Hornets Hype

Finally! The NBA plans to impose fines on floppers next season. (Why oh why couldn’t they have come up with this idea sooner, so we could all be watching Hornets/Lakers right now?) So, right on. If players feel they’re not doing the right thing unless they fall on the floor to “sell” calls, something is awry. Hockey eventually began to penalize diving, and that’s worked out pretty well. Of course, the best part of this article is what Rasheed Wallace had to say about it. I won’t quote it here because, hey, this is not a Sheed blog, but trust me. You’ll be (expletive) entertained.

Over on the official blog, it’s been announced that they’re going to have Hornets Insider articles, along with a couple of other new features, next season. The first one is Eight Things to Know About NBA Scouting, which was an interesting read, especially the parts about the off-the-court stuff the Hornets look at in prospects.

And don’t forget to go to At the Hive and vote on the How’d He Do? season player review series. He’s done Ely, Peterson, West, and Wells so far. (Wow, I decided I was gonna go with all last names on that one to keep it consistent, but it felt really weird to type. Like my fingers really were resistant to not throwing in nicknames or initials. Wah.)

And here’s a sentence you never thought you’d see:

The Spurs are going to have to put better players around their big three. They’re going to have to get younger and more athletic, and they’ll need to get a better power forward to match up with David West in N.O., and Pau Gasol (who will move to the 4 when Andrew Bynum returns) or Odom in L.A.

That’s from the ESPN Roundtable today, which discusses the Spurs’ future. I just love the name drop of D West. A year ago, you didn’t think you’d see that, did you? (Of course you didn’t think Gasol would be in L.A., either, come to think of it…) They also call the Hornets “ascendant.”

Ascendant. Great word.

Anyhow, tomorrow morning I’m taking a flight to Syracuse, on my way to visit the (expletive) awesomeness that is St. Lawrence University, where I will be getting up to All. Sorts. Of. Trouble at my 5 Year Reunion. So I will clearly not be seen in these parts until Monday, not that I’ve been posting much lately anyway. But I do want to go through that playoff swag next week and figure out what to send to who. So ticktock6 = partying. Ticktock6 = not in the NOLA.

And then next Friday is my birthday, which, if someone wants to make it a real memorable one, you know, it would be great to wake up and be notified that next year’s season tickets are now free. Or like, Tyson Chandler on my doorstep… I’m just saying. No? Fine, I’ll just have a Tanqueray and tonic, I guess…

Later, Buzz Friends. I’m out like Ginobili’s flop.

Hear that?

No?

Oh well.

… That sound you did not hear emanating from the southern U.S. was thousands of fans in Phoenix and New Orleans completely failing to summon up a collective cry of concern and outrage on behalf of the San Antonio Spurs.

In two sizes: 1280×960 and 1024×768.

Wallpaper is by Dariusz Ejkiewicz, and you should really go check out the rest of his portfolio, because his Hornets wallpapers are awesome!

I’m trying to move on, really. I’ve been posting on other blogs. I’ve been trying to stay upbeat. I still have the fleur-de-bee desktop picture on my work computer. But being that guy who believes in conspiracies, I started thinking about the teams not named the Magic or Hornets and wondered why David Stern might favor those match-ups….

It could be a Spurs-Pistons, whereby these new Motown kids finally assert their championship pedigree as more than a fluke, or the Spurs solidify their status as a dynasty. Or maybe Kobe does what Shaq couldn’t, namely, beat the Pistons, and makes his own legend; or on the flip side, the Pistons prove they are true champions, beating the Lakers again. Of course, Celtics and anyone is a win for Stern. Beantown’s glory restored by the Boston Three Party; a group of revered veterans get their shots. If they play the Spurs, either the Boston team returns to glory, or the Spurs prove that they are one of the best teams ever. If the Lakers, well, what more can you say, it’s Lakers-Celtics. Stern’s dream come true.

But none of these scenarios include the Hornets and their Hive–which had begun to feel like a second home. And this still feels wrong. So I make a decision to stand by my gut reaction. I decide to refuse to acquiesce to David Stern’s vision of NBA harmony. Sorry, not everyone accepts his Cancer Man-like manipulation. I choose to exercise my freedom not to watch his pre-fab games.

