Hornets Hype

1 Dead in Attic

“Without your sweet kiss
My soul is lost, my friend
Tell me how do I begin again?
My city’s in ruins..”

You might have noticed our banner looks different. That’s because today is August 28, 2009, and tomorrow marks the four year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The graffiti is meant to match the markings the various police and military units spray painted on the houses to show that they had been searched. Usually it took the form of a large X. At the top of the X was the date the house was searched. On one side was the name of the unit that searched that particular house. And at the bottom was the number of dead. Ours says 1,577 because that is the official death toll in New Orleans, although many more people are still counted among the missing.

I urge you to please read the lengthy memorial post I wrote last year. Why didn’t I do a similar one this year? Well, I have to be honest. Writing that one took a lot out of me. Just thinking about this takes a lot out of me. So please read it, or if you already read it last year, read it again. It has more of my Katrina experience (and an excerpt from my personal blog that I wrote the day I left) than you will see here.

Why weren’t some Americans able to see themselves in the photographs that came out of New Orleans in the nightmarish week after Katrina? Because the people in them were poor? Elderly? Overweight? Black? I don’t know. I saw myself in those pictures. Four years ago today, we sat in traffic through three states, through the beginnings of the rain, to get out of the city. We slept on the ground at a rest stop in Alabama. We finally got to our destination, and I slept all day. I woke up in late afternoon to see on the news that the city was wind-damaged but mostly okay. It wasn’t until the next day that the water started to come in, that there were reports of broken levees and people swimming through the streets and the Superdome and the Convention Center filling up with people. I was glued to the internet grabbing up every scrap of information– which streets were underwater, what was happening, what was gone and what was still there– And the water kept coming.

I was angry for a long time. It was hard to know who to be angry at, with so many people to blame at so many levels of government. The people of this city were betrayed. In the richest country in the world, what reason would you have to not feel safe? But I– and hundreds of thousands of others– will never feel safe again. I know, for me, it wasn’t until I walked behind that curtain last November to cast my vote that I felt absolved of some of the anger. That’s just me, though. I’m sure it’s different for others.

Sometimes people ask me why I’m so militant about the Hornets staying in New Orleans, why it sometimes seems like I’ve made it my personal mission to police the NBA news and blogs for errors or misinformation about the Hornets location (not in Charlotte– I’m looking at you, SI.com), possible relocation (not happening in the foreseeable future), and attendance (it’s fine– the Hornets ranked 8th in the NBA in percentage of capacity). I do take it personally. And I also take personally the national sports media’s obsession with proving LeBron James cannot possibly be happy in Cleveland, or Chris Paul cannot possibly be happy in New Orleans. That these players are being “wasted” in small markets. I feel this way for three reasons: 1) In the world of NBA League Pass and the internet, great players being in small markets no longer means viewers have no way of seeing them. 2) Please enlighten me on what endorsements and sponsorships LeBron James has missed out on by not being in New York or LA. Oh right, none. 3) I resent the implication that large market teams “deserve” these great players more than smaller market teams.

And I see that implication every day. Every time a quote comes out that has even a small possibility of being twisted to make it look like Chris Paul is leaving New Orleans, man, these people pounce on it. And twist it. And repost it. And write misleading headlines. It’s like they hate that he’s here.

I ask you to look at these pictures. I’ll warn you ahead of time that some of them contain graphic imagery. Look at these pictures, some of which happened within blocks of New Orleans Arena, where the Hornets play today, four years later. And tell me we don’t deserve to be cut some slack. Tell me we don’t deserve a basketball team. Tell me we don’t deserve Chris Paul.

I’ll wait.

[More]

Well, it’s not supposed to be out for a couple of hours, but this is what it says on NBA.com at the link I posted earlier. It’s still labeled 2008-09, but this is definitely NOT our schedule from last year, plus the dates match up with this year’s dates. Check it out!

NOTE: I stole this off NBA.com, and it’s not showing up anymore, so do not blame me if they make changes!! UPDATED NOTE: Lookin good!

Whoo! Looks like we have 9 major nationally televised games (ESPN/TNT) plus 7 on NBATV. That’s 16, even though I’m not sure you can count NBATV games. Ya gotta love having Chris Paul on your team. Still, I just read the Clippers have the same amount. So I no longer feel good about this. I feel sickened.

