I would prefer less California teams. Las Vegas would be fun though. Do alot of people actually live in Las Vegas, or are many of the people just tourists, probably a stupid question.
Kings have already applied to Anaheim Honda Arena. They got a decent offer from Anaheim to move there, and have until April 18th to decide if they'll make the move. Arco Arena in Sacramento is the OLDEST NBA non-renovated arena. In NBA arena time its like the Astrodome. It simply comes down to if the Maloofs will pay their own private money for a new arena or if the public will support it with taxes. No one has, so time to move. I don't see how a move to Anaheim would draw an OVERWHELMING amount of fans. LA seems to be bringing in all kinds of teams EXCEPT an NFL team. If LA gets an NFL team, fans have to decide between 2 baseball teams, 2 hockey teams, UCLA, USC, 1 soccer team, and THREE NBA teams? Thats at least 10 professional sports teams, and thats before getting into the surf/skate/ski culture that just doesnt care. If the Clippers didnt have Blake Griffin-sanity then I could see the Kings for sure stealing interest cuz Orange County wouldnt mind having its own identity. I can maybe see some distant excess Lakers bandwagoners who don't want to drive into the bad LA traffic instead choosing a "closer" team in Anaheim.
20 games in Seattle, 20 games in Vancouver, 1 game in Sacramento. Keep the tema history and call them the Pacific Tide. Seattle wants a basketball team no matter how bad, I think Vancouver would go if that team was winning(especially since there would only be 20 games) and Sacramento would be packed for that one game. All the cities already have stadiums capable for NBA. Everybody wins.
Pacific Tide - I dig it! It'll never happen, but it is hitting on something that pro leagues should be more open to (like the Buffalo Bills playing Toronto). Fan bases don't like to admit it, but there aren't 30 bonafide "major league" cities in this country. The population and financial disparity is huge, and then you take a step further into local sports passion*. Myself, I think the Kings belong in Vegas. That said, Stern has forever been anti-LV, and recently been chirping about Kansas City being NBA ready. I agree that Anaheim makes little to no sense, and even San Diego doesn't really work. Seattle's not going to get reloc until the Seatac Starbucks Arena gets built. I think the Maloofs are holding off on relocation for the moment to see what comes of the CBA (plus, not good business to go to a new city in the aftermath of a lockout). But I don't expect them to stay in Sacramento beyond next year. They're kidding themselves if they think the Kings are staying for 3-5 more years.
* This takes me to a sidebar where I continue to push for a radical move for the NBA and go to a 3-tiered league: 24 Team Tier 1 12 Team Tier 2 16 Team Tier 3 ..created by sending down 6 current NBA squads that are drowning in financial/competitive despair (say, SAC, MIN, NOH, CHA, TOR, IND), the top 2 NBDL teams, and expansion teams in SEA, KC, Louisville, and a fourth location (SD? Cincy?) that is a fringe NBA market today. -Relegate the worst T1 team each year for the T2 champ and do likewise for T2/T3 -T2 has a salary cap 30% of T1, and T3 has a salary cap 5% of T1 -Teams going down (T1-->T2) have to release players so that kept players + open rosters spots (at 1.5x league min) = new cap. Released players may be claimed based on waiver orders to teams with enough cap space. Unclaimed players are bought out of their contract (value of next season only) by the league (23 teams) and become FAs. -Teams coming up from T2-->T1 are protected from relegation for two seasons to prevent an endless cycle and give them half a chance to stick. In the first season after coming up, the team will have a salary cap of 80% of the league's. This team also has first dibs on released players from the most recently relegated team. This team is given the #3 pick in the draft. -T2 teams can only sign players for up to three year contracts. Minimum salaries are the same as in T1. -T3 contracts will not follow the minimum wage rules from T2/T1, are not guaranteed, and may not exceed 2 years. T3 teams are given two salary exception each year that are equal to T2/T3 minimum wage contracts and limited to 2 years. Teams dropping from T2-->T3 must release to the waiver process any players on T1 contracts. Teams ascending to T2 from T3 must release any players on regular T3 contracts. ----------------------------------------------------------- Here's what you get: Prune the NBA tree without shuttering franchises Insert the double relegation system, not just to dissuade tanking, but to give every lower tiered franchise/city a glimmer of hope of ascending to the big boys and vying for a championship. Additionally, you greatly diminish the incidence of owners threatening to relocate over finances. Over time as things shake out and settle, teams and markets will match up. Instead of relocating, owners will need to just match themselves with proper markets. Besides, where would you go with some 50 cities already with a team?