Maybe I’m wrong. But, yes, I still believe he has the power and the will to control games. No, it’s not something that shows up in box scores. It’s not about comparing free throws. It’s about momentum. It’s about psychology. It’s about subtlety. Ask Tim Donaghy. It’s about knowing when what calls will change something without anyone being able to prove anything. Because that’s what makes it a good conspiracy.

But I won’t bite. No more NBA for me. I’m on strike. I won’t just eat whatever bread crumbs are led for me to follow. It’s an NBA Hunger Strike. And this revolution will not be televised. But it will be blogged. Check it out. Or not. That’s your right.

mW gets closure from creating distance between himself and everything related to the NBA. But I knew I had one more season-ending slideshow creation in me.

And this is it.

…The End. Cue The Doors music. Maybe even the swirling ceiling fan reminiscent of the beginning of Apocalypse Now. Consider Jeff Bower our Francis Ford Coppola. Besides, it’s plenty hot and humid now in the Big Easy. And for Hornets fans, the NBA season is over. It’s a hard pill to swallow. All I know is that somehow, over the course of the season, I became a lot more invested in this team than I ever expected to. Somehow, they made me believe.

I attended every home game this year, and watched every televised road game, while catching a few of the rest on the internet, falling just short of catching all of them in one way or another. I screamed my throat raw in pretty much every regard, home or away, watching in a crowded bar or on my couch. I got yelled at once by a neighbor below me for jumping up and down too much during a game. A stranger next to me at a game once told me I needed anger management. It’s been emotional.

Then, somewhere along the way, ticktock6 started this blog and a passion became an obsession. Suddenly watching all the games, garnering support around town, and spending my money at the Arena to help the team weren’t enough. Suddenly I was surfing the internet compulsively, looking for stats, stories, and scoops, all while trying to keep up with tt6’s incomparable wit. And now it’s come to an end. For this season. And it hurts. It hurts bad.

It doesn’t help that I leave the season with the sincere belief that my team was more talented than the one that moved past us in the second round. Fuck, I felt they were as good as any team in the league. Really, I still do. So far, I haven’t managed to watch a third round game; this after watching part of every single Playoff game up to this point–other than the one that was simulcast with a Hornets game that I attended. I guess I don’t know how to deal with it yet. How to deal with such a surprising end. How do deal with the end at all. Or how to deal with a league that for some reason never really embraced the success story that was the Hornets.

I wondered why a lot. The country loved the story of the Saints returning to the Dome a year ago. But then again, that was a redemptory moment, one that symbolically effaced the pain and suffering of a destroyed city. I guess it’s a lot harder for the country to accept that the Hornets have done just as much, if not more, for the revival of New Orleans than the Saints, when no one even wants to acknowledge that this city is still rebuilding. America likes quick fixes and happy endings. Only it’s not that easy here.

And so it becomes about free agency and draft picks and moving on. So I guess that’s what I’ll do. But it’s obvious that I put a little too much of my soul into the team this year. I need to step back. Not that I don’t want to be a fan, or even an ardent one at that. But I need to remind myself that at the end of the day this is just a game. And for now, it’s The End.

Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I’ll never look into your eyes…again

Can you picture what will be
So limitless and free
Desperately in need…of some…stranger’s hand
In a…desperate land

HornetsHype isn’t going anywhere. But for now, the Playoffs are over. The season is over.

The End.

Damn, I said I was gone. I lie, lie, lie.

I’m planning on doing an inventory of any extra Hornets freebies we’ve accumulated over the course of the playoffs. FYI, it’s going to end up going something like, “20 cheer cards, 6 Pejas on Sticks, 2 XL Fan Up! t-shirts, 5 posters, 1 towel, and 4 GEAUX HORNETS car decals.” No, seriously. There is a crawl space behind our entertainment center where we have just been chucking the extras for the last month and a half. If you are an out of town fan and you’d be interested in random Hornets freebies, check back here in the beginning of June. I’ll see if I can try to put something in the mail to you guys.

UPDATE: OK, so I know for a fact I am not going to have a FAN UP t-shirt for everyone who wants one (I’m talking 2-3 tops, all gold, because I was in Tampa for the teal game and because the white one is the only one that is a M and remotely fits me so I’m keeping it), so I wanted to let you know that there are currently several on EBay. I typed in “New Orleans Hornets fan up” and a bunch of them in different colors popped up. I’ll even link you the search.