This only works if you are a really, really fast reader, but if you click the link below, you can see what looks like our 2009-10 schedule (the dates match up, and the games are different from last year) before it redirects back to last year’s schedule. Oh, NBA, fining people for leaking schedules and then putting them up on NBA.com. UPDATE: The whole schedule appears to be up now. I’ve posted it.

http://www.nba.com/schedules/index.html?team=hornets

It looks like:

• We have several nationally televised games again
• We start 10/28 on the road at San Antonio
• First home game is vs. Sacramento
• For once, we end with a bunch of home games as opposed to the asskicker of a stretch run we’ve had the last two years

But again, that’s if this is indeed the schedule. We’ll find out for sure this afternoon. Also this afternoon is the Hornets’ press conference to officially introduce Emeka Okafor. I’ll probably throw up some links related to that later.

(Yes, my mood is “cold.” What? The A/C is madly ridiculous at my desk.)

Free hats. Disclaimer: This picture was not supposed to look so naked. There

We checked out the official Hornets draft party last night down at Gordon Biersch, as some of you who might have been following my Twitter feed already knew. Living in New Orleans we usually try to make it out to as many of the Hornets events as we can.

It was about an hour before the draft when I hopped into a space at the bar and started to follow the rumors that were going down on Twitter, which was creaking along there and might have actually died at one scary point due to Michael Jackson’s death (RIP). Everyone was running with the idea that Phoenix might be trading Amare Stoudemire to Golden State or Ben Wallace to New Orleans for Tyson Chandler or possibly both. Meanwhile an older gentleman at the bar was buying me shots of Jager and trying to convince me that I did not, in fact, want to watch the draft at all– I wanted to go across the street to Harrahs and play the slots.

I was pretty sure I wanted to watch the draft, however, so I stayed, and chatted with some nice people I’d been Twittering back and forth with (I’m not sure Twittering is the verb, but I really hate to say Tweeting, so I’m going to declare that, on this blog at least, I was Twittering.) After a while mW got there. Oh, in fact here we are (The below video is approximately 12 seconds of me yelling because I can’t hear myself. I actually had no idea if you could hear me at all until I just watched it. Um, you can. Because I’m yelling.):
Hornets draft party! on 12seconds.tv

Now, for those of you looking for all the salacious celebrity pics, I forgot my camera and was following the draft on my laptop, which I had out on the bar. I also realized that I’d picked a spot close to one Hornets table, but the players were actually at a different table on the opposite side of the room. So not only did we not want to lose our spot, which I had staked out 2 hours prior, but there were about a hundred people packed into the approximately 30 foot space between us and CP. I was more concerned about melting before we even got as far as the #13 pick than stalking Hornets players. Therefore I had to acquire all these pics the good old-fashioned blogger way: uncredited, from Getty Images. But I will assure you that Chris Paul and Julian Wright were there. I could hear their voices, even if I couldn’t see them. (If it had been Tyson Chandler, I probably could have seen him over the crowd from my barstool, but we are talking about CP here.) The Hornets ran some interactive fan contests, and it seemed like everyone packed into that itty bitty area had fun.

CP is interviewed outside by some local stations, ticktock6 realizes in terror that this is the same CST mic that was stuck in her face into which she has NO. EARTHLY. IDEA. what she rambled on about. Oh help.

I have to admit I was unenthusiastic about #21 pick Darren Collison. I know next to nothing about him. Well, I know next to nothing about college ball in general, so that’s hardly a surprise. But I really thought we should’ve take DeJuan Blair, who ended up falling into the second round presumably because teams were scared off by his knee surgeries. I am fairly sure I managed to control these opinions when some cameramen came up and shined a light on me and asked me what I thought. I am also fairly sure I talked for a while. I am also fairly sure the two Jager shots had a significant effect on the fact that I kinda forgot about this whole experience till the above picture of Chris Paul and the CST mike jogged my memory and I realized that’s who I talked to. So, if you’re watching whatever draft montage they put together and air as a pregame or halftime feature next fall, and the girl wearing turquoise and (I think, oh lord) a Hornets draft cap backwards comes on and talks a mile a minute, that is me. CST, feel free to not use this footage. Anyhow, I feel a lot better about the Collison pick today, having checked out At the Hive’s post regarding his stats (they’re right up there or better than some lottery PGs). He was a 4 year college kid and didn’t have the hype of some of the others, but I think we’ll all remember we have a guy named David West who was in a similar situation when we drafted him and turned out all right.

