch.

The only other Hornet who made an appearance was Peja, who came for a bit with his five-year-old son. He actually sat right behind me, which is a nice way of saying his knees were in my back because it is really hard to sit on bleachers when you’re 6-10. This is the point in the broadcast where you will definitely see me, because they do a close-up of Peja and put his name up on the screen. And lo, there I will be, trying to look like I’m not looking at myself on the screen across the way. Chris Paul came up and sat behind me and talked to Peja for a bit. Peja was mentioning a present CP had gotten his son for Christmas, I think, and saying his son wasn’t really into basketball (he knows that his dad plays but that’s about it) but ever since then he talks about Chris Paul. Aw. Peja and his son, by the way, do not speak in English to each other.

I did get introduced to and shake hands with both of them. Chris Paul was his usual polite self. I mentioned I had met him before when I won a video contest, and he said, “Oh, that’s right, the MVP video.” (I think this is more a function of there being only one video contest in the last 3 years than Chris Paul having an OMG AMAZING MEMORY, so don’t get too excited. Haha.) I was sitting right in front of the whole Paul family and friends contingent, and they were all very nice.

Me and Hines Ward after he tried to cut me off. Haha

Afterward there was a reception at Harrah’s Hotel. We chatted with some fans, random people, and Hornets employees. I had an entertaining conversation with one of the biggest name-droppers I have ever met (seriously, this guy deserved an award). Hines Ward and LaMarr Woodley amusingly parked themselves at the bar and made themselves the center of the party, chatting and taking pictures with just about everyone who came up to get a drink. They also kept pushing pineapple juice and vodka (ew!) on people. I have one funny celebrity story from that night, and here it is: I went up to the bar to grab myself a drink. After declining the pineapple and vodka, I mentioned that I was going to have one drink, because I had to work the next day. It was only 9:30 at that point. Hines asked me what I did for a living, that I had to be up at 6:30 AM for. I told him, and he informed me he was going to order the perfect drink for me. He turned away for a second, and then turned back to me with…. a bottle of water. I said, “Wait, did you just cut me off?” Him: “Yup.” Other appearances at the party included local artist Amanda Shaw and Danny Glover, who strolled in in a long trench coat and had everyone excited, even Chris Paul.

The event will air on ESPN on Super Bowl Sunday. I recommend watching or DVR-ing if you like:

• actual PBA bowling
• Chris Paul
• glimpses of Ticktock6 looking goofy on national TV
• exciting endings that go down to the very last frame

Below the cut, a gallery of pictures from the event (they’re big, so Scary Loading Time Warning). Huge thanks to Matt of Storm Surge Photography. Please contact him and not me if you’d like to use any of them on your site:

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