JamesOn Curry Arrested
Former OSU standout JamesOn Curry has been arrested on public urination and resisting arrest charges.
According to this report, Curry was in Boise, Idaho while with his NBA Developmental League team and was caught by a police officer at 2:25 a.m. urinating in an alley. When the cop turned on his emergency lights, Curry ran. The report says Curry was not arrested because of public urination but on resisting arrest charges only.
No reason was given for why Curry was out at 2:25 in the morning. My guess, though, is he was being a regular 22-year-old. I spoke with his Iowa Energy coach a few weeks back for this article I did on Curry’s pursuit of a NBA career. No word on how this setback will impact his chase, but in that article his D-League coach had nothing but good things to say about Curry’s attitude and leadership on and off the court.
He repeated those same sentiments in this release by the team…
“JamesOn knows his behavior is unacceptable,” said Energy coach Nick Nurse. “It is especially disappointing in light of the fact that JamesOn has been a model of citizenship and leadership since coming to Des Moines.”
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New Orleans close to losing Hornets???
Hornets owner George Shinn technically has negotiated a two-year extension to his team’s lease in New Orleans through 2014. Apparently, at least according to the team’s official Web site, the additional two years is to compensate for the lost seasons that were played mostly in Oklahoma City.
But according to this Times-Picayune report, the deal contains an opt-out clause for the Hornets following the 2008-09 season if the team doesn’t average 14,735 fans over the next 67 home games — this year’s remaining 26 and next year’s full 41. Judging by this picture, a sign of how poor the Hornets’ crowds have been this season, that mark might be hard to achieve.
The 14,735 figure is an average of the team’s total attendance in the three seasons prior to Katrina, which would effectively keep the Hornets near the bottom of the league in attendace.
YEAR TOTAL AVERAGE NBA RANK
2002-03 641,683 15,650 19
2003-04 587,613 14,332 28
2004-05 583,070 14,221 30
2007-08 178,070 11,871 30 (Through 15 games)
So far the Hornets have had only one sellout this season, back when LeBron James and the Cavs blew into town on Dec. 29. Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers play in New Orleans tonight, but a sellout is not expected.
Part of the new deal also gets the state of Louisiana off the hook for building the team a practice facility, which likely goes hand in hand with the team being able to opt out early. That sounds like bad news for New Orleans. That practice facility was the last thing holding Shinn to New Orleans. If they built it for $15 million to $20 million the Hornets would have had no choice but to stay in New Orleans. Furthermore, they likely would have had to sign a lease extension. So getting that off the table frees Shinn from a long term commitment, and the opt-out clause is something that likely will be exercised.
Attendance for that sold out Cavs game was only 17,623, and that was the most fans to see a game all season. New Orleans, unlike Oklahoma City the past two seasons, has set a trend for showing up only for big name players. Unfortunately for New Orleans, there’s only a handful of those coming to town over the next 67 games.
In other Hornets news, Chris Paul will be on the Jim Rome show Thursday afternoon, aired on 1340 AM in the Oklahoma City area.
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