I should make a note here that by the time we left the party I’d managed to collect Hornets beads, a turquoise T-shirt (I already have this particular one, and it’s XL… we may have 1 or 2 up for grabs), and the aforementioned Hornets draft cap, which was given to me by @hornetsdotcom. I have been asked a lot of times around town where I got such and such magnet or sticker or whatever, and the answer is you should try to make it to at least one official watch party a season, because they give out massive amounts of Hornets shwag. This particular party, however, should probably have been at a larger venue, because the place was packed wall to wall from when the draft started through when Chris Paul left. But overall, the staff at GB is highly awesome and they’ve hosted some solid Hornets events.

This nice man drew CP's picture

There were other fun moments about the draft, like the Minnesota Timberwolves Mad Point Guard Rampage of 2009, but the other significant moment for the Hornets didn’t happen until we were already home. We watched Blair finally go to San Antonio (where he’ll probably be perversely good, causing us to hate San Antonio more than we already do), and LSU product Marcus Thornton go to Miami at 43. Then a couple of minutes later, David Stern’s apprentice minion (I didn’t know that Stern doesn’t hang around to do the second round, funny!) came to the podium again. As soon as he said, “The Miami Heat convey the rights to the #43 pick Marcus Thornton…” I just had a feeling it was us. And sure enough, it was! So the Hornets ended up with two picks after all. (From what I’ve read today, Thornton was always on our board, and as soon as he didn’t get picked in the first round, the Hornets got on the phones.)

Whew. Crazy end to a crazy week in the NBA. But you know what? We got through another big trade week without selling low on Tyson Chandler, who, I have been vehemently arguing to anyone who will listen, deserves a chance to prove he can rebound from his injury before we melodramatically rant and rave about how he’s “NEVER GOING TO BE THE SAME AGAIN!” We turned a lone low #21 pick in a junky draft into two guys who can hopefully fill roles on the roster and allow CP to get some rest and the Hornets to shop Antonio Daniels’ expiring contract with no worries. We drafted safe, 4-year player types. The Hornets’ front office sneakily drafted a 2nd rounder who, if he makes the team, will appeal to local fans and create buzz. Sometimes I am concerned that they don’t “get” this market, so that was a good thing to see. And maybe I’m being a girl here, but it kinda made me all warm and fuzzy to see the team give the local kid a chance to play for his hometown team.

About the t-shirt. I’d give it to a commenter who wears an XL, but I don’t know…. I think the Hype Cat has an interest in it…

Hype Cat's New Hornets T-Shirt

I hate that it took a humiliating 58-point loss to get this to finally, finally happen. It sucks. It does  not make everything right, and seeing these words on ESPN is not worth what we’ve gone through as Hornets fans in the last month.

But reading this from Marc Stein makes me feel oddly vindicated and satisfied in a way that I would not expect I could feel this morning:

“It’s not just that the Hornets folded so meekly and early at home, which is sufficiently unforgivable.

Or that they also lost games to the Nuggets by 29, 15 and 21 points.

It’s that the Hornets unashamedly quit so quickly in Game 4 after fans in New Orleans showed up this season with greater regularity than the team could have ever dreamed, shaming misinformed know-it-alls like me who kept telling you that local residents couldn’t possibly invest their time and money into something as trivial as rooting for the local basketball team after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

The Hornets consistently played at near-capacity in a building that holds 17,188, selling out well over half of their games. It seems that we were all wrong about the post-Katrina viability of NBA basketball in the Crescent City.

Not nearly as wrong, though, as foisting the unspeakable score line of Nuggets 121, Hornets 63 on a ridiculously loyal fan base in their farewell ’til next season.”

I know we already knew this. But I didn’t realize how good it would feel to have a major media outlet finally write the truth about New Orleans and the Hornets. Accompanied by the words “we were all wrong.” And I thank Mr. Stein for saying it.

I’m feeling so warm and fuzzy I think I have to take him off the $#*t List.

As for how I feel about the Hornets, better to ask me again in a month. Because– and I am not saying I don’t love this team, and I am not saying I’m cancelling my season tickets or never blogging again or anything like that– I agree with Marc Stein. I hope they know that when they said “F this!” to the game on Monday, they did that to me. They did that to us.

I don’t have anything else to say about it, except that I hope they know.

Eleven thousand words:

Dear Hornets,

If you’re going to lose this series, lose it with this much fight, and we will love you just the same.

Sincerely,

Us.

… that Game 3 is not yet sold out.