Regional teams isn't even a revolutionary concept, the Virginia Squires did it back in the ABA. I think lots of struggling teams should do it. Vancouver, Seattle, and Sacramento may not be able to support an NBA team, but they can certianly support 20 or so games a season.
Vegas isn't going to happen. The economy is horrible there. Austin isn't going to happen. UT is the pro sport franchise there. Why not Fort Worth? It's population base is large enough to support a team. I would back them, after my Rockets. Screw the Mavericks.
Personally, I think Montreal, Canada would be awesome. The Raptors played against the Knicks there in pre-season and the game was sold out. Not to mention also that Montreal is bigger and have a bigger population than Vancouver. Montreal only has one major professional team, the Montreal Canadians in the NHL. Basketball culture is really developped in Montreal (probably as much as Toronto). Montreal has a population of 1,6 million in the city and 3,7 millions in the Metro area. While a team like Denver has only a population of 550,000 in the city proper and 2,5 millions in the Metropolitan area. Denver has an NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB team. Not also to mention that Montreal has an big pourcentage of immigrants and visible minorities, I think Montreal could really handle a second major sport team, the Kings in Montreal would absolutly be sick.
If you live in Orange County, it's pretty much impossible to make it to a Laker or Clipper game during the week given how bad the traffic is on the 5. There's like 3 million residents in Orange County, which is more than enough to support an NBA franchise.
Just read about this. http://www.news10.net/news/story.aspx?storyid=128672&catid=2 [rquoter]SACRAMENTO, CA - News10 Exclusive: While the Sacramento Kings ponder a move to Anaheim, they may already be laying the groundwork for a name change. The United States Patent and Trademark Office received an application on March 3 by a Nevada corporation seeking the exclusive right to use the name "Los Angeles Royals." Another application filed the same day reserves the name "Anaheim Royals." The city of Anaheim, which owns the Honda Center, has reportedly insisted that any team playing there carry the city's name. The web domains losangelesroyals.com and anaheimroyals.com have also been registered within the past three weeks. The trademark applications were filed on behalf of Crickets Corp., a Nevada corporation represented by Sacramento attorney Scott Hervey. Hervey specializes in intellectual property issues and also represents the Maloof family, owners of the Sacramento Kings and the Palms Casino in Las Vegas. The Kings played for years in Rochester and Cincinnati as the Royals, and have lately been wearing their retro Royals jerseys in home games. A name change would help the team avoid confusion with the Los Angeles Kings of the National Hockey League. The Los Angeles Royals and Anaheim Royals trademark applications offer a broad explanation of how the names might be used: Entertainment services in the nature conducting sporting events, namely cricket exhibitions, baseball exhibitions, hockey exhibitions, football exhibitions, basketball exhibitions... entertainment services, namely, providing a website featuring multimedia material in the nature of television highlights, interactive television highlights, video recordings, video stream recordings, interactive video highlight selections, radio programs, radio highlights, and audio recordings...[/rquoter]
I like it, too. Spread the love. Instead of a team in one city, why not a team in 2? Even 3 cities? Though It'd just be a hell of a lotta confusion when 20+ teams start identifying with multiple cities. Every single team in Calfornia would be the Sacramento/Anahiem/LA Kings, Golden State/SF/LA Warriors, LA/San Diego/Minneapolis Lakers, Houston/New Orleans Rockets, New Orleans/OKC/Charlotte Hornets. Just a bunch of roamers lol. But for a real short term a roaming Pacific Tide would work.
I've spoken my thoughts on it plenty already. I think the biggest thing to make it work is simply just people's proximity to the arena. Anaheim surely is not WANTING an NBA team. Just people in counties outside of LA (counties that are still PLENTY cramped up), just to cut down on travel and cost of tickets might want to support a closer team, nothing more than that. But its still a factor. Thats counting on the population to remain not just big but successful. Sacramento has its budget issues but its just as bad in the LA area. The Angels always have good attendance, though the Ducks are at the bottom in attendance. Not sure how that'd translate into Kings/Royals support. Then there can be juuuust enough Sacramento holdover fans to give them interest to hold steady. Who's interest will eventually wear off but maybe by then the Kings/Royals will have established themselves without them. I'm thinking the Maloofs have factored in those loyal holdover fans. I complained about having more Rockets games on League Pass black out from the Rockets announcing team. But DUH, like Yoyo said thats just more games I can ATTEND. See, even me the drive to Staples Center is just so aggravating at times that considering even trying to go has been removed from the thoughts
