When I heard the Charlotte Hornets were relocating to New Orleans, my opinion that the Big Easy is a cursed sports city began to change.
After years of futile struggling from the Saints, the relocation of former New Orleans Jazz and Tulane in general, New Orleans finally received a stroke of luck from the sports gods.
The Hornets were a team that consistently won, and I figured if the city could support the Saints for so long with no success to speak of, it also could support a winning team.
That theory proved to be right. An average of 15,000 showed up to 41 home games, while about 17,000 people a game showed up for three playoff games in the New Orleans Arena.
Then my thoughts came crashing down to reality yesterday when I found out Hornets owners Ray Wooldridge and George Shinn decided to fire head coach Paul Silas and his whole staff.
Silas, a well-spoken and classy individual, was in the last year of his contract, and unfortunately for him, his team was knocked out in the first round of the playoffs.
He was also the winningest coach in Hornets’ history, compiling a 208-155 record in five seasons and had full support from the majority of his team.
Numerous players, including team leader Jamal Mashburn, voiced displeasure about the lack of a contract extension for Silas, and this move should just make the grumblings in the locker room grow.
It is obvious Silas is a very talented man.
He guided his team to the Eastern Conference semifinals last year while in the midst of a relocation search, and he held his team together this year when he lost point guard Baron Davis for more than 30 games because of injury.
Mashburn was hurt in the second game of the playoff series and missed games three and four, and Davis missed game two because of a bum knee, yet New Orleans still gave the one-man crew known as the Philadelphia Iversons a run for its money.
This situation probably seems all too familiar to New Orleanians, as Saints owner Tom Benson inexplicably fired general manager Randy Mueller, the man who put together the team that won the first playoff game in Saints history, before the beginning of last season.
Silas was a man that made the Hornets franchise look professional, and as stated numerous times before, was successful at what he did.
This move by the Wooldridge and Shinn just gives another black eye to the phenomenon known as New Orleans sports, and unless they go out and hire somebody along the lines of Phil Jackson, it will lower their popularity considerably in New Orleans.
But why should I be surprised?