I think this hurts the NBA with people who love tradition. I would have voted against it and let OKC fight for an expansion team.
What tradition? Basketball, far more than the other sports, has a tradition of moving franchises around almost at will and without care. Hell the Nets finally got good for a while, promptly got bought up and are being shifted to Brooklyn.
I don’t think Basketball and tradition are words that fit each other very well.
Can’t argue with that, at least as far as the NBA is concerned.
I can’t wait to see how many games the Ok. City “Thunderthighs” manage to lose. I’m hoping around 80%.
I doubt that. My suspicion is that Clay Bennett will find some money somewhere that he can use to pay for good players. When he was in Seattle, gosh, he was so poor, he couldn’t even afford to own the team. Now that he’s in Oklahoma City, he’s suddenly going to be a millionaire again and hire players.
Sadly, I just don’t care much any more. I only tend to watch the last 5 minutes of games and a few of the playoffs. I only follow the Nets weakly, knowing they will soon be gone and I continue to enjoy the misfortune that the assholes known as the Dolans cause themselves. I use to root for both the Knicks and Nets, (I know, weird) but now I root against the Knicks and I will do so until they are sold.
The Dolans are the worst owners in sports. If they did not hold a virtual monopoly in their cable business, their constant terrible “fuck you fans” approach to business would have bankrupted them.
Even though the team has been playing at a high level as of recent years, the ownership of the Phoenix Suns has to be the biggest giver of the middle finger to their fans.
You aren’t the only one saying such things and it shows that there is a perception problem for the NBA. But it is not the reality, Your quote is true in when compared to MLB. But by North American professional standards the average NBA franchise is more stable than the NFL & just about as stable as the NHL. Lets look at the Teams that moved since 1984:
**NBA: **
1984: San Diego Clippers moved to Los Angeles.
1985: Kansas City Kings moved to Sacramento.
2001: Vancouver Grizzlies moved to Memphis.
2002: Charlotte Hornets moved to New Orleans.
2008: The Seattle SuperSonics will move to Oklahoma City for the 2008-09 season, with the franchise set to adopt a new name in its new city. As a part of the settlement of a lawsuit that had been filed by the city of Seattle, the city will retain the Sonics’ name and colors, while the franchise history will be jointly held by the Oklahoma City team and any future NBA team in Seattle.
**
NFL: **
1984: Baltimore Colts moved to Indianapolis. The team’s offices were slipped out of Baltimore in the middle of the night to avoid a proposed eminent domain seizure by the state of Maryland.
1988: St. Louis Cardinals moved to the Phoenix area, playing games in nearby Tempe. The team now plays in another Phoenix suburb, Glendale. The team was renamed the Arizona Cardinals in 1994.
1995: Los Angeles Rams moved to St. Louis.
1995: Los Angeles Raiders moved back to Oakland. Since then, Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest market, has not hosted an NFL franchise.
1996: Cleveland Browns moved to Baltimore and became the Baltimore Ravens. In response to a fan revolt and legal threats, the NFL awarded a new franchise to Cleveland in 1999, which for historical purposes is considered a continuation of the original Browns franchise.
1997: Houston Oilers moved to Memphis and became the Tennessee Oilers. The team originally planned to play both 1997 and 1998 in Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium in Memphis before moving to their intended destination of Nashville. However, due to poor attendance, the team moved to Nashville in 1998, playing in Vanderbilt University’s stadium. The team was renamed the Tennessee Titans in 1999, when their new stadium was opened.
NHL
1982: The Colorado Rockies moved to East Rutherford, New Jersey and became the New Jersey Devils.
1993: The Minnesota North Stars moved to Dallas and became the Stars.
1995: The Quebec Nordiques moved to Denver and became the Colorado Avalanche.
1996: The Winnipeg Jets moved to Phoenix and became the Coyotes.
1997: The Hartford Whalers moved corporate offices to Raleigh, North Carolina and became the Carolina Hurricanes. For two years they played home games in Greensboro while an arena was under construction in Raleigh.
By NBA standards (ref. above roughly the same as all professional sports in N.America save the MLB) the Supersonics have a great tradition. They have been playing in Seattle since LBJ’s administration. They played for the NBA Championship 3X (most recently 12 years ago), won their Conference titles 6 times and been to the playoffs many more times
The seven playoff appearances of the Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp teams, Tom Chambers, the Xman, Sikma losing the NBA championship to the Bulletts 30 years ago this June, & sinking the Bulletts 30 years ago next June are just a few of the traditions of the Sonics.
See, what is funny is you picked 1984, where as I remember when the New Orleans Jazz moved to Utah and yet kept the name. That was 1979.
I know why the Lakers are called the Lakers, though I don’t remember when they moved from Minneapolis. It had to be in the 60s.
I am already counting the Nets as a move, even though that won’t happen until 2010 and of course I remember when the moved to NJ in 1976 and the NBA and the Knicks completely screwed them over. No seriously, read up on it one day.
I just barely remember when the Hawks moved to Atlanta, but I honestly don’t remember where they came from. That was around 1972 or 1973 though.
Then of course the Wizards actually appear to be nomadic, I know that they started in Chicago and were in Baltimore for a while before finally moving to DC. The move to DC was around 1974 or 1975.
The Rockets were a San Diego Team at first. That would have been late 60s and early 70s.
They started in the Quad Cities of Iowa/Illinois, then Milwaukee, then St. Louis.
The Warriors are from Philly; the Clippers from Buffalo and San Diego; the Kings from Rochester, Cincinnati, Kansas City/Omaha; the Pistons from Fort Wayne.
Yeah, 1984 was an odd year to start counting.
And this is supposed to make a former Sonics fan feel better how?
Stay class, SDMB.
It’s possible my bitter kidding does not represent reality.
OK. Lets bust each others chops then. Good idea.
So first I’ll fess up, I did Datamine – after Katrina the Saints and Hornets played in different venues and that seemed (to me) to be rather off-topic & I ignored these “franchise moves”.
I chose 84 because if I chose the last 25 years (1983) I was afraid it would have looked like I was trying to avoid the fact that the Raiders moved in 1982.
If I had used 83, I could have said in the last 25 years more NFL Teams have moved than NBA Teams and one less Hockey Team (IOW nothing would change from what I said)
In the last 29 years (to use What Exit’s much more logical timing) there has been 1 more NFL move (The New Orleans jazz to Utah move would need to be included but so too would the Raiders move).
In the last 29 years there been the same amount of NBA moves as Hockey moves (The New Orleans jazz to Utah move would need to be included but so would the 1980 Atlanta Flames to Calgary move and the 1982 Rockies from Colorado to East Rutherford, New Jersey).
Really what we are seeing exhibited by people like who say things like What Exit? originally did is a classic case of what is known in Bias study as “Biases in Probability and Belief” specifically what is known as the “Recency Effect”
I’ll thesis up again for folks :** because so much of the NBA moving has been in the last 7 years, people believe that the NBA “moves all the time” much more so than other sports franchises in North America but this is a belief that the evidence over the last 29 years proves not to be true**.
Yeeesh. And they ask me why I drink.