Hornets Hype

Because HornetsHype loves arts and crafts. And because no one fucks with David West on my watch. And now, for your Game 7 viewing pleasure, I present to you…

Side A…

And Side B…

OK, people, in vain have I struggled with this all day.

If the team wins, I am going to the airport tonight to meet them, and I think there should be AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE. I wrestled with posting this. See, if I plan ahead, I feel like it will jinx them. But then, if I don’t post this, then maybe some people miss out. I am sitting here chanting over and over in my head, “I am not that superstitious. I am not that superstitious.” But man, it is tough for me to type this. Anyway, JUST IN CASE, I am posting the info:

(… OK, just do it. Deep breath. Ready set go.)

What: Hornets Airport Fun

Where: Signature Flight Services, 22nd Street and Aberdeen Street, Kenner, LA. See map below. It’s right off the exit and super easy to find. End of the street on the LEFT.

When: TBD. Game will probably be over around 11ish, so you can figure… shower, press conference, short flight… 2ish? If you’re interested, check back here for flight info after the game.

Who: HornetsHype, Hornets247, HornetsAsylum probably (don’t worry, I can assure you we are all quite normal and attractive looking, despite spending startlingly long quantities of time obsessively digging up Hornets info on the internet), … YOU

What to Bring: Signs, FAN UP stuff, Hornets gear. Hornets Airport Fun is BYOB. This means I will not share my Abitas with you. Bring your own.

I think, in the end, the importance of having people out there outweighs any superstitious jinxing effect posting something like this may have. (That said, the Hornets are 18-1 recently at home, and that one game against the Utah Jazz I don’t think I straightened my hair, I mean I cannot think of anything else I could possibly have done to cause the Hornets to lose in such an egregious fashion… SO I’m going to go take care of that ASAP, if ya know what I mean…)

So FAN UP and get your ass to the airport tonight!!!

But. Only JUST IN CASE.

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“…The Spurs fell into a burning ring of fire…”

Today we’ve got a guest post from one of our regular commenters. This is his story of how he became the Hornets fan that he is today…

“I wasn’t born one. There. I said it.

It was the fall of 1998. I had just gotten divorced and was nursing my wounds in a one bedroom apartment about an hour north of Sacramento, CA. My next door neighbor bore a striking resemblance to Will Ferrell and his personality fit one of his movie characters perfectly. He was also a diehard Lakers fan. Growing up in San Francisco, I was raised to despise all LA teams as if they were Satan incarnate. It just so happens, the Lakers were playing the Kings that year. I became an immediate Kings fan since they were playing the Lakers. I followed the Kings and rooted them on. I still have a license plate frame on my car from their 2001 season.

I moved to New Orleans and arrived New Years Day 2004. One of the first things I was told is that it was pitifully easy to get into Hornets games. Coming from around Sacramento, this did not compute. You couldnt get into Arco Arena without a second mortgage AND knowing someone. Nosebleed seats could be found on Ebay for $200+. I never saw a Kings game at Arco. For Christmas 2004, my brother gave me tickets to the Hornets-Kings at the Arena. Best present ever! My first basketball game with my fav team and my local team (who was #2 to me at the time). This was the season where the Hornets were on their way to the worst record in basketball history. They had 8 wins at that point, I think. The Kings LOST. I lost all respect for them. They traded my favorite players (including Peja). They brought in Artest. ‘Nuff said. Supporting my local team became a LOT easier. I saw a few games as I learned that basketball is more fun to watch live than on TV.

Then came that little storm we had. Overnight, I became militant New Orleans-proud. I got cushy job offers across the country that paid well. No thanks, I like my FEMA trailer. I went to all the games they had here when they were in OKC. The first game back was the Lakers. We lost. I didn’t care, they were BACK. I’ve been to as many games as I could reasonably pull off since then. Almost bought season tickets with some spare insurance money. This year was special from the start. They were looking GOOD. I became a Hornets booster. I suggested everyone should go to the games. Go to the games or we lose the team. Go TONIGHT! Just $10 and there isn’t a bad seat! GO! NOW!!!!! As the season progressed, it started to work. More and more people started going!

