Bill Simmons: “It’s just never worked [in New Orleans], and I am not sure they should have an NBA team. I feel way differently about Portland—even Memphis, which you mentioned earlier.”
The Pels have been historically terrible. It’s borderline impossible for a small market team to build a national fan base without winning. If the Pels win a couple chips, they’d be viewed differently. Those fans don’t deserve to lose their team cause their ownership can’t get their act together and field a competent roster.
If by historically terrible you mean having one 50+ win season and 2 playoff series wins in 24 years, then yes you would be accurate.
Man those CP3 and David West teams were fun as hell to watch though.
They’ve had some fun teams and the lottery gods have blessed them with MVP level talent. At what point is it just the franchise organization/ownership that is to blame?
It’s 100% the owners fault but it’s easier to switch cities than it is to switch owners when the owner doesn’t want to sell.
I would instantly sign up for 20 straight years of season tickets for any league that includes the right of the league office to force the sale of any team that finishes bottom 3 in winning percentage over a rolling window of the last decade.
As in, if the Sacramento Kings have one of the three worst winning percentages over the last 820 games amongst all teams, then the NBA can force them to sell to another owner who gets them for at least 5 years until they dip below 29th or better in win% over their last 820 games.
Better solution would be multiple tiered leagues w/ relegation amd promotion
The issue with that is you can’t really do it with a draft system.
You mean the draft system that a quarter of the teams are constantly tanking to take advantage of?
The bigger issue is nobody would go, nobody watches, media revenue tanks, tickets either drop drastically or dont sell.
Idk about better but it’s certainly interesting. Would you see the league expand?
No that would be over. You need those cities to host the teams in lower tiers at first. But every team in a lower tier has the potential to replace a team in the NBA. Just do it like soccer in Britain. But without getting rid of the playoffs.
Fuck i wish lol
The rest of the owners can force them to sell in a minute if they really wanted to. It did not take long to force the Clippers sale and Sterling still got top dollar for the team at the time.
Why would they force a sale though? No scandals just bad mismanagement of the team. If that’s the case it would set a precedent the other owners wouldn’t want.
If I owned a team I’d want just enough competent owners especially in some of the bigger markets to grow the league but then everyone else to be majorly incompetent dummies.
If there’s 10 or so teams that never get it together that’s fantastic, suddenly the odds of winning a title go from 1 in 30 to 1 in 20
This is a good point to consider.
Owners won’t do it unless there’s some over the top PR disaster (which maybe that was somewhat orchestrated to let Balmer in, who knows).
If they all got together and were like “you’re making the league look bad, get out” I think that would be pretty sick, granted it could then be used in a harmful way of course which is why it seems like the owners don’t want to rock the boat for fear of their own standing politically.
Baron Davis days were cool
“Lottery gods” is hilarious. At least one of those was rigged for the team to help find a buyer.
I tried to keep it from being too dubious
That half season with AD, Cousins and Rondo 😭
Tragic we couldn’t see more of that
Goddamn injuries.
Cousins was putting up absolutely historic numbers
And Jrue! Fun team
I think that’s exactly what he means 😂
Honestly it wouldn’t even take much. A few consistent winning seasons and a ton of fans will be on board.
Honestly if the Pels could draft another generational talent and can surround him with help they’d get more fans real fast. Easier said than done though.
Just making the play-in as the 8 seed a few years ago was electric. Just competency is what the fanbase needs. We would be very content to lead a Pacers-like existence.
Bucks fan here, we were DEAD dead as a team/fanabse, and poorly run around like 2011⁄2012 until you know who came along. It’s possible.
I agree, but I’d also argue they had a very good shot at that with Zion and his national hype, and for various reasons (injuries, diet, ownership, coaching) it hasn’t lead to anything.
Right before Zion, they had a really good shot at it with Anthony Davis and before Anthony Davis, they had a really good shot at it with Chris Paul.
Now that failed potential is probably more fault of mediocre to poor ownership (plus coaching and front office) & facilities than the city of New Orleans itself but we’ve had a twenty plus year track record now of a few years of cautious optimism followed by sustained mediocrity for the franchise.
Another? They got Anthony Davis and Zion at #1 in a matter of years. Some of us are still dreaming of picking in the top 5 after a 40 year drought.
