Hornets Hype

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.

that the Spurs are a better team. I’m sorry. There’s nothing anyone can say. I know at this end of the season moment is where you’re supposed to be gracious. Where you’re supposed to wax poetic about how great of a season it was. That’s not going to happen here. Check back tomorrow for ticktock’s post if you want that.

All game, we and the people around us were screaming about the calls. But we thought, a real champion overcomes bad calls. We thought, the Hornets couldn’t make a shot. They were outrebounded. They were outdone from the 3 point and free throw lines. But that said, the Hornets kept fighting and refused to surrender. That being the case, the Hornets were still within 4 points with 3 minutes left in the game. The Spurs made every fucking shot they could and they were still only up by 4. Then a touch foul. Take two free throws. People in the stands go nuts. And suddenly, when you’re that close, you realize that with all the calls that went against you and you’re still there, that suddenly, not just “all” those bad calls made a difference, but any one or two might have changed the game. Suddenly, you’re thinking of the 2nd quarter when you had a 1 point lead, and then a timeout, a missed shot, and a touch foul turned it around.

The refs can’t throw a blowout, but they can change a close game. Take for example this switch. CP goes to the basket and lays it in. Traveling call. Seriously? (Anyone see the 3-4 steps Lebron took at the end of his Game 7 and still got the and 1? Yeah. ) Then the Spurs march down and score. So it’s not just a 2 point switch, it’s 4. Add to that the 187 steps Ginobli takes at the other end of the floor, moving from one side of the paint to the other somehow, which brought the entire back bowl out of their seats–a violation that was NOT called–and the subsequent basket and 1 and it’s a free 3 points. Crazy. You have Mo Pete slapped on a three miss, D-West and Tyson and CP driving and no and 1s, while Parker, Duncan, and Ginobli get them time and time again. Now I have to listen to the idiots on NBAtv say Robert Horry has the experience, and the young Hornets don’t, after the cheap fucking shot he took the other night. After all the pulls and pushes and grabs that Bowen got away with, he’s savvy. Fuck, a few calls go different and they’re all saying the Spurs are too old and we’re the next dynasty.

Fuck the Spurs. I’m sorry. I know already how most of the Hornets blogosphere will react to this, let alone the rest of the country. But I don’t care. It’s my blog. I was there. And this is my opinion. My take. Two games in a row were decided by refs, when the Hornets were up 3-2. You say the Hornets lost it, but when they couldn’t get a call on their OWN HOME FLOOR, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me. It’s easy for the Spurs to be gracious. They’re moving on. But after watching the Celtics get fucked by the refs, and bailed out by Paul Pierce, and the Hornets get fucked tonight, it’s obvious that the calls ordained for the first 20-some games of the conference semifinals were on the reverse in these game 7s. The NBA has a long history of conspiracy theories and there’s a reason for it. People are saying Lebron is king, so they want him to win. People are saying the Spurs “aren’t a dynasty” because they’ve never won consecutive championships. Fuck, well, then, just give them one more.

I don’t care. You can’t tell me otherwise. The Hornets were the better team. Were they beat? Yes. Were they beat by a better team? No.

All 14 of the players (and those of you who were on the team and are now elsewhere), the coaches, trainers, and assistants, I salute you. You guys are the best team this city has ever seen. Mr. Shinn, the Hornets organization, you’ve been amazing. As far as the Spurs go, you’ve won 4 championships. Congratulations. But this series, you stole it. No one can convince me otherwise. I hate you.