Keep it up!

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/quickie

The Lead Item
Two Words For You:
'HOMA. COURT.

OKC is OK with the NBA!

And the best fans in the NBA are ...

From Oklahoma City?!

Any fans that can inspire the lousy Hornets to beat a West playoff contender like the Kings by nearly 30 have to be at the top of the argument.

The amazing thing is they have no track record as an NBA fan base; they host the Hornets only because of the disaster in New Orleans.

The Hornets may not want to leave. The sellout crowd was frenzied. The team was inspired.

And, given their brutal support back in New Orleans, who would blame them or the team and the NBA from wanting to make this permanent?

(This isn't the same as the Saints' relocation debacle: New Orleans fans still love their football team, even if Baton Rouge fans boo. The Hornets have been a bad fit since Day One.)

Sure, it's been only one game, but instantly, OKC has morphed the team into the Celtics of '86.

The Hornets might improve last year's overall win total (18) by 50 percent simply off their home games.

I'm so impressed with the fans in OKC that as of today, I'm willing to rank them the best fans in the NBA. I've even got a slogan for them:

"'Homa-Court Advantage."

I'm so impressed with the fans in OKC that as of today, I'm willing to rank them the best fans in the NBA. I've even got a slogan for them:

"'Homa-Court Advantage."


OMG!! I'm so excited - this is one of the best articles yet!

It was definately fun last night. I thought at times the noise level was very good, expecially at the start of the 4th quarter. I think it would have been alot better if the score would have been close.

Outstanding post, BDP! Thanks for letting us know about that teriffic comment!

Yes, please keep up the posts from the press.

And YES, please keep supporting your franchise!!!

Great read!

That is great!!!

Awesome. We are getting such positive press from everyone except the Times-Picayune.

That's great. Hopefully the Hornets do stay, if not hopefully another team or expansion team will be in OKC's future.

Definitely.

Probably the best option, that Im sure will be announced early next year, is that Shinn will sell a stake in the team to an OKC investor (or pool of investors) - thereby giving ownership "rights" of the Hornets to the City of Oklahoma City.

I am speculating - but I am certain that OKC is the best move for the Hornets but no one wants to appear like stealing a team or taking advantage of the stricken. And with the Hornets having OKC investment (the exact degree is debatable) - Shinn et al would avoid any negative image while at the same time exercise the correct business decision.

Im just glad OKC is "the correct business decision." How many times have we EVER heard that in OKC (esp until 5 years ago)? I think this is true Renaissance!

HOT ROD, you should come down for the NO/ OKC vs. Seattle game !!!

The New Orleans Hornets look to benefit from the support of their adopted home when they host the Orlando Magic in Oklahoma City, Okla.

The devastation of Hurricane Katrina has forced the Hornets to play 35 ``home games'' at the Ford Center. The remaining six will be at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center on the LSU campus in Baton Rouge.

Oklahoma City, which does not have a professional sports franchise, has embraced the displaced Hornets. A raucous capacity crowd backed the Hornets to a season-opening 93-67 victory over the Sacramento Kings in their Ford Center debut on Nov. 1.

The celebration began with a street party outside the arena, then got even more lively as the Hornets, 18-64 last season, beat up on a Kings team expected to contend for the postseason.

``We're a young team, so we feed off the crowd easily,'' said J.R. Smith, who scored 19 points against the Kings. ``It's a great city, full of great fans.''

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``With that loud crowd out there, I think we're going to have one of the loudest crowds in the NBA, if not the loudest,'' added Rasual Butler.

P.J. Brown had 20 points and 10 rebounds in the season-opening win for New Orleans, which shot 47.9 percent. The Hornets wore white jerseys with a hexagonal ``OKC'' patch on the right shoulder.

Hornets owner George Shinn admitted he had reservations when NBA commissioner David Stern recommended Oklahoma City for a temporary home. He was beaming after the season-opening win, predicting that if the level of support continues, ``they're going to see a lot more wins than anyone expected.''