Zion and Davis both came in with generational talent fanfare and their teams did sweet f all
At least you got that 50+ season lol
This isn’t THAT different of a profile from the Wizards (5 playoff series wins this millenium, haven’t had 50+ wins since the third year of the Carter administration) and nobody is saying DC should lose a team. Just sucks for New Orleans to have to deal with this
I don’t remember, how popular were they when Jrue and AD swept the Blazers?
I guess the optimistic viewpoint would be the Saints were generational ass before Sean Payton so theres always some slim hope
I’m a Knicks fan but I now live in NOLA, people under estimate how small of a market it is. The ownership is admittedly bad, but larger markets can survive that through sheer force of numbers.
1.35 million in the CSA is tiny.
Yup. And it’s not exactly a market with a potential for growth. It’s been on the decline so even if by some miracle the team becomes consistently good, there’s less people to jump on to become fans and I don’t ever see the rest of Louisiana or Gulf Coast embracing the Pelicans the way they did with the saints when they were good.
If that team is good they will fill the arena. People are looking for an excuse to party here. We will just never support a bad hoops team. People don’t care about the sport enough for that.
The larger problem is not enough corporate money, New Orleans only has one Fortune 500 company while “nearby” cities like Atlanta has 16, Houston has 27, Charlotte has eight, that’s where you sell all your boxes and expensive seats whether the team is good or not.
& being located where they are, they’re not going to be attracting new ones.
Yeah Portlands CSA is 3.5 million, literally 2.5x bigger than NOLA. And Portland is rich per capita, unlike NOLA and Memphis and Milwaukee and some of the other small market teams. Portland has the 18th largest GDP of an CSA in the country. It’s honestly kind of absurd that back when Portland actually was a tiny town in the corner of the country they had one of the 3 best basketball teams for an 18 years period between 1975 and 1993, and now that Portland is debatably the most underserved sports market in the country the one big team they do have has a sociopath in charge and an NBA office unwilling to he seen publicly disciplining said sociopath lol
I truly think it also doesn’t help that they have kind of a lame team name, and boring over used colors.
I think they should have leaned into the Saints branding.
“Brass” was probably the second leading candiate for renaming and the one locals loved. But the team wanted to pursue the statewide fandom that the Saints enjoy, so they went with the blander and more family friendly “Pelicans” (the bird is prominently featured on the state flag). Also it should be noted that the rest of Louisiana hates New Orleans and thinks of it as a cesspool of sin. (As our current governor has made a matter of policy.)
Literally every state hates their main/capital city
Not Massachusetts. Practically anybody in Mass will tell you they are from Boston.
I remember during the rebranding a popular name choice on reddit was Krewe. I’m far from local so my only reason for liking it was that it sounded cool and it would have had a lot of cool marketing opportunities and fan recognition.
I’m in NELA, the Pels might as well not exist. So yeah that didn’t work
Brass rhymes why to easily with ass.
I like their alternate jersey and logo, the purple and green with the skeletal pelican.
That should be the team’s main colors and logo
That’s true but New Orleans is also just not a basketball city. Football dominates Louisiana. The Pelicans were bottom 5 in attendance in 2018 when they were good.
Sometimes cities just don’t support a team regardless of whether they’re good or not. See, San Diego and the Chargers
New Orleans has not had the opportunity to become a basketball city because the team has been fucking awful
Compare NOLA to Sacramento, the Kings have been terrible, but it’s still very much a basketball town
been there nearly 20 seasons longer, two periods of major popularity and success, and the only major pro sport in the city (the A’s don’t count)
and all because of a three year window over 20 years ago
just goes to show how powerful winning can be, even if briefly
Compare the population and the median income.
they weren’t that good in 2018. they were the sixth seed. they missed the playoffs in 2017 and 2019. I don’t think being the sixth seed eight years ago changes the calculus here
San Diego did not abandon the Chargers, Dean Spanos wanted way too much public funding for a new stadium and residents didn’t want their taxes raised to pay for a stadium that Spanos could’ve paid for himself.
My brother in Christ, they’ve won one playoff series since Obama was elected. The first time.
You mentioned the 2017-18 season. They won a respectable 48 games and still didn’t have home court.
The year prior to that, the Pelicans won 34 games. The year after that playoff run, they won 33 games. Their five year win percentage leading up to the Pandemic was .437. That includes the 48-win campaign you mentioned.
Forgive fans for not filling the arena for that. That would be a shitty draw in the majority of NBA markets.