I heard this from a friend who was able to purchase a ticket in the front row of the upper bowl, center court, this morning. Ladies and gentlemen of New Orleans, this is B.S. of the highest order, and I will not stand for it. We sold out tons of games against scrubby teams this year. We had the highest attendance increase in the NBA. We put season ticket holders in the entire lower bowl. And people who claim to be fans are not going to this game?

“Oh, we’re afraid to go because the team might lose again! Wah, the NFL draft is tomorrow (Seriously? SERIOUSLY? I would have more fun watching my cat lick his butt for six hours). Wah, it’s Jazzfest! Wah, it’s at noon! Waaaahhhh!”

Bluto’s Speech

Now go forth and tell everyone you know that there is playoff basketball tomorrow at 12:00 noon. Tell them the chance to support NEW ORLEANS on national television (ESPN) is not to be missed. Neither is m*@#$%f*@king playoff basketball.

Before I lose my mind and do something drastic.

But some of it is!

It's just... that you mentioned a party

If you’re looking for some like-minded staying-up-late folks to watch the game with, come on down to the watch party at Handsome Willy’s. It’s hosted by Hornets247.com and NOLA.com, so it’s not technically our party. But you can pretend it is, if that makes you feel better, ’cause we’ll probably be there. The party starts at 8:30, about an hour before the game, and there’ll be food on the grill and drinks at the bar and all that other lovely stuff.

Or you could go to the official one, which is in, like, Hammond or something– which I think is on the Northshore, I don’t know, I went to a party on the Northshore once but all there was was a strip mall plaza and a lot of trees and I got lost and it was kind of sketchy… LAME! (Sorry, if you happen to live in Hammond and I’ve just insulted you– SORRY! You can come beat me up. I promise. Too bad it’ll take you two hours to get here and I’ll already be long gone.)

I’m getting that two-roads-diverged-in-a-wood feeling with this one. My favorite thing about basketball is sitting in my seat in the first quarter, waiting to see how everything’s going to unfold in front of you– it’s about possible futures, it’s about a thousand bounces, a thousand whistles, a thousand ways the game could play out. So in one future, the Hornets win this game, tonight, then get their swagger back. They take the two at home, win the series here in six, and San Antonio has been too beaten up by Dallas to put up much of a fight, and so the Hornets get their revenge matchup, and this time they win, and it’s the Lakers in the Conference Finals, just like none of this up-and-down season ever happened. I see Chris Paul happy, I see the team swallowing the luxury tax to keep the core together. But then I also see the other, darker, future. I see the Hornets collapsing in five, I see Tyson Chandler traded for a non-playoff team’s leftover pieces, the team left without a 7-footer and without a chance against the Lakers, a down year, another draft pick come to nothing, the team getting older, CP not resigning…

The future is too heavy in the air tonight.

In the interest of celebrating the bigger picture, the Hornets had the highest attendance increase in the NBA this season.

The New Orleans Hornets saw their gate increase by 20 percent this season, the highest increase in the NBA, while the Sacramento Kings had the biggest drop in attendance with a 10 percent decline.

Biggest gains (through April 13)
New Orleans Hornets: 20.3%
Indiana Pacers: 17.5%
Philadelphia 76ers: 7.0%

So that just goes to show you– don’t tell the people of New Orleans they can’t do something!

Today after work. Fulton Square. 6:00-8:30. Be there and be wearing teal & gold!

From Hornets.com:

This free event will take place from 6-8:30pm and will include appearances by the entire Hornets team and coaching staff, Hugo, the Honeybees, the Used to Bees and other Hornets personalities and entertainment groups. Live music will be provided by Rockin’ Dopsie and the Soul Rebels Brass Band along with interactive games, contests, and face painting. Merchandise, food and drink specials will also be available throughout the event.

FYI, this is where everyone got the FAN UP yard signs and GEAUX HORNETS car stickers last season. I don’t know what they’ve got in store for us this year, but there are bound to be great freebies and fun. And the team’s going to be there too! (You know, for all you stalker types.)

The first two people to come tag me get free playoff tickets– HA! Yeah, right. I already have my tickets, but there’s no way anyone else is touching them!! But seriously, do feel free to come up and say hi. I’ll be the one wearing these shoes and looking, well, pretty much like this, except for hopefully with better hair.

We can’t control what the media thinks of the team. We can’t control injuries. We can’t control how the team is going to play in this series. Home court and seeding and end-of-season slumps? All out of our hands. But this is New Orleans, and the one thing we can do is come to party.

The weather’s just fine down here! 71 and hardly humid. Perfect playoff climate.

FAN UP NEW ORLEANS!