Friends from Houston! - a request for support and an offer of thanks!

Friends from Houston, I come seeking your help. Many of you know well the troubles that have befallen the Grizzlies, and the fact that the owner wants to take the team from us. Many of you also know that while the owner professed to being committed to Vancouver, he under promoted the team, he was late in getting out season ticked renewals and some reportedly never went out, and when approached by members of the Vancouver business community with offers of help, he did not return their calls. We smell a rat! We believe Vancouver can and would support the team, given a fair chance, especially now that the team is finally starting to win. We want to keep our team, and there are reportedly two "qualified" local buyer who are putting together offers. What we need is to have the NBA board of governors refuse to allow our owner, Michael Heisley, to move the team. He then will have the legitimate option to sell the team to a local buyer. To show Stern and the other owners that Vancouverites and fans from around the league want the team to stay in Vancouver, a fan started an online petition. He asked for and received the help of Mark Cuban. Cuban said that if we can get a couple of thousand names on the petition, he will make sure it goes to David Stern. Cuban has signed the petition himself.

Cuban's signature is #20
www.123petitions.com/cgi-bin/system/viewsigs.cgi?number=0&username=bsangha1@hotmail.com&password=&pname=bsangha1@hotmail.com2

Cuban's comments are reported here:
grizzball.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/001194.html

So I humbly ask for your support. Please sign the petition, and help us keep our team. Your support would be greatly appreciated.

To sign, see the bottom of this page:
www.123petitions.com/cgi-bin/system/sign1.cgi?id=bsangha1@hotmail.com$2

Now for the thanks. When I found the site, I was surprised and gladdened to see than MANY people from your area had signed already. For this I offer my sincere gratitude. The good people of Houston and area, (mostly from CC.net I'm sure), have sown themselves again to be absolute class acts, and activists! CC.net, especially the people who make up this community, are truly the class of the net! Thanks again, and please sign if you have not already.

PS - So which one of you is Dan Pastorini?



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Nope. It was pretty funny though. Thanks again for all the support. The petition isn't mine, and there were some strange things going on with it, but I think that it still makes a positive statement. You'll notice that Cuban's signature isn't at 20 anymore. There was no word on why it was removed, but bskball.com reported that Cuban said he would bring the petition to the owners if it got 5,000 signatures. Cuban reads that site and exchanges e-mails with the owner regularly so I'm fairly sure this is legit.

http://www.bskball.com/MarRumors.htm

There seems to be a strange funk afflicting Grizz fans. This is the second year of this kind of crap and many people seem to be burnt out. All is not lot, however, as it is becoming progressively clearer that a major reason for the huge reported losses has been mismanagement, if not sabotage. A few heavy hitters have apparently expressed interest in buying the team and keeping it in Vancouver, 3 local people, who remain anonymous, and another, rumoured to be Larry Ellison. There are at least two Vancouverites who are or were worth over 2B. Jim Pattison, owns a major grocery chain and advertising businesses amongst others. He seems a logical choice, and has said that he hasn't said no to the idea of owning the Grizz, but he's a self-made billionaire who did it "the hard way", and is pretty conservative. The Lede Brothers own 360networks and may have taken some big losses recently. I've heard no talk of them being in the picture. Ellison is an interesting possibility, especially if he wants to one-up Paul Allen, but his interest is strictly rumour and has some people nervous because he would be yet another out of town owner. We'll just have to wait and see how it plays out, I guess.


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