Vancouver Hangover .
It's funny how many Vancouverites still harbor the hope of the NBA returning to Vancouver, B.C. Huh ? Vancouver blew it ! Their fan support waned after only a few seasons. ' It's important that in choosing future location for a new NBA team that it is located in a major city ' said Commish David Stern during the NBA Europe Live press con held in London, England . He then compared the very much alive Toronto Raptors franchise vs. the very much dead Vancouver Grizzlies ( now the Memphis Grizzlies ) . Maybe there is hope. A long shot . Even a 3 point shot . If a combination of things align somewhat , Vancouver will be an NBA city once more. These are :
One - if the province fav son and 2 time NBA MVP Steve Nash plays for t
he new Vancouver team . The Suns vs. Supersonics game last Friday drew a sellout crowd of 17K plus. Awesome for a pre season game ! OK , OK .Nash may be too old once his contract with the Phoenix Suns is over. Not really . Ex Celtics great Bob Cousy, to whom Nash's game is often compared with , came out of retirement to play for a fledging Kansas City NBA team.
Two - if the numerous Chinese billionaires/milllionaires based in B.C. join forces to bankroll the team. The new team won't have no problem with money as income from the food sales alone will be huge. Knowing the Chinese , they will have pricey spring rolls and wanton soup in place of cheap hotdogs and Coke ! Who cares if they name the team the Hongkouver Dimsuns !
Three - if half of the roster is composed of members / or former members of the Chinese National team. Many enterprising tour agencies etc. will surely put a Vancouver basketball game attendance as part of their tours in the same way as seeing a live Ichiro /Seattle Mariners game a must for Japanese foreign students in TO. Then there is the non stop and ever increasing Chinese population in Vancouver, legal or otherwise ? Just remember that these are my ideas . OK , grass
hopper ?
Bruce Lee : Maybe my friend Kareem will come out of retirement to play for Chinada !
One - if the province fav son and 2 time NBA MVP Steve Nash plays for t
he new Vancouver team . The Suns vs. Supersonics game last Friday drew a sellout crowd of 17K plus. Awesome for a pre season game ! OK , OK .Nash may be too old once his contract with the Phoenix Suns is over. Not really . Ex Celtics great Bob Cousy, to whom Nash's game is often compared with , came out of retirement to play for a fledging Kansas City NBA team.Two - if the numerous Chinese billionaires/milllionaires based in B.C. join forces to bankroll the team. The new team won't have no problem with money as income from the food sales alone will be huge. Knowing the Chinese , they will have pricey spring rolls and wanton soup in place of cheap hotdogs and Coke ! Who cares if they name the team the Hongkouver Dimsuns !
Three - if half of the roster is composed of members / or former members of the Chinese National team. Many enterprising tour agencies etc. will surely put a Vancouver basketball game attendance as part of their tours in the same way as seeing a live Ichiro /Seattle Mariners game a must for Japanese foreign students in TO. Then there is the non stop and ever increasing Chinese population in Vancouver, legal or otherwise ? Just remember that these are my ideas . OK , grass
hopper ?Bruce Lee : Maybe my friend Kareem will come out of retirement to play for Chinada !
posted by coach at
Sunday, October 28, 2007
12 Comments:
Even better if Nash and Yao will play for Vancouver.The 2 will draw Vancouverites of all colors.
Steve can play up to 4o years old provided he stay out of the Canadian national team.
Yeah but how're you going to convince players to come to Vancouver. That was one of their biggest problems than and will be if they ever get a team. I mean Otis Thorpe was considered a primetime free agent signing for them. And we all know about Steve Francis.
Players just hated Vancouver, even Shareef was like, "I just play video games all day". What a great compliment to the city..
ty-great idea !
kia- steve is definitely not going to play for canada anymore no matter how the peeps from team canada try very hard to convince him.
arsenalist - have you been to vancouver ? actually the weather there is a lot better tnat toronto.
build a winning team and they will come !
I actually liked Vancouver both as a team and as a city when I went there to start a vacation. You have mountains for hiking, skiing or snowboarding in the back (just like Salt Lake City or Denver) and the Pacific Ocean in the front (just like Seattle). Some skyscrapers downtown yet not too crowded. Enough luxury appartments and big houses in the suburbs for NBA players. Nice people. Not so bad to live there after all. And the Chinese (more precisely mostly Hong Kong) expats really bring a lot of money and good food to the city. So why not, it isn't Las Vegas but I would prefer a franchise in Vancouver over a team somewhere in Oklahoma or Kansas any day.
P.S.: Memphis Grizzlies is just a ridiculous name. I don't understand why they didn't just completely rename the team. Who has ever seen a Grizzly anywhere near Memphis?
Hey Coach!
I was so glad to see you at the Castle.
I had missed you.
Hope you have a great week!
~xo
Lee Ann
There's only one reason that Vancouver doesn't have a team anymore and that's Stu Jackson.
I travelled to Vancouver to see the bibby/abdur-rahim grizzlies play my team....a great time, and when they had dickerson, a nice group of young players.
nork - i agree . vancouver or hongkouver is a great place.if one likes seatlle , you will like b.c !
anon1 - bingo. stu screwed it up there.now, he is screwing up the nba head office !
anan2 - they were just unlucky with big country reeves otherwise the griz would have been a playoff team like the raps.
I'm still hurt that they left. I never viewed the NBA the same after that. I watched a training camp intersquad game at Uvic, front row. Bibby was a rookie and it was his first training camp. It was sick how his body control was and how quick his 1-2 jumper. It was an awesome experience.
Fan attendance was never the problem. Our average attendance was better other NBA small markets that still have teams.
Biggest blunder: Stu Jackson, supposeduly commisioner influenced grizzllies to hire him...and then gets back into the head office. Like signing big country to a huge deal? WTF?
corporate interest was the problem. It's also been said that the grizzlies did little to reach out to ethnic community.
We need Nash Nash Nash. One offered rumour to swap Nash for Grizzlies forward Roy Rogers; another reported deal had the Grizzlies giving up guard Antonio Daniels. Not saying that he would get to MVP statuts but we're just pointing out the quality of stu's choices.
Nash also got upset that the team moved, saying that he would love to close his career here.
Anyways one can still hope & dream
it was all Jackson's fault i remember his daughter went to my elementary school and i lipped her off cause the grizzlies sucked and she started crying. Next day her mom got mad it me after school it was sweet. Attendance wasn't a problem they drew more the last yrs. they were here than memphis did the first.
max - maybe this time,vancouver is better prepared.the question is : will the nba allow vancouver another shot at the nba . stern seems to be more interested in expanding overseas - europe and china . how 'bout teams relocating (seattle or even new orleans)? it looks like vegas and oklahoma have the edge. the only way is to put the chinese connections (via china) and money in play. i may be joking a bit about the things i wrote but the 'china card' will do wonder ! afterall , stern is bullish about china and the chinese (from mainland and hongkong) are bullisher about basketball now than ever.
anon - maybe it was corporate sponsorship which was lacking as someone commented above .
it's good that stu did not send coach lowe to spank you !
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