2018 was surrounded by five losing seasons. This team hasn’t ever made it past the second round, or ever made the playoffs more than two years in a row. And the last time they made it twice in a row, Chris Paul was here.
There’s always going to be a ceiling for small market teams. Even now, OKC is barely a top-15 in attendance, for example. But you’ve got to actually see things going well for a spell before you declare that the problem is the town.
It’s never gotten the chance. If LeBron had been drafted to New Orleans, New Orleans would have become a basketball city.
That’s not what it should take lol
Kinda proving Bill’s point here
My point is that basketball has not been in New Orleans for a long time, and during that short time it has been literally only total failures. I do not even live in NOLA but I see Pels gear all the time. People in Louisiana want to be excited by the Pelicans, but the organization has never given anyone a reason to do so.
Football dominates every city with a professional team. Why are we pretending that’s unique to New Orleans lol
Bill Simmons has a hate boner for us. He wanted us to send A.D to Boston, Zion to Boston, and this year it’s Trey Murphy. We don’t give him what’s he wants so we shouldn’t get a team now I guess.
I don’t know why he gets to decide who gets a team.
They’re lucky they’ve been terrible and irrelevant otherwise Gayle Benson paying millions and having staff offer damage control to help cover for 60 pedophiles would be a bigger story
Only one team can win a title. But the Pelicans haven’t even been competent for the vast majority of their existence.
They’ve won one playoff series since Obama was elected. The Hornets/ Pelicans have missed the playoffs 11 times since then. In their seven appearances (including the 2023 Play-In), they’ve never had home court.
It’s just hard to build a fanbase that way. You’re not going to get people to commit to a sports team that’s listless.
Like, picture yourself as a parent in Jefferson Parish. Zion just pulled his hamstring again. How do you look your kid in the eye, drive over to Academy, and buy them a Jeremiah Fears jersey? Didn’t we already do this song and dance after AD left?
I think it’s pretty shitty for Simmons to go off on New Orleans too. Maybe it’s a Gulf Coast thing, but I can’t get behind a national sports writer teeing off on a small market for no fucking reason.
For a guy who built his entire career on providing a fan’s perspective, he’s completely lost the plot. For fuck’s sake, this guy proudly had Clippers season tickets in the Aughts. He’s evoking the Jazz in their Superdome era? Get fucked.
Dude just has a hate boner for Nola for some reason
At the very least they could try to stand out at least a little. They have the most bland color scheme. You have fucking Mardi Gras, why is your jersey not bright purple and green or something? Red, gold, and blue… yuck. Boring.
At least even when the Hornets suck, they have that unique court (honeycombs) and unique jersey color with the light blue. New Orleans was like “nope, we are going to be a default 2k create-a-team”.
As a Portland fan, we don’t have to tear down certain cities to build others up when it comes to small market teams.
Thank you! I would love to know when Bill was last in New Orleans
Pretty sure he has a whole article about how happy he was that the Saints won because he saw Brady win his first ring there and after Katrina he had a lot of feelings about how much he loves the city. Doesn’t mean its a good basketball city.
Bill will find anyway to make something about Boston sports. I love him so much lmao
He loves the casino there lmao
The big casinos in New Orleans are pretty dumpy.
Idk how long ago you’ve been but there’s only one Casino in New Orleans proper and it’s now a Caesars and way less dumpy than when it was Harrah’s
Must be thinking of Shreveport.
Caesars is pretty nice
It was so much better as Harrah’s. Way more personality and the Mardi Gras theme was really fun. They’d literally come down the main aisle of the casino with live jazz and a float.
Caesars is nice, but it’s pretty sterile. Kind-of just the trend of casinos these days, though
He was here for the Super Bowl.. he had nothing bad to say about the city itself.
I would love to know when Bill was last in New Orleans
He was there for the last Super Bowl. He loves New Orleans as a football city, but he might not be wrong about it as a basketball city but Reddit isn’t ready for that type of nuance so people default to thinking he’s trashing New Orleans.
He’s not wrong. NOLA is an awful basketball city. The Saints and LSU will always be top dog there.
And it doesn’t matter because the team gets everything it asks for and the owner isn’t looking to move.
Primarily because of bad ownership and management. Just this last 20 years they have had 2 #1 picks and one of the best PG of all time. It is comical!
CP3, AD, and Zion. You can argue that Zion did himself in, but the fact that the Pelicans basically never put a good team around AD is crazy.
