TNTF Presents The 32nd Team: Ep. 2 - "Relocation"
Expansion brought NBA basketball to new markets throughout North America. But establishing a franchise and sustaining one proved to be two entirely different challenges. In Part Two of The 32nd Team, Gavriel Wilkins and Torrence Stagger examine the period where relocation began to reshape the league's landscape, raising multiple questions surrounding when moving a franchise becomes necessary. While also discussing how much responsibility falls upon ownership, the market and the NBA itself in times when professional basketball fails to survive in a city. The conversation begins north of the border with the Vancouver Grizzlies, as the duo looks back on the combination of circumstances that contributed to the franchise departing Canada for Memphis just six years after its inception. From ownership instability and attendance struggles to the problems with the Canadian dollar, restrictive expansion rules and difficulties attracting talent. Including whether the franchise could have survived under different circumstances. From there, the focus shifts back to Charlotte, a market that once appeared to be one of the NBA's greatest expansion success stories before deteriorating relationships combined with declining attendance and an increasingly unpopular ownership group culminated in the original Hornets departing for New Orleans. As Gavriel & Torrence examine how Charlotte lost its team, why the NBA moved quickly to give the Queen City another chance with the expansion Bobcats and the challenge of creating a new identity in a market that had already fallen in love with another. Then, one of the most devastating natural disasters in American history unexpectedly alters the NBA's trajectory. Following Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans Hornets become a temporarily displaced franchise that is bought in by Oklahoma City, introducing professional basketball to a market that had never previously called an NBA franchise its own. While a rookie point guard in Chris Paul begins to emerge as one of the league's brightest young talents, as Oklahoma City embraces the displaced Hornets and quietly begins proving that the city may be capable of supporting an NBA team on a permanent basis. Follow The New Twenty Four across social media on IG and Twitter/X (@TNTF_).