``It was electric. It was absolutely electric. It was as good I've seen it.''

The Hornets are coming off their first road win of the season, 91-84 over the Houston Rockets on Saturday. Brown had 18 points and 13 rebounds and rookie Chris Paul added 15 points. Paul sank two runners in the final minute to carry the Hornets, who ended the game with a 17-2 run.

``This was a great opportunity for us to build some confidence,'' Hornets forward Desmond Mason said.

Orlando picked up its first victory of the season, 76-74 over the Rockets on Tuesday.

Steve Francis scored 27 points and had two assists to Jameer Nelson in the final two minutes.

Dwight Howard and DeShawn Stevenson each had 12 points and Nelson scored all 10 of his in the final quarter for the Magic, who won despite shooting 37.8 percent.

STANDINGS (through Nov. 8): Magic - 4th place, 2 1/2 GB, Southeast Division. Hornets - 3rd place (tied), 1/2 GB, Southwest Division.

PROBABLE STARTERS: Magic - F Hedo Turkoglu, F Howard, C Tony Battie, G Stevenson, G Francis. Hornets - F Bostjan Nachbar, F David West, C Brown, G Paul, G Smith.

TEAM LEADERS: Magic - Francis, 20.0 ppg and 6.3 apg; Howard, 8.3 rpg. Hornets - Speedy Claxton, 15.7 ppg; Brown, 9 rpg; Paul, 5.0 apg.

2004-05 SEASON SERIES: Magic, 2-0.

LAST MEETING: Feb. 13; Magic, 97-94. At Orlando, Francis and Turkoglu each scored 22 points for the Magic, who swept the season series after losing four in a row to the Hornets.

ROAD/HOME RECORDS: Magic - 1-1 on the road; Hornets - 1-0 at home.

"best fans" looked like a bunch of no-shows tonight

???

What game were you watching? There tons of people there. Very loud at times, too.

HOT ROD, you should come down for the NO/ OKC vs. Seattle game !!!

I think I will. I need to see when it is (Feb I think). That might work. I plan to come to the city twice for games, 2006 tho.

Oh, I guess you were right, a whole 655 fans didn't show up for a total of 18508.

http://www.newsok.com/article/1673153/?template=sports/main

"best fans" looked like a bunch of no-shows tonight

Hi, Nixon7. Yeah. Know what you mean. I ... I ... I ... mean (stammer, stutter), you know, we are just a hick back water town trying as hard as we might, failing though we may, and going against all odds, to try to live up to the attendance records and general support criteria set when the Hornets lived in their permanent home, the Big Easy ... New Orleans ... Cajun Country ... southern end of the Louisiana Purchase. I know that the lofty heights set in New Orleans are hard goals to strive to equal, but, then, we are just Okies, and we are foolish enough to try, not knowing any better, don't you know?

I suppose N.O. people have to poke as much at OKC as they can, I mean, they ARE about to lose both of their pro teams!

.............

Yeah Nixon, too bad we didn't sell out our second game - did New Orleans EVER? In fact, did NO ever have 18,500?

I think you all better start supporting the NO Zephyrs (or whatever your AAA baseball team is called) before they up and move to Baton Rouge and you have NOTHING!!!

........

Here are a few interesting posts at hornetsreport.com following the game last night (Orlando) in the thread, “Ford” are also interesting:


People are raving over their "support." Although it certainly was great for opening night, there were plenty of empty seats last night (much of the upper deck) and Shinn said a local businessman "bought" 3,500 to help ensure a sellout. I cannot see local businessmen "buying" that level of tickets on a nightly basis just to go unused. The official "tickets sold" was 18,500, so it was about 15,000 without this purchase (which is about what we averaged for an 18 win team that turned over its players all season as we ended up with a bunch of bench players playing night in and night out). Granted, it was a weeknight game and Orlando was the opponent (which is a tough sell), but Stern was also in attendance. Who knows if the businessmen will continue to buy up tickets to keep the numbers high? However, it is aggravating to hear people say that OKC has done more than New Orleans ever has when we are talking of 2 games.