CP3 was there when the city damn near got wiped out and by the time AD got there Nola had a diaspora elsewhere bc the city was still rebuilding. That’s a big factor aside from shitty ownership too.
They did once but injuries
Name a city where a major college football program or an NFL franchise isn’t top dog. You could argue maybe LA and NY, but that’s it. Football will always be top dog, period. That’s not unique to New Orleans.
There’s a big difference between football being number 1 and football being so dominant that other sports basically don’t exist.
I don’t disagree, but also anytime the Pels have been even half decent the arena has been full and the city has been filled with Pels jerseys and watch parties. There’s a fanbase here, it’s just a combination of horrific ownership and some of the worst injury luck possible that have led to this point.
Most fanbases (Pels fans included) don’t deserve to lose their team.
That being said it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if they moved to St. Louis, Kansas City, Seattle, Vancouver, or Vegas.
Highly doubt that the Blazers get relocated but the Pelicans is definitely a possibility. Especially if they continue to be garbage.
At the moment, it’s not happening. Gayle Benson has repeatedly said she’s never selling and she’s turned down multiple offers over $3B. Her will has the Saints and Pelicans being sold to owners that are required to keep them in New Orleans and all of the proceeds are going to the Benson Foundation which is her charity to benefit the city of New Orleans.
So unless she dies tomorrow or she completely changes everything that she’s set up in her succession plan for years, then it won’t be anytime soon.
Gayle is one of the worst owners in all of sports. But her one redeeming factor is she does seem to care about the city and wants to leave something worth while when she’s gone.
What makes her such a bad owner if you don’t mind me asking?
“Worst owner in all of sports” from a sports perspective is a little silly, but from a human perspective, she was directly responsible for helping the Catholic Church in New Orleans escape consequences when the news regarding priests raping children broke ESPN story about it
Got involved with the Catholic you know what scandal, and runs the Pels as second to the saints, literally through the same office and people
We are consistently the worst run organization in the league. She just hired Joe fucking Dumars to run the show. He have the smallest staff and the worst facilities in the league bc she’s cheap, etc. etc.
She js a bad owner but not “one of the worst owner in all of sports”. She inherited the team and is considered poor by most sports owners metrics. Add small market and a city and state that is actually shrinking in lots of economic metrics as well doesn’t help.
She actually loves the Pels but is terrible at hiring the right personnel to run it as she is football first.
As a fan, I rather her than most tech bros, casino owner, or corp group who will move the team. Bad Team > No team.
The Blazers are most certainly in danger of being relocated. They have an owner that has all but officially declared he wants to relocate the team UNLESS he’s given taxpayer money. They moved the Sonics from Seattle to Oklahoma City, so none of the logic about big markets and revenue matters if the team is owned by someone who wants to move the team.
It would be different than SEA to OKC in that Dundon is a shyster who wants taxpayer money to subsidize his team, and is willing to move it to get that money.
The difference is that Stearns was fine with it and Silver appears to be less receptive to relocation. I don’t think he wants this move to happen under his tenure.
Yet, his tools for stopping it are limited, depending on the nature of negotiations between Portland and the Blazers. The city is absolutely not going to give him taxpayer money, because it would be wildly unpopular. So the danger that Dundon burns down his relationship with the city - something he’s already begun doing - is very high.
He can burn that bridge with the city and also not be able to move the team because the league and owners don’t want it. In fact, it’s looking like the most likely scenario.
For the record, I am utterly, completely against Dundon’s slimy attempt to get money or relocate the Blazers. I don’t think you’re correct that Silver will side with the city if the conflict is about a new arena, because historically the league has sided with the owners on virtually everything, and very specifically it has when the issue of cities building teams a modern arena was the sticking point.
I thought the city is willing to pony up the money they just want to see what it’s actually going to be used for
Assuming he is just trying to leverage taxpayer money, of course. One of the problems with Dundon’s approach so far is that he made sure to burn down the city’s reputation, at least on his end, publicly. You can’t walk back what he said last week. He basically called Portland a shithole that’s bad for business. Until then I thought it was just a way to leverage the money.
I think Bill Simmons is right, for once. Dundon might have purchased the Blazers because relocation was cheaper than buying an expansion franchise.
Isn’t the payout for owners much higher on an expansion team vs the relocation fee? Plus I feel like any market he could move to would be a side grade from Portland (I don’t think they’d move them to Vegas or Seattle, but maybe I’m wrong).
I do agree the relationship is probably irreparably harmed and he’ll be hated by the city till he sells or dies.
