Reviving the NBA in the Pacific Northwest
The conditions are ripe for the NBA’s return to Vancouver – but hold on, Seattle has dibs.
On the evening of Apr. 28, the No. 8 seed Memphis Grizzlies entered the AT&T Center in San Antonio looking to knock out the No. 1 seed Spurs. Had it not been for some last second Spurs heroics and perfect officiating, the Grizz would’ve wiped their hands clean of the regular season’s best team in a lightning fast five games (instead, they did it in a quick six).
That very same night in Vancouver, the city erupted and took to the streets after the NHL’s Vancouver Canucks pulled out a (long overdue) overtime series clincher against the Chicago Blackhawks, itself a Bizarro World scenario similar to that of the Grizzlies (although here the favorite ultimately prevails and no one jumps off the Lions Gate Bridge).
It almost goes without saying that no one in Vancouver cared about the Grizzlies that night.
Since their departure from western Canada’s largest city after the 2000-01 NBA season, the Vancouver Grizzlies have been largely forgotten about.
Vancouverites have long ago ditched any association with the team – frankly, they’ve moved on. No players remain on the team from the Vancouver-era, nor do any players keep a legacy or residence in the area.
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Some evidence remains: thrift stores are filled with Grizzlies merchandise before they’re quickly snapped up by nostalgic hipsters, and faded logos on 90s-era Huffy driveway backboards do more to remind the owners of those houses that the kids no longer live there. Nine times out of 10, when you hear “Vancouver” and “NBA” in the same sentence it’s in regards to Steve Nash.
In conversation with Bill Simmons in 2008, NBA commissioner David Stern did say that the loss of a franchise in Vancouver, and how that happened, is one of his deepest regrets in his 25+ years. More casual remarks make it seem like one he is now looking to rectify.
So, when news broke in late March that Canucks Sports and Entertainment CEO Franceso Acquilini was inquiring about purchasing the NBA-owned New Orleans Hornets and relocating them to Vancouver some were skeptical as to whether or not Vancouver could support an NBA franchise once again.
But first, let us think of the heartbreak in Seattle
A quick two-hour drive across the border to Seattle tells another story. The loss of theSuperSonics doesn’t sit well in Seattle and most NBA fans will echo a similar sentiment (albeit spiked with considerably less vitriol). It goes without saying that the Emerald City’s loss of the Sonics cuts deeper than the loss of the Grizzlies two hours north. In terms of heartbreak and concern over how and why it happened, it conceivably outranks Cleveland’s loss of the Browns and Winnipeg’s loss of the Jets.
Take Steven Pyeatt, lifetime Seattle resident, Sonics diehard, and co-founder of Save Our Sonics, a registered non-profit that advocated hard to keep the Sonics in Seattle while it was still a possibility.
Pyeatt and Brian E. Robinson, the other co-founder of Save Our Sonics, were able to garner tremendous support in the Seattle community to keep the Sonics in town just after Clay Bennett purchased the team, and are still dedicated although not as active.
In its heyday SaveOurSonics.org had amassed an email list 10,000 members strong and offered a very real voice for a desperate fan base. That all this happened before the explosion in popularity of social media, makes it more remarkable. With more people engaged just five years later, impassioned citizens trigger happy with their Facebook “likes” and retweets it’s not unreasonable to think a Facebook campaign launched today under the circumstances of 2006 would easily have six-figure support, if not more.
As you know, SaveOurSonics.org did not succeed, and Clay Bennett was allowed to deceptively relocate the team at the beginning of the 2008-09 season to Oklahoma City, where they now play (and win) as the Thunder.
Pyeatt is still optimistic for a return.
It all comes down to having an arena, and the chances are “100 percent or zero”. If they get an arena Pyeatt feels they will get a team. No arena, however, no team.