Then it hit me. I knew something as a former Kings fan Hornets fans didn’t know. Peja can hit three-pointers all day long, but he tended to choke rather badly in the post-season. I’ve seen him get 5 points in a game in Sac. Just when you thought you could count on him to put a game away, whiff. Airball. Dare I say something? Maybe if I ignored it, it wouldn’t happen again. After Game 1 with the Spurs, I told someone my fears. I prayed I didn’t jinx anything. 22 points. I don’t think he made 22 points in his postseason career in Sacramento.

God bless The New Orleans Hornets.”

This is one fan’s discovering-the-Hornets story. If you have one too, write it up and send it to me at ticktock6@gmail.com. I’ll post it on the site. The Hornets are converting people everywhere this season, and the Movement grows!

Who’s got their ride decorated for the playoffs?? I’ve been seeing more and more Hornets gear around town. The “GEAUX HORNETS” decals have been given away free at every official Hornets playoff event I’ve been to in the last three weeks. If you still haven’t gotten your hands on one, I’d investigate the Buzzfest on Saturday night. I saw some there on Tuesday. I also picked up about four at the Watch Party (what? those people won’t take no for an answer when they’re tossing free swag).

If you’ve got a Hornets ride, send me a picture at ticktock6@gmail.com, and I’ll put it in my album and on the site! (But I doubt you can beat mine. I mean, my car is friggin’ teal.)

Just a roundup of the good hype I’ve read over the past couple days:

Holy Positive Attendance Article! In USA Today. Finally. I’ve been waiting for a bunch of these to roll in. Of course, the positive ones have been slower in coming than the negative ones that were all over the place during the winter.

CP3 = King of PER: Chris Paul leads, oh, everyone in the playoffs in PER at 32.36. Kobe and Dwight come in a distant second and third at 28.31 and 28.26 respectively.

Who Made You? with Tyson Chandler: Video here. LOL at lil Tyson looking exactly like now Tyson, minus facial hair.

Mo Pete/Bart Fun: In case anyone missed it (and you shouldn’t have, since it’s been various places including Sportscenter), here’s the video of the Hornets doing trick shots in practice the day after clinching the Dallas series. Along with bonus extras from Alejandro de los Rios. And– if you’re a fan of sketchy low-budget local ads– the original Mo Pete trick shot in the Morris Bart commercial!

Why Am I Not Surprised? … that after they spent 40 minutes doing trickshots, the Hornets broke out in a spontaneous dodgeball game.

I Told You TrueHoop Dispensed Hornets Love: And here’s more, in the form of a fun Mike James interview.

And One Bee-llion (Ha. See what I did there) More Links: … located at Hornets247.

And here’s a bonus: If you’re in the CBD and you’ve got a lunch break, there’s going to be a Hornets second line going through the Quarter, starting at Café Du Monde at 11:30 and concluding at Harrah’s. There will be Soul Rebels, Hugo, Honeybees, and our favorite SerbSicles. They’ll be tossing out giveaways (T shirts, car stickers, and such) too.

Enjoy your Fan Up Friday!

You might say the fans were slow to embrace the Hornets. You may say the Hornets organization had a lot to make up for after Oklahoma City. But as we stepped out of the arena after the Hornets’ 99-94 series clinching win, the first thing that greeted us was the sound of a brass band… and a big crowd gathering for a second line, dancing and waving towels around. I thought, “You got something right.”

I love New Orleans. I love the Hornets.

Quote of the Night: “But Bonzi can’t be without his headband. He’ll lose his ninja powers!”

Runner-Up:

The lady next to mW: “Um, I think you might need to go to anger management after this game.”

mW: “No, I’ll be fine if we win.”

Chant of the Night: So there was a fan in 118 who had a sign that said “Stop the Flop” and had a picture of a stop sign and a #41 blue jersey. They put it up on the jumbotron just as Dirk was shooting free throws after a particularly flailing flop, and the crowd just picked it up and ran with it. “STOP THE FLOP! STOP THE FLOP!” Awesome.