I didn’t think you were for the relocation. I do however think you’re engaging a bit in a sort of fatalism that I’ve seen a lot with this issue. It’s not a done deal that they relocate just because the billionaire says so. There are other billionaires involved. This guy joined the clique and immediately brought tons of negative attention. He’s being cheap in a way that has immediately alienated large swathes of his fanbase. That’s different than the usual shit head owner who wants a new venue every couple decades. And I really do think Silver doesn’t want this as part of his legacy. As the head of the league, he can absolutely put pressure on Dundon. I think there’s gonna be a protracted battle that is very messy but ends with the team staying in Portland.
Billionaires care far more about actual restrictions on their ability to do what they want than they do about “looking bad” to a single fanbase (I can’t believe this needs to be said)
Silver’s legacy is irrelevant. He works for the owners. If he tries to meaningfully curtail their ability to play with their teams, he’ll be gone in a heartbeat
The city is fine with giving the team taxpayer money if the team will actually say what they are going to do with it. They’ve already approved the money. They just want to see the plans for the renovation and what else it is going to be spent on. Trailblazers have utterly refused to even show any architectural plans or anything so far.
The team said that they can’t produce any architectural plans because they can’t hire an architect until the city pays them (lol). There was a city council meeting recently where the team president talked and answered questions, this video breaks it down really well: https://youtu.be/EcFpIw4_3tI
That logic does apply. The percentage of revenue teams get from the TV contract is magnitudes larger than it was when the Sonics relocated. Moving the Blazers to an equal or smaller market (which every proposed location outside of Seattle or Vegas is) makes the pie smaller for all of the owners.
They should move a team to LA for the dodgers to store some of their talent
Extra pitching arms incoming!
Gayle Benson would rather light herself on fire than move the team. That’s the one good thing about her
You doubt the Blazers get relocated even though Balzers owner is taking all the steps to relocate? You think he cares about the history or even Portland in general? No one is stopping him from moving.
There’s not an obvious path to relocation for the blazers. The expansion cities wouldn’t want them and the other owners would most likely veto a relocation to one of the expansion cities since they don’t get paid if its a relocation. No obvious locations to move to that would make sense either.
Unless theres is historic levels of change I don’t see it happening. Blazers owner will still try it because he’s a POS
Vancouver won’t get another chance unless it’s a home run in terms of attendance
It would be. City is rich as ever and there are 1.2 million more people in the metro area since the last time the grizzlies played. Also a lot more Asians and you know how much Asians love basketball
Vancouver fans would boycott their own team if the Blazers moved there. PNW/Cascadia rivalry is legit and pure. They’d probably be just as pissed as Portland would be out of principle alone.
Not that I was a social butterfly or anything but during my brief stint in Kansas City, felt like no one watched basketball
Can he leave us alone lol
Bill Simmons likes to punch down and is the definition of “can dish it but can’t take it”
It’s very fun when he is proven wrong to his face
If history is any indication, the Pelicans are either making the playoffs or winning the lottery.
2012 - Lottery for AD. 2019 - Lottery for Zion. 2022 - The Suns series
Guy is a complete fuckin moron. Dude has some bizarre hateboner for the Raptors yet is on record saying he’d trade OG to Portland for the fucking Sochan pick.
Was so ragingly insecure over one of our reporters believing the Raptors would be a 6 seed before the season, and waited until some random March game to screencap the standings going “lol where are they”, only for us to obviously be back up there in 5th a couple days later.
He hates the nets so much also, it’s kind of sad
We’ll tag in tomorrow, give yall a break for a day
As a Kings fan and old head I feel qualified to say this:
It is never ethical to call for other franchises to get moved. The Kings were sold to a Seattle ownership group after discussions and close calls with many other cities, then the NBA stepped in to stop it.
The only reason they were for sale in the first place is because the previous owners (the Maloofs) were idiots who bankrupted multiple previously successful businesses they inherited.
Just like Sacramento, New Orleans has fans who live and die by a team that has given them no reason to remain loyal. Rooting for those fans to lose their franchise is crazy fucked up. And it’s pure privilege when it comes from someone like Bill, who roots for a legacy franchise and will never have to know the feeling of losing his own team.
Fuck that. Pelicans fans deserve to see their team succeed just as much as Celtics fans, Lakers fans, or anyone else.
Real recognize real, let us hate ourselves in peace
Fuck yeah. Thanks, man.