In conversation, Pyeatt uses the analogy of a jigsaw puzzle to good effect. The first part of this puzzle is what Seattle has to do: get financing for a new arena or build a new one. Steve Ballmer of Microsoft wealth has committed $150 million to a renovation of Key Arena, and his Microsoft buddy Paul Allen also owns assets in pro sports (the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers, Major League Soccer’s Seattle Sounders and the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks). The deep pockets are there.
More pieces fall into place. Pyeatt sees as many as six NBA teams facing possible relocation: from the NBA-owned feel-good story that is the Hornets in post-Katrina New Orleans (even though it was a tricky financial situation pre-Katrina), to the year lease on the Sacramento Kings, to even a struggling Pistons team in a struggling Detroit economy.
With the coupling of a new arena (or a greatly renovated Key Arena) in the 12th biggest television market in the US, Pyeatt insists Seattle easily becomes the most attractive market for an NBA franchise.
It’s also a chance for Clay Bennett, now the chairman of the NBA’s Relocation Committee (a move Pyeatt equates to putting Michael Vick in charge of the humane society), to gain back some respect in Seattle and the greater NBA community.
“[Bennett] can back up the statement he made that Seattle is a good destination for the NBA, or prove he embraces the black hat attitude,” says Pyeatt.
It’s his chance to finally be honest, after his dishonesty gutted a city.
In the end, Pyeatt admits that it all comes down to money, which is suddenly in Vancouver’s favor.
The Case for Vancouver
Since the departure of the Grizzlies, the growth of the city of Vancouver has been impressive on any scale. In the life span of global cities, Vancouver finally hit puberty: rapid cosmetic changes, a new rash of social problems, a new sense of maturity and responsibility, and a sturdier financial base.
This is also to say, on a municipal scale, that the past decade has been a blur.
As a result of major investments in the infrastructure of the city, due in large part to hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics, Vancouver’s economy has grown steadily. In NBA terms, Vancouver could support a bid for All-Star Weekend – there are all the clubs, world class cuisine and luxury hotels necessary.
Rogers Arena began as a dual-use arena (as GM Place) and is still a top caliber pro sports arena, with the modern amenities (such as sky boxes and executive suites) needed for an NBA franchise.
Cited as the single biggest dagger in the heart of the Vancouver Grizzlies, the Canadian dollar is far stronger than it once was. Currently sitting mostly even with the US dollar, this is dramatically different from a Canadian loonie worth 62 cents on the American greenback in January 2002. A better dollar not only leads to an easier time affording multi-million dollar player contracts, but by extension, makes season and single buyer tickets considerably cheaper (think $100 versus $140).
The Acquilini Family, too, shows just the combination of business savvy to run a pro team and the right kind of deep pockets (deep but not infinitely deep, so they remain vitally interested) that David Stern wants to see before he moves any team.
The situation would be similar to that of the Toronto Raptors and parent company Maple Leaf Sport and Entertainment, with the NHL team being the flagship cash cow for the NBA team and tertiary holdings in the MLS and CFL.
For Vancouver, this is a double-edged sword: working in relative obscurity is a good thing for a struggling team trying to find its legs, but a winning team could also be ignored by a city that will always put hockey first. After all, Canada is Hockey Country, something that was all but set in Gold on Vancouver ice in February 2010.
In further comparison to the Raptors, Vancouver has just as much of a basketball culture as Toronto, if not more. Raptors head coach Jay Triano is a grad and former head coach of Simon Fraser University (SFU), and unless he experiences sudden and tremendous success with a terrible Raptors team, Triano’s legacy will likely be stronger out west than it is in the east.
SFU also recently became the first Canadian school to make the jump into NCAA Division II. While most Canadian schools compete in the CIS (Canadian Interuniversity Sport), SFU made the transition to compete in NCAA Division II against significantly better American schools, and the University of British Columbia (UBC) is considering a similar switch.
This would allow these schools to attract better talent, both in players coming on scholarship to Vancouver and Division II schools coming north to play in Canada.
