The Hornets want to be on TV

The upstart Hornets, playing much better than anyone expected, want some exposure, and they took a step last night by beating the Spurs in their new home in Oklahoma City.

“The young guys, they want to be on TV. They want respect,” [forward PJ] Brown said. “I said, ‘If you want respect, these are the type of games you’ve got to win. You’ve got to come out and beat these world champions and people are going to start opening up some eyes.”‘

“We’ve got to win a few more like this and maybe [NBA commissioner] David Stern will get us on there,” Brown said.

The attendance last night was actually 104 more people than fit in the Ford Center, which means there were more people there than were actually there. Drama has to be building internally, as fans in Oklahoma City embrace the team more than ever happened in New Orleans. With their arena in The NO supposedly ready in March, what is owner George Shinn to do? What else – hedge.

…it’s hard for us to schedule games there until we’re 100 percent sure it will be ready.” The Hornets would like to play from one to three games in the arena in March, Shinn said.

“We need to make sure everything is ready so we can sell tickets and promote it,” he said. “We don’t want to embarrass the city and have only 1,500 people show up.”

Translated, that comes out as “do we have to? Seriously?” Shinn is not taking any bids on the work from contractors yet, although there’s no way that’s intentinal or anything. Not George Shinn. Remember, he’d never do anything unsavory.