Does OKC have the legs to land team?
ESPN analyst says city can still be home to NBA

By John Rohde

Published: January 17, 2007

Ric Bucher evidently is a leg man.

The ESPN writer and analyst said the key to Oklahoma City permanently landing an NBA franchise depends on convincing the league the city can sustain financial success for a long period of time.

Bucher said he is impressed with how Oklahoma City has supported the Hornets during their relocation after Hurricane Katrina, but questions still remain.

"This has been a great honeymoon. The question is, ‘Does it have the legs?'”said Bucher, who was at the Ford Center for last week's Hornets-Clippers game. "You're not going to always have a Chris Paul (as) rookie of the year and an exciting team flirting with the playoffs every year. What happens when you don't have that?”

Look no further than this season. The Hornets have struggled with four of their top six players out with injuries. If that weren't enough, lousy weather has hurt the turnstile count lately at the Ford Center.

Owner George Shinn has given in to NBA commissioner David Stern's demand, and the Hornets will return full-time to New Orleans next season.

But what about the year after that? If the Hornets fail miserably at the gate in New Orleans, will they be allowed to do a U-turn and return immediately to Oklahoma City?

"I'll say this, he's going to make them stay at least two years,” Bucher said of Stern. "It won't be one year. Some of it may be tied to the recovery of the city (New Orleans). If the economy recovers without the Hornets, maybe he'll let them go back to Oklahoma City sooner. But I think the whole idea of forcing them back to New Orleans is a mistake.

"The thing with Stern is, image is reality. The image of them leaving New Orleans in the lurch, he has told me that would be ‘unseemly.' That said, you're only compounding the original mistake. It was a mistake to go down there in the first place (from Charlotte in 2002).”

And what of the Seattle SuperSonics? If a new arena is not approved in a neighboring suburb, will the Sonics' Oklahoma City-based ownership group relocate the Sonics to the Ford Center? And if so, when?

"When Clay Bennett bought the Sonics and brought in all his partners, I would have said it's a matter of when, not if, they would move to Oklahoma City,” Bucher said. "Part of the buy-in is he has to make a good-faith effort to find a place for the arena there. Clay Bennett bought that franchise at a Seattle price, not an Oklahoma City price. He's either doing a great job of snowing the people up there that he's sincerely looking at staying, or we made too much of the Oklahoma City connection and forgot that he's a businessman.”

Like many NBA observers, Bucher believes the key to the Hornets' possible return someday to Oklahoma City lies in Shinn's relationship with Stern.

"There is a certain amount of dissatisfaction with Shinn because he screwed up that Charlotte market, which was a great market,” Bucher said. "Why would the league want Shinn to benefit by going to another quality market (Oklahoma City)? The fear has to be he'll find a way to screw this one up and disenchant the people here.

"Shinn went to a New Orleans market that was a sweetheart deal for him, but it didn't have legs for a franchise.”