OK, so Sunday night on the postgame press conference, Chris Paul said he wants to see the arena in GOLD.

This is gonna be one of those moments when I’m going to bitch about the Hornets organization. I love ‘em, but… remember how I said we needed to organize the fans better? This is a prime example. OK, scratch that. Except the part about loving the Hornets. See the bottom of the post for an explanation.

Because the players said they wanted gold. Tyson just said it again on his blog today. And CP3’s quote was in the paper, but people might have missed that. Yet… the giveaway tonight is thunderstix. Now I’m not saying it’s reasonable to get 20,000 t-shirts printed on short notice because the players want gold and not teal, but… you know, they could have sent around an email or posted something on the site telling people definitively what to wear. Complicating the issue is the fact that the “Fan Up New Orleans!” shirts are teal. And the previous giveaway was black. And prior to that, white. See the problem? People are not gonna wear the gold gear if they don’t have any (unless you want to see a sea of LSU), and people are not gonna wear a solid color at all unless it’s splashed all over town that they’re supposed to. I think whenever they do t-shirts they should put them on the seats so people realize they have to put one on.

So. Will the fans pull this together to look impressive tonight?

I’m gonna go with, “Ha. No.”

At least we can yell.

Update: I’m told (check out the comments) that CP surprised everyone with that remark, and the staff was scrambling around looking for 18,000 gold shirts on short notice. So… I apologize for the criticism. At least they tried! SO. What to wear? I’m going to wear my teal TC #6 jersey over yellow, and call it a compromise.

First off, this short video feature from TNT, which interviews several New Orleanians about the team. It’s only 1:50, so you should go watch it, if only to see the Hornets doing their get-psyched-up dance in the hallway of the arena. I love how Julian Wright is right in the middle, because you know when there’s any kind of crazy dance going on, JuJu is all over that.

Second, there’s some pretty random Hornets stuff on YouTube. I’ve picked you a real gem to start off with today. This takes place in the Staples Center locker room when the Hornets played at the Lakers last fall and features Jannero Pargo rocking a beater and a tie (Ely: “You should see the tie he has on. It matches nothing he has on now”), and Melvin Ely trying to explain Justin Timberlake’s Dick in a Box without actually saying any dirty words.

For the love of the Hornets, I beg you.

Stop having them.

No, really. It’s the playoffs. This stuff counts now. The Hornets marketing people need to take a serious look at what they might be doing to the team. As a refresher, let’s take a look at the Hornets’ record this season for Official Watch Parties:

2/23 @ San Antonio… L 89-98

3/16 @ Detroit… L 84-105

3/28 @ Boston… L 92-112

4/11 @ LA… L 104-107

4/25 @ Dallas… L 87-97

So not only do the Hornets have to contend tonight with their record of 0-14 in Dallas’ arena over the last 10 years, they also have to deal with the 0-5 Kiss of Death that is the officially sponsored watch party. Thanks a lot, guys. On Friday I seriously wanted to tackle Brittany, wrestle the mike away from her, and yell, “NO! The watch party for Sunday will NOT be here at Gordon Biersch! It is cancelled! Stay away! GO HOME PEOPLE, GO HOME!”

Now, you haters out there might be saying, “Well, Ticktock, those five games are against quality playoff teams. In fact, with the exception of Dallas, none of those teams finished lower than a #3 seed.”

Whatever. I know better. It’s the Watch Party of Doom. You’ll notice that the Hornets have beaten four out of five of those teams on other nights (the exception is the 0-for against the Pistons this year). The Hornets have even won road games against two of those teams. Shit, they only lost 15 road games this season.

So next you might be saying, “Well, if you feel that way, then don’t go.” But see, that’s the thing. It doesn’t matter if I don’t go. I’ve only gone to two. Who attends is not the issue. Also not the issue is the location of the party. The losses have taken place three times at Bruno’s, twice in Covington, and once at G.B. It’s the very existence of the party that causes the Hornets to lose.

For the sake of the series, I hope the Hornets come out firing tonight. That’s a lot of baggage, but I hope they can overcome.

We, for the record, will not be going.