If I could buy the New Orleans Hornets Right Now
New Orleans is the cheapest NBA team to buy right now. It’s also a failing market. Let’s face it, NBA is just more popular in every other region of the U.S. than the south. Its popularity is at its highest in the northeast. So we have to relocate the team to a new region. Any one of these regions would work: Seattle, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, & Buffalo. Seattle already lost a team, so let’s rule that out. Baltimore is a confined space between Philadelphia & Washington D.C., so without doing too much research, I’m going to rule that out. I love Buffalo and I think that would be the better spot to relocate the team, but for the sake of having fun with this, I’m going to pick my lovely sports city of Pittsburgh.
The team would not move to Pittsburgh until next year so players don’t jump ship. They wouldn’t even know about it. It’s immoral, but necessary. Also, taking a cue from the Oklahoma City Thunder, the team name and logo would be changed to give it a brand new identity. Let’s go with the Pittsburgh Rivers or Bridges for now with the classic black & gold theme that all the pro teams have there.
To start with they only have 7 players under contract for the year.
Emaka Okafor —> Dejuan Blair & 1st round pick
- This would work bc Blair has fallen out of favor with Poppovich and the spurs know their window is closing. Okafor would be more of a help to them immediately. Blair has more potential in my eyes and just needs to be given a chance. Plus, this is a business move bc it would give the team some home appeal to Pittsburgh and allow for the city to be more willing to embrace the team since Blair is a proud Pittsburgh boy.
Chris Paul —> Pau Gasol & Lamar Odom
- He’s going to leave anyway. My philosphy isn’t to take what fits in your system, but to take the most valuable chips you can get and then flip them if need be.
Lamar Odom for Paul Milsap
- This works because the Jazz are really impressed with Derrick Favors and have been shopping Milsap. Odom would be a huge improvement for them at SF. We already have Gasol, but this trade makes sense because of the following trade:
Gasol and Pittsburgh Rivers/Bridges 2nd rd pick —>Russel Westbrook
- This is the only questionable trade. I think they would take this trade though bc Westbrook has been a liability for them. Maynor is their backup who does an alright job, who can step right in. Gasol would give them a better low post threat and much more scoring down there and allow Durant to play more of a SF and even SG role if need be, instead of going down and chasing rebounds. Durant will have more energy for offense and Westbrook won’t be taking touches away from him.
And of course, we would resign David West.
This leaves the 2011-2012 New Orleans Hornets (and the 2012-2013 Pittsburgh Rivers/Bridges) Roster at:
pg - westbrook, jarret jack
sg - ariza,
sf - david west
pf - milsap
c - blair
NO 1st rd pick & Spurs 1st rd pick. No 2nd rd picks.
Enough for at least a 7th seed in the west this year and at least a 6th seed in the east next year. CP3 only got them to the 8th seed. Huge improvement. We lost arguable the #1 pg in the leage for a top 5 pg and future top 5 pf.
Thoughts?