It’s also weird that he’s blaming the fanbase for how the Pelicans have performed. There’s been a LOT of bad luck with injuries during the tenures of CP3, AD, and then Zion.
Exactly. The failures of a particular front office or ownership group are not the failures of a whole city as a worthy NBA market.
Been living in Sacramento for the past 10 years and the Kings have some amazing fans. The light the beam year was electric. I’ve been to many Kings games and their fans always show out. I can’t believe how quickly it went from an exciting season to back to the gutter. Kings fans deserve better.
I’ve been to 25 of the 27 home playoff games that the New Orleans Hornets/Pelicans have ever played in…They are usually damn electric…but also usually ended up with us on the wrong side.
And yes, I stayed for the entire game when we lost by 58 :(
That kills me so much
When we have a good squad New Orleans is such a rabid sports city we are so goddamn loud
I don’t think Bill is wrong per se, but I think it’s really weird to shit on one city over another when we all agree that getting your team moved absolutely sucks. I lived in Portland for a few years, losing the Blazers would be devastating, but losing the Pelicans would really suck for New Orleans too.
Agreed! Can’t wait to see 7 different NBA teams in LA!
Can’t wait for the Anaheim pelicans, the burbank blazers, the riverside grizzlies, the temuculs nets and the Oxnard magic/s
No NBA team should be moved. Period
Hear hear
As a Pels fan. Please fuck right off Bill. Not sure Boston should have a basketball team seeing as how they’re known to yell the n word from the stands
This shit right here!
Not sure if he’s correct or not, but football is such king in the south, both pro and college - hard to compete w that.
Which is what makes Memphis special. We are a southern city where the most popular team is a basketball team.
Unfortunately, that team is the Memphis University Tigers
Funnily enough Tiger football has been leaps and bounds better than Tiger basketball the last decade plus
University of Memphis Tigers
It is weird that when my mom lived in Memphis, everyone seemed to be Cowboys or Saints fans. I think I saw 1 Titans fan for every 5 Saints fans. Is the hate boner for Nashville that bad?
Titans were in Memphis for a season while the stadium in Nashville was being built. Memphis wasn’t really thrilled about being used as a placeholder for Nashville.
Memphis is culturally connected more to Mississippi and Southern Arkansas than Nashville. It just happens to be in the state of Tennessee.
titans did make memphis babysit them until the stadium in nashville was ready but the people wanted none of that forcing them to leave early. memphis from the 70s to 90s were trying hard to get an nfl team but carolina/jax expansion plus the oilers move put an end to it.
Not Nashville this time, specifically the Titans (and Bud Adams).
Here’s a good read: https://sports.yahoo.com/city-hated-nfl-team-140922905.html
It’s been 6 years since I lived in Memphis but people are always surprised when I tell them people there don’t really care about the Titans like that
NO deserves a team. But they will always have to pay for their sin of unleashing the King Cake Baby mascot unto the world.
Do you fear him?
He stares into my soul and wants to cut it to check if its made of cake.
He’s a cute lil terrifying monster
Only a few more months.
Mardi Gras ain’t to far away, hope you ready for the baby.
To be fair New Orleans has never in their history had a basketball team worthwhile for fans to fully invest in
Which is crazy when you consider that they won the AD & Zion lotteries. Arguably 2⁄3 most hyped prospects of the last 15 years.
And they had CP3 too.
Would suck if New Orleans loses the Pelicans because Joe Dumars is a disaster of a GM in the modern era
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Bill is just a bitch.
I hate this. Small markets should band together to oppose all relocations. The teams belong to the city and it’s beyond shitty for someone less big as bill to advocate for relocation (he’s done it like a dozen times in the last 8 months)
In the Pels case, the team basically does belong to the city. Gayle Benson might not be interested in running an over the tax team, but she HAS said she will be donating the team to the city when she dies. I don’t think Pels are going anywhere.
Went to a random Pels-Clips game while in New Orleans and had a blast with my family. Good music, fun vibes, plenty of food and security.
Bill Simmons is a dipshit whose media empire is completely confusing to me. Add this one to his list of shitty opinions masked as NBA content.
Why’d he say fuck me for? But yah Saints r way more of a priority for the fans and owner
Hard to be a fan of a team when the organization is horrible
Think he missing the mark with memphis. Memphis works because it have real basketball culture. It’s not a football eccentric city. Similar for teams like the pacers. Nashville a risk. High income doesn’t always translate to sales. Hawks barely sell and they in an idea metro area on paper
The franchise has been plagued more by bad luck more than incompetence. Until recently when Dumars brought incompetence.
