PRACTICE SCHEDULE
What if the Hornets had never left Oklahoma City?
The NBA has targeted May 8 as the first day teams might reopen their practice facilities, but Thunder general manager Sam Presti isn't committed to that date
When the Thunder first moved to town, thenOklahoman sports editor Mike Sherman met with Sam Presti and warned the general manager that Oklahomans had grown quite fond of Chris Paul and the Hornets, Presti had a wise response.
“I think they're gonna like Kevin Durant.”
It's been 13 years since that April night when the Hornets played their final home game in Oklahoma City and then returned full-time to New Orleans. We were like 15-year-olds at summer camp, dealing with a lost first love. No way our hearts could ever be whole again.
Then soon enough, here came Durant and Russell Westbrook, Serge Ibaka and James Harden, Rumble and Perk, Nick Collison and Scotty Brooks, Paul George and Carmelo Anthony, Shai GilgeousAlexander and Danilo Gallinari, and even Chris Paul, all grown up.
What goes around comes around. And the Hornets have become old what's-her-name from summer camp.
But what if the Hornets never had left?
What if owner George Shinn's initial inclination, to keep the Hornets in Boomtown, had carried the day?
Or what if Clay Bennett's attempts to purchase the Hornets from Shinn had gone through? What would the NBA in OKC look like today?
No Durant. No Westbrook. No Ibaka. No Harden. No George.
The Hornets would have traveled a different path. But, at least starting out, with the same cast that went back to New Orleans.
If Shinn had kept the franchise and kept it here, we have a clue on what awaited OKC.
And it was nothing like the Thunder success.
OKC has made nine of the last 10 NBA playoffs and was on track to make it again this season, before the pandemic suspended play. In that decade, the Thunder won 10 playoff series. Month of May basketball became our norm.
Not so with the Hornets.
In the first year back in New Orleans, the Hornets went 56-26, beat the Mavericks in the playoffs and took the defending champion Spurs to seven games in a rousing Western Conference semifinal. That was a roster Oklahoma City
knew well – CP3, David West, Tyson Chandler, Peja Stojakoic, Bobby Jackson, Jannero Pargo, Rasual Butler. Heck, even the Birdman played five games.
But then the Hornets started sliding.
Two playoffs over the next three seasons, no playoff advancement. Coach Byron Scott was fired in November 2009. The Hornets encountered massive financial problems, and Shinn sold the franchise to the NBA in December 2010.
Paul started requesting a trade in 2010; by 2011, he was gone to the Clippers.
Heck, not even the name survived.
The Hornets became the Pelicans in summer 2013.
Not even winning the lottery lifted the Pelicans much. They got the first pick in the 2012 draft, which allowed them to take Anthony Davis.
At the time, New Orleans had been 24 games over .500 the previous five years. Charlotte, which got the second pick in that draft, had been 90 games under .500 the previous five years, including a 7-59 record in 2011-12. After New Orleans drafted Davis, Charlotte drafted Michael Kidd-Gilchrist.
So you tell me how over the next five years, with Charlotte's highest draft pick being Cody Zeller, it finished 22 games better than New Orleans?
The Hornets-turned
Pelicans were a derelict franchise. Maybe the new era, with Zion Williamson, can be fruitful. But Oklahomans still would be waiting for sustained success.
Of course, things could have been different for the Oklahoma City Hornets had Shinn sold the franchise to Bennett's group. It's not for lack of trying that Bennett didn't buy the Hornets. When Bennett became convinced, in summer 2006, that Shinn eventually was taking the franchise back to New Orleans, Bennett bought the Seattle SuperSonics. Two years later, the Sonics moved to Oklahoma City.
Could Bennett have replicated with the Hornets what he did with the Sonics/Thunder?
Well, it seems likely that Sam Presti would have been on the premises. Bennett, a former stakeholder in the San Antonio Spurs, hired away Presti from the Spurs, on the recommendation of the Spurs' Gregg Popovich and R.C. Buford.
Bennett almost surely would have ordered a Hornets front office overhaul. Jeff Bower was the Hornet general manager and had constructed a solid roster, but New Orleans didn't draft all that well, beyond Paul.
Could Presti have built a culture like he built with the Thunder? Sure. Could Presti have built a roster like he built with the Thunder? Doubtful. Presti's great draft picks of Westbrook (fourth overall, 2008) and Harden (third overall, 2009) wouldn't have been available. The Hornets in those days rarely had premium draft pick — no top-10 picks between Paul in 2005 and Davis in 2012.
But Paul was a great building block. He grew disenchanted in New Orleans and ended up getting traded to the Clippers in 2011. That's six seasons with the Hornets.
Could Presti have enticed Paul to stay in Oklahoma City longer? Probably. Presti almost surely would have built a better roster around CP3, and Presti ended up impressively keeping Durant for eight years in OKC and Westbrook for 11 years.
Presti would have had a better financial landscape in OKC than Bower had in New Orleans.
Remember, the Hornets traded Chandler to the Thunder in February 2009, out of financial desperation.
The trade was rescinded; five months later, the Hornets traded Chandler to Charlotte for the inferior Emeka Okafor, and the Hornet slide began.
Could Presti have produced a Paul-led champion with the Hornets? Not likely. A perennial-contender like the Thunder? Maybe.
It seems probable that the Hornets in Oklahoma City, with Bennett/ Presti leadership, would have been one of the NBA's better franchises. But not as good as the Thunder. Summercamp romances rarely are as wonderful as we remember.