sports | Thunder Rumblings

Long before the New Orleans Hornets fired Byron Scott on Thursday, it was clear to NBA fans in Oklahoma that this state is better off with the Thunder here and the Bees in the Big Easy. Scott’s dismissal served as simply the most recent confirmation, the latest in a string of setbacks and slip ups the Hornets have succumbed to.

Losing the first pro franchise this state has ever seen was gut-wrenching, though, on April 13, 2007, when the Hornets played their last game inside the Ford Center as “New Orleans/Oklahoma City” and uncertainty still remained about whether the Sonics would soon shuffle south as a substitute. The disappointment dialed up when the Hornets, in their first full season back in New Orleans, assembled a franchise-best season, a record of 56 wins and 26 losses and a trip to Game 7 of the Western Conference Semifinals. It became almost unbearable while watching Chris Paul turn in an MVP-caliber season and establish himself as the league’s best point guard.

But the Hornets are now in full tailspin mode, with a 3-6 record, a roster compiled of a batch of players that don’t fit, an owner who’s diagnosed with prostate cancer and dire financial concerns and now a new coach who has no NBA head coaching experience but happens to be the GM who put this team together.

Add it all up and the troubles in New Orleans function as the ultimate faux pas for the league’s 29 other franchises. And the reason Thunder fans should be grateful management and ownership has taken the complete opposite approach in Oklahoma City, deploying a patient plan rather than the Hornets’ failed attempt at a quick championship chase.

Hard as it is to fathom, not a single transaction by the Hornets has panned out over the past four years, since the time they made their way to Oklahoma City in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Paul, remember, was drafted in the summer of 2005, before there became a slash in the team’s temporary name.

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