NBA shows it pays to be an idiot

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© St. Petersburg Times
published May 14, 2002

Some choices are difficult. Some choices are between head and heart, between want and need, between long-term and short. Some choices gray the hair and vex the spirit.

This is not one of those. This one is easy.

A bad owner or a good market?

Which do you pick?

On the one hand, you have Charlotte. Not merely a good NBA market, but a great market. For years, fans in Charlotte couldn't get enough of pro basketball. They packed into the Hive in record numbers, they went a little nuts and they drove owners across the league wild with envy.

On the other hand, you have George Shinn, greed merchant.

Ah, what an absolute layup of a decision. If this poses as a problem, you think, what an absolute joy David Stern's job as commissioner must be.

Until you remember this:

The NBA chose Shinn.

The official vote went like this. Money-grubbing, hard-hearted owners voted in favor of a money-grubbing, hard-hearted owner to go someplace else and grub money with a hard heart.

Thanks for playing.

Barring an upset of the Nets, Charlotte has seen the last of the once-beloved Hornets. Even if the Hornets get one more game, or one more series, it doesn't matter. Soon, the moving vans will come, and the drivers will head to New Orleans, and something special will have died.

Shinn killed it. In the end, it was a rejection of Shinn, rather than the Hornets, that kept fans away. It was Shinn who let all the popular players go. It was Shinn who wouldn't give control of the team to Michael Jordan. It was Shinn who grumbled despite nine years of sellouts. You get the feeling someone else -- anyone else -- could have gotten a new coliseum built. Not Shinn.

The first rule of sports, however, is the owners never lose. Even when they should. Shinn will get richer in his new town, even though he fouled the water in his old one. And the NBA seems to think things are just ducky.

For the life of me, I can't figure this out. It's a lot harder to find a good market than a bad business partner. Why, then, do pro sports leagues always seem to make the wrong choice?

Take Major League Baseball, for instance, where commissioner Bud Selig has studied the list of problems that include economic disparity, competitive imbalance, growing disinterest and a looming work stoppage, and decided, "Aha. There are too many teams."

And so Commissioner Bud set out to whack two teams. But first (and this was the important part) he decided to absolutely, positively take care of the owners of the teams in those fouled-up areas. Twins owner Carl Pohlad was going to make millions of dollars. Expos owner Jeffrey Loria was given a new team. Comfy, fellows?

But if Minnesota and Montreal are bad cities for a franchise, don't Pohlad and Loria bear some responsibility for it? Didn't the Twins once draw 3-million fans and win World Series titles? Even the Expos, as lamentable as they have become, once drew 2-million.

What, exactly, have these guys done to be rewarded?

Aha, you say. But they're a business. Right. Except when it comes to stadium time, when they become a "public treasure." Subway is a business, too. If a franchise owner ruins a good location by bad management, does the company pay him lots of money to fold? Does it give him a different store in a different location?

The NFL, by the way, is no better than the NBA. Since it was slapped around in court by Al Davis, it has pretty much acted as if franchise free agency is none of its business. By its inaction, the league has allowed Robert Irsay to abandon Baltimore, Art Modell to abandon Cleveland, Georgia Frontiere to abandon Los Angeles, Bud Adams to abandon Houston. Bill Bidwill, who once abandoned St. Louis, is now hinting about abandoning Phoenix.

Were those all bad cities?

Or were those bad owners?

And if they're bad owners, why not get rid of them?

That's the problem here. No matter how many facilities it builds, no matter how many tax breaks it gives, a city has no protection from a lousy ownership group. No matter how many fans pour into an arena, no matter how many jerseys they buy, it never is "their" team.

That's why it's so easy to feel Charlotte's pain today. Most cities have a Shinn or two as an owner and, frankly, no idea what to do about it.

Once, I made a suggestion that voters should elect the owners of their franchises. It bears repeating. As long as cities are in the business of paying for stadiums, maybe they should purchase the teams while they're at it. The guess here is there would be fewer ticket increases, fewer new stadiums and grand laughter to be shared at election time.

(Local results: Glazers win in a landslide, Davidson gets one more term to prove himself and Naimoli runs unopposed.)

The pro leagues, of course, would hate that idea. Secretly, owners don't mind teams darting across the map to seek better stadium deals. Because it increases their own leverage.

In a way, this is a great day for the NBA. It just freed up a great market. Charlotte has just become the newest way to threaten the local politicians.

But if you run a sports league, after a while, don't you value the best of markets over the worst of partners? Why bend over backward to protect the likes of Shinn?

Here's what the NBA should have said when Shinn came to it with the idea of moving to New Orleans. "Great! You'll love it there! Great restaurants, great history. We wish you well. But, uh, you're going to leave the Hornets in Charlotte."

That, too, would send out a warning.

Impeachable ownership. What a wonderful concept.

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