NBA returning to Vancouver

[VanCitySportsGuy]

http://www.sportsnet.ca/basketball/article.jsp?content=20070721_235557_6064

Suns vs. Sonics on October 26th.

I'm interested to see how many fans turn out for this pre-season game. Since the NBA stole the Grizzlies away from us, the local media has basically ignored the NBA.

I still have a bad taste in my mouth over losing our franchise and a part of me said I would never spend a penny on a NBA game again. At least this game will have a lot bigger names than the ones that showed up for Nash's charity game last night.

[aa2ba]

Re: NBA returning to Vancouver

Yeah thoes summer charity games are garbage. I went to the last one held in Toronto and there were so many no-shows.

I actually walked out about 15 mins after halftime because the level of play was so bad.

I understand how you feel about the Grizz and the NBA, but it would be a fun game to watch from a non-competitive standpoint. a first look at Durant and the new look sonics, and ofcourse Nash and the Suns is always a fun game.

[23]

Re: NBA returning to Vancouver

How did the nba steal one of its own teams?

[mgoblue]

Re: NBA returning to Vancouver

How did the nba steal one of its own teams?

I understand it's a passionate issue for asianflow, but the NBA can't easily move a team without the team and the city giving them the leeway (team not making enough money, city not playing ball, fans not showing up, etc)

[fsquid]

Re: NBA returning to Vancouver

Maybe Vancouver learned that the games were fixed before we did?

[Vince]

Re: NBA returning to Vancouver

How did the nba steal one of its own teams?

The NBA never really gave them a chance.

Vancouver had good support. Better than a lot of teams now, yet they haven't been moved. I don't think they were fully committed to Van-City.

[VanCitySportsGuy]

Re: NBA returning to Vancouver

It’s easy for an outsider to say how the fans simply didn’t show up or there wasn’t enough corporate support, etc…..

Considering how bad the team was every season, the fan support was amazing. There was 15,000+ at most of the games.

This is how bad the team was each season:

95-96: 15-67
96-97: 14-68
97-98: 19-63
98-99: 8-42
99-00: 22-60
00-01: 23-59

That’s a combined record of 101-359

The team was screwed the moment David Stern told ownership they should hire Stu Jackson to be the GM. He was offered Steve Nash and John Wallace for the 4th pick in 1997 (turned out to be Antonio Daniels) but turned it down. Drafting Steve Francis when he said he didn’t want to play here didn’t help matters either.

The low value of the Canadian dollar didn’t help when new ownership took over, but it was clear Michael Heisley lied to the fans here. What’s strange is that the NBA blocked an earlier sale to Bill Laurie after he said only wanted to buy the team to move it to St. Louis. When Heisley took over, he said his goal was to keep the team in Vancouver. He even built a new practice facility and sang the Canadian anthem before a game. It was only revealed after the team was moving to Memphis, he did his best to drive away fans.

A lot of corporate sponsors said account reps did not call them to renew their tickets or try to sell them more. They actually had to call the Grizzlies themselves to say they wanted to buy tickets. When asked why he was moving the team, Heisley said one of the reasons was the lack of corporate support.

I’ve read some of the comments from workers that moved to Memphis after the Grizzlies left Vancouver, and they say it’s a shame the team moved in the first place. Most feel Vancouver is the better market.

[SPTO]

Re: NBA returning to Vancouver

Vancouver as an NBA market died the minute Steve Francis balked at being drafted there. From then on you could tell the NBA was making plans to ship out. The original owners were only in it for a couple years as they were in debt and wanted to get out of the sports ownership business as fast as possible. Heisley (sp) never really wanted to give Vancouver a shot.

It's one of those situations where bad ownership, poor management and players wielding too much power caused a city to disappear from the NBA map. Heck, I remember in the early years people in Toronto were envious of Vancouver because it seemed they were actually on more solid ground. In fact I remember a lot of people speculating that Toronto could move or be folded and Vancouver would be the only NBA team in the country.

Boy did we ever get that wrong!