So it’s hard to see right now. It’s really hard to see.

And yet if you asked me when I began this blog in January, I would have told you, “All I want? At least second round and the team stays in New Orleans.”

Guys, it’s going to happen. It’s happening all around you. Back in January, it was flat-out the only thing I cared about. Eighteen thousand people knew it last night. Eighteen thousand, in a building that only four months ago used to echo hollowly with the cheers of barely half that. Thank you, New Orleans.

And then I come home from the game and flip on the TV, only to hear Chris Paul saying, “It almost brought tears to my eyes, because the fans… I think that’s the thing about our team is that we’re really upset that we lost, but I think the thing that hurts the worst is the fact that it’s summer now. You go your separate ways. We don’t get an opportunity to come in before the game and see the thousands of gold t-shirts, the thousands of white t-shirts, and hear our fans going nuts. We gotta wait a few months to hear that again, and I think that’s the part that hurts so bad.”

You come back strong next year, CP, you hear me? Because you know what? We’ll miss you too.

Chris Paul will win a championship. Book it. The Hornets could very conceivably be in the Finals within the next 2-4 years.

But I won’t forget this team.

And I know that’s no consolation right now for a guy like CP3, who is 100% a competitor. Kobe Bryant may have a trophy that says he’s MVP, but he isn’t, and will never be, The Guy Who Saved Basketball in L.A. Whoever wins the title this year, they are not, and will never be, the Team That Saved Basketball in whatever city.

Believe that, and know that we won something here this season.

I didn’t mean to fall in love with basketball. I didn’t mean to start a blog. But here I am, and, even hungover on a Tuesday morning after staring blankly at a computer screen until 3 AM, I can’t say I’d take back any of it. It’s hard to know that you have everything you wanted, and still feel this way.

Am I going to be here next year? Well, I’m not sure I knew how much I was signing myself up for here. Because if “Higher and Higher” is going to be what I say about the team, then we’ve got to go higher too. I’ve got to figure out what I want to do with HornetsHype. There will probably be some changes and additions over the summer. In fact, for one thing, I can pretty much guarantee that this blog will not have a “Demands” section next season, though the S#*t List will stay. Let’s check them out:

• “More games on national TV.” No doubt the NBA knows what they have here now. Right now that sound you hear is them scrabbling to hitch themselves to Chris Paul like they hitched themselves to D-Wayne Wade. Check.
• “Actual articles about the team from the national media.” Man, we seem so far from the days of the negative and derisive attendance article, don’t we? And yet it’s just three months. Check.
• “Recognition of the Greatness That Is Chris Paul.” Check x10.
• “More Julian Wright.” Oh, no doubt. He stepped up big for the Hornets toward the end of the season, and I look forward to seeing him incorporated to a greater degree next year. Check.
• “Better coverage from the Times Picayune.” This is a huge one for us here at HornetsHype. They finally stepped it up, but T.P. Watchdog will continue to monitor the situation warily when football season starts. Check.

See? All I wanted.

It just really, really sucks right now. I don’t really have the heart to link up any articles, because I can’t deal with reading more than a couple of them. I’m done with the postgame video. Watching Tyson Chandler talking in the locker room, red-faced and avoiding the camera with his eyes, was more than enough heartbreak for me.

In the end, maybe it’s more about experience than we Hornets fans wanted to admit.

You live, you learn.

You take this morning. And you learn who you want to be.

No, seriously. Go to this thread on Hornets Report. I promise it will make you feel better, if you keep in mind that it was posted prior to the game. Just click on it. I promise… Peja on a Stick in London!

P.S. SPURS TROLL INDEX: HIGH. If you are trolling, I will delete you. Consider yourself fairly warned. Wah, wah, free speech, wah, Hornets fans suck. I’m not the one who spends my workday after victories making myself feel cool by saying douchey things on the internet. You’re a real f@*king winner. Whatever. Go complain about it to the owner of the site… Oh wait.

I don’t think I’m going to watch it anymore.

Like, ever.

Or, this week.