I want the Hornets back as much as the next guy here, but we're not going to win them back by downgrading what's happening in OKC. The fact is, in 6 weeks they sold 10,000 season tickets. I know that our season ticket sales had improved, but I assume we were still south of 10,000.

And maybe there were some empty seats in the upper deck last night, but the bottom seats were almost completely full. I don't know about you, but I was sick of seeing row after row of club seats completely empty in the Arena the past couple of years. It looked especially bad on TV.

I fully recognize that the support in Oklahoma is bound to wane after they get a taste of losing and are asked to buy tickets to a mid-week game against the Clips, but so far, the fans have seemed enthusiastic and the games well-attended, and I think it's silly to ignore that.

It stands to reason that dopes like Chad Ford (who apparently went to a journalism school that didn't bother to teach students how to spell "their") will give a knee-jerk reaction to a complex issue, but I don't think comparing the support of each city is the right approach for us.


I will state that Oklahoma is like the bible belt, where alot of people attend church on wednesday night so im thinking that might have a little to do with it. Well i sure hope so lol.

Hmmm ... as for me, well, I think that I WAS at church last night, at the Hornets game! I'm doomed to hell ... along with 18,507 others who sat in the arena with me last night ... some cathedral ...

That's insane! The arena was packed.. I never noticed empty seats.. who has a pic to post??

Karrie, I noticed some empty seats in Sections 311 & 312, up at the very top. See the 2nd image in this thread ... http://www.okctalk.com/t4689-11905-orlando.html ... if I hadn't reduced the size of that pic for posting purposes, you'd see them more easily. But, even so, with attendance at 18,508, the game was only 655 seats short of a sellout.

The corner of the lower level was pretty empty. I imagine those are the spots where some season tickets have not yet sold. I believe a lot of people moved from the upper areas down to these areas by the end of the game.

What do you mean, it was still a sell out crowd, all the tickets were SOLD. I did noticed the empty seats on TV but it was only a few hundred that were still SOLD and better attendance than they had in NO.

Sorry folks, I don't think Oklahoma is part of the bible belt. Maybe rural Oklahoma. If that were true, IMHO, my place of owrk would be dead on Sundays. Instead, it is the exact opposite. 18,508 fans further prove my point. But I guess churches make exceptions for sports, since that is about 10% of the sermon.

So far, the average attendance is 18,836.

I think the guy that made that comment regarding the Bible belt may be from Oklahoma. He was giving a reason for why it was not completely full.

What do you mean, it was still a sell out crowd, all the tickets were SOLD. I did noticed the empty seats on TV but it was only a few hundred that were still SOLD and better attendance than they had in NO.

It's just what I rationalized in my head when I was at the game. Most of the lower level would be completely full and then there would be three or four complete rows empty in a corner Lower Level section. I had imagined that was due to those season tickets not being sold. If not, and those tickets were in fact already sold, then I'm a little disappointed that they would not show up. I am in no way saying attendance was poor (obviously, it was still very good), just stating what I saw.

Karrie, I noticed some empty seats in Sections 311 & 312, up at the very top. See the 2nd image in this thread ... http://www.okctalk.com/t4689-11905-orlando.html ... .

Arent those seats, Nosebleed and cheap!

I think the more interesting storey is:

The expensive seats sold out. Who cares about the 10 dollar walkup seats.

I think New Orleans is just nit picking, here and there. I mean, OKC has more to do than JUST the Hornets. So I would imagine not every cheap seat would fill.

Jeeze.

Did NO fill the expensive seats, like OKC is?

When I went to the box office on Wednesday night, they told me there were only $45 dollar tickets left. That means every one of those nose bleed seats were sold, but Bob Howard (I'm assuming) couldn't give them away or sell them quick enough.