People say that Nola didn’t build around AD but that’s BS. They traded their first rounder EVERY YEAR Davis was here. Those people just kept getting hurt with flukes. Boogie tore his Achilles. Tyreke blew out his knee. Jrue Holiday’s wife got Cancer. Omer Asik got ricketts or something.
Then Zion and/or BI got hurt for entire sessons. Dejounte Murray played half a blink before missing the year.
Fuck u Bill Simmon
Anyone that thinks teams should move cities is a piece of trash.
Because the NBA did NOT like the optics of a team leaving New Orleans after Katrina. It just looks bad and they didnt want the media backlash.
He said this in response to getting messages/being asked about why he hasn’t gone to bat for New Orleans the same way he’s going to bat for Portland right now. And his whole point was that Portland has a long history of being a good NBA small market fanbase, and he can’t say the same for New Orleans, which he also caveats by saying whether that’s the fault of the league, owners, etc he isn’t sure. I get how people think it’s mean but I don’t really think he’s wrong here. Does anybody here think New Orleans comes close to Portland as a small market NBA city?
The two cities are not really fair comparisons. Portland is all they have and they’ve had periods of success. New Orleans has other shows in town that actually win things. Just look at the crowd when they played the suns competitively in the playoffs a few years ago. Fans haven’t even had a chance to show the league anything.
That’s true. The smoothie king center was bumping for those games. A whole arena singing for Jose and yelling fuck Jae Crowder. One of the best sports experience in my life
On a previous podcast episode he said that one of the reasons Zion didn’t work out is because the fanbase isn’t good. He just really likes punching down even when it’s completely nonsensical
Honestly no team should be relocated exempt maybe the Nets back to Jersey
Fuck this asshole , idiot has the worst opinions
I thought the crowd was very good when they had that play-in to playoffs run facing the Suns. The team fizzled after that and lost the momentum.
Fuck you then
If New Orleans had nothing but the Pels, they’d be a well supported franchise. Just like the Kings in Sacramento.
But the New Orleans has the Saints, and the NFL will always come first. So unlike the Kings, who are supported well through thick and thin, the Pels will be an afterthought if they can’t build a good team around their top draft picks.
Ugh this bozo is trying to get rid of franchises every two seconds.
If the saints can win a super bowl, the pelicans can win a championship. The saints took 30+ years before they even won a playoff game
This might be controversial, but I’m a big believer in a strong mascot/moniker having an immense impact on a teams popularity, and the Pelicans might be one of the worst ones in the Big 4 leagues
Just give a team to Seattle already.
As someone who lost my favorite team to New Orleans before I do not support this viewpoint.
Oh come on. I’m biased because I live here but New Orleans doesn’t deserve to lose the Pelicans. Yes this is a Saints city first but all it takes is a few good seasons and you’ll see people come around. The fans here show up when the team is good.
I’d love to hear educated reasons why it’s the city’s fault. We’ve sold out games when the team has been competitive. Team has never been great. Same shit happened with the Jazz. Unless I’m missing something, we can’t control the ownership or the front office.
Go fuck yourself, Bill
I mean they’re the pelicans they can never be cool they’re freaking pelicans
New orleans got ruined by Katrina and never rebuilt the way it deserved. Don’t get me wrong the tourist shit got rebuilt, parts of new orleans are even nicer than they were but the city is a husk of its former self and then covid hit it hard too. It feels more like a Vegas or Orlando facsimile of what it used to be than the real new orleans.
Half the city left and didnt come back. There’s still 100k fewer people living there now than there were 20 years ago. Its still a fucking crime. If sf got leveled by an earthquake there would be money to put everything right, not for new orleans though. Its actually depressing when I go there for conferences, Tulane was my 2nd choice for college I had a cousin who lived in the garden district, I have great memories of new orleans. If they had given me a bit more aid, if they gave me a guaranteed spot in their architecture program I would have been there, but the UC school I got into was too good and too much cheaper to say no to. Still I remember thinking I should have done it, I should have told my parents id get a job and pay the difference because new orleans was the one city in America that wasn’t American. It was one third European, one third American and one third black, and boy did we let that black third take the brunt of the damage and the least of the aid.
They need to be in the east