Even more appetizing is the growth of basketball in Asian and East Indian markets, which surely has commissioner Stern salivating. The Greater Vancouver Area’s substantial Indian and Asian populations are a demographic fit for a more globally-inclusive NBA, albeit in baby steps. If any Grizzlies legacy exists at all, it’s in Shareef Abdur-Rahim’s connection to a Muslim community that was experiencing tremendous growth and pride in the Lower Mainland of BC.
Also, the small things, like video game companies and public beaches: EA Sports headquarters in downtown Vancouver has been host to countless pro athletes for years, and Vancouver isn’t the backwater mountain town Steve Francis made it out to be.
Without exaggerating the natural beauty of Vancouver, it’s hard to understand how someone couldn’t instantly see the appeal of a shiny glass jeweled city defined by a mountain range jutting out of the Pacific.
Removing the negative factors (cut the lottery pick and salary cap restrictions that plagued the Grizz and Raptors) and with an ounce of luck (as opposed to strictly bad luck, from Francis all the way through Abdur-Rahim’s knees), a team in Vancouver could be a success, just as small markets teams are seeing a dramatic revival across the NBA.
Using Oklahoma City as an example, Pyeatt concedes of the Thunder/Sonics situation that a “passionate ownership group can make it happen even if the market isn’t exactly viable.”
In the first round of the Western Conference playoff bracket, it was a surprisingly real possibility that the young, up-start 5-8 seeds would advance, sending a shockwave through the old guard of the west. The Los Angeles Lakers and Dallas Mavericks just barely dodged the bullet.
The NBA as a whole has been and will be largely dependent on the successes or failures of small market teams, and central in determining the fate of those teams will be the new NBA collective bargaining agreement (CBA).
Big market teams, like the Knicks, Celtics and Lakers in contrast, will always be able to attract top talent and bring in enough fans and television money to ensure financial viability, if not a stupefying financial windfall.
If NBA executives connect the ratings boost of this year’s playoffs to this out-of-nowhere sense of parity among the top 16 NBA teams, maybe they will be inspired to tweak the CBA to allow small market teams the leverage to retain talent and remain competitive in order to maintain this parity. As it stands now, and as long as the CBA doesn’t create more adverse conditions for small market teams, Vancouver is a very real possibility.
A Team, Any Team
We know that few in Vancouver care about the Grizzlies anymore (a fact amplified exponentially with each Canucks postseason win), but is anyone in Seattle watching the Thunder?
Though Pyeatt says some are out of “morbid curiosity,” he isn’t, and barely even pays attention to the NBA anymore. “I’m a 100 percent Sonics fan and a zero percent Thunder fan.”
But this isn’t to say he has forgotten.
In Vancouver, fans have good reason to forget. It’s not like the Grizzlies 1.0 ever made a decent playoff run like the Grizzlies 2.0 are now, nor did they experience even a measure of success. Other than Shareef Abdur-Rahim’s popularity among the growing Muslim populations in the suburbs of Burnaby, Richmond and Surrey, Vancouver fans were quicker to hate Steve Francis and poke fun at Bryant Reeves as he lumbered down the court.
While NBA in YVR is a realistic possibility, and perhaps the best (current) business case for any relocated NBA franchise, Seattle is still without. Basketball in Vancouver does not have the proud tradition and legacy as it does in Seattle and the importance of this cannot be understated.
Seattle-area sports stores still carry Sonics gear and Key Arena sits empty while left behind from the franchise relocation remains a fan base not only unsatisfied, but cheated. Local sports personalities still reel in despair as they show Thunder playoff footage. Every time Kevin Durant skies six inches above a 6’7″ defender from 26 feet out to swish a three, some local barista quits his Nirvana-inspired grunge band, Windows 7 sucks a little more and Boeing stock drops a few points.
“When the time comes, we will energize,” says Pyeatt, who also insists he would be a proud season ticket holder in the event of the NBA’s return to Seattle.
When that happens, the league can once again look across the border, restoring basketball as it was meant to be in the Pacific Northwest.
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