The Hornets might not be gone from the NBA after all.

According to a CBSSports.com report, the Charlotte Bobcats are in the process of claiming the name that resided in the city with the Charlotte Hornets from 1988-2002.

The name traveled to New Orleans when the franchise relocated, but recently became available when the Crescent City's NBA team ditched the Hornets moniker for the more apropos Pelicans.

It's a move that, if it comes to fruition, will be a hit in the Queen City. Between seeing a terrible on-court product, a bitter taste from the loss of the Hornets and a general malaise toward the Bobcats franchise narcissistically named after founder Bob Johnson, Charlotteans have had a tepid-at-best relationship with their current NBA team.

Since arriving in Charlotte in 2004, the Bobcats can claim one playoff appearance and have a short yet profound record of making poor personnel decisions.

But the Hornets – man, the Hornets. Now that's a different story. The basketball-crazed city fell in love with the franchise that arrived in 1988. Even when the team stunk, fans showed up and made noise. And after a few years, the Hornets actually got good.

Fans sold out the 24,000-plus seat Charlotte Coliseum for 364 consecutive games as the team with the iconic teal-and-purple color scheme won games with Alonzo Mourning, Larry Johnson and Muggsy Bogues.

But then it fell apart. Johnson hurt his back, Mourning took his talents to South Beach and the city grew frustrated with owner George Shinn, who became involved in a sexual assault trial involving a Hornets cheerleader and later made demands on the city to build a new arena.

The Hornets left town in 2002 and were replaced with the Bobcats two years later. The magic has not come back.

Basketball fans in Charlotte have clamored for the return of the Hornets since New Orleans started to discuss a name change. Majority owner Michael Jordan has been studying the business side of bringing the Hornets name back to the city; if the wheels truly are in motion to do so, there will certainly be a ... ahem ... buzz around the return of a beloved friend.

But a color scheme and Hugo the Hornet won't be enough to get Charlotte fully behind its NBA franchise. After a decade of miserable basketball, Michael Jordan's top priority is finding the next Johnson-Mourning tandem.

If the Bobcats keep losing like they do, bringing back an old nickname won't mean squat.

Jason Owens is an editor at Yahoo! Sports and still has a signed promotional Kelly Tripucka jersey from his childhood in Charlotte.

NBA video from Yahoo! Sports:

More popular NBA content from Yahoo! Sports
• Mavs' Dirk Nowitzki offers to take 'significant pay cut' to woo free agents
• Top NBA prospect Nerlens Noel sets target return date to court
• Jerry Sloan turns down Bucks coaching offer

With every season that ends, for the playoff teams at least, we felt it right to take a look ahead. TNT already has the rights to "Gone Fishin'," and because we're sure that someone, somewhere, still likes that Wyclef song, we're going with "Gone Till November." And, yes, we know the season starts in October. Today? The Chicago Bulls.

I’ve already fawned over these Chicago Bulls plenty. The team’s unrelenting approach was an inspiration this season, and though Derrick Rose disappointed by not returning to the squad after an ACL tear, and coach Tom Thibodeau disappointed by running his players into the ground early on in the season, the team still gets to go into 2013-14 with Derrick Rose and Tom Thibodeau as its cornerstones. Not a bad start.

Big moves won’t ramp up the team’s roster prior to that start, though, unless the team’s ownership becomes ridiculously averse to paying the luxury tax, and either trades Luol Deng or Carlos Boozer to another team to shed salary, or waives Boozer outright using the amnesty provision. While that might seem like needless cost-cutting, understand that the Bulls have been practicing this sort of thing for years. If that sounds cynical and self-defeating, understand that I’m a Chicago Bulls fan that just watched 94 games of the 2012-13 Chicago Bulls. Inspiration swings both ways.

Read More »

If you wanted to say that the Indiana Pacers lost Thursday's Game 5 more than the New York Knicks won it, I wouldn't fight you in a public square. While the Knicks did seem more willing to attack and press the action in taking a 10-point decision, the Pacers frequently seemed unable to get out of their own way, coughing the ball up time and again, failing to take advantage of their trips to the foul line and allowing a Knicks team that still couldn't shoot straight (just 41 percent from the floor in the win) to capitalize on their sloppy play.

Roy Hibbert knew he and his teammates had let a golden opportunity to finish things off and advance to the Eastern Conference finals slip through their fingers. After the game, the 7-foot-2 center — no doubt frustrated by his own pedestrian nine-point, seven-rebound performance in 31 foul-filled minutes — called the Pacers on the carpet and questioned their masculinity, according to Fred Kerber of the New York Post:

“Excuse all the women in here, but we played like p---ies tonight, to tell you the truth,” foul-plagued center Roy Hibbert said. “We didn’t deserve to win this one. I’ll probably get fined for that. I don’t care.”

If you're not sure which letters belong in place of those dashes, Kerber helpfully spelled the NSFW language out on Twitter. Be aware, though: It's the kind of blue talk that'll shock the monocle right out of your eye.

Read More »

A look around the league and the Web that covers it. It's also important to note that the rotation order and starting nods aren't always listed in order of importance. That's for you, dear reader, to figure out.

C: r/NBA. A 7-year-old breaks down the Philadelphia 76ers (shown above), Charlotte Bobcats, Cleveland Cavaliers and Miami Heat. As long as we keep this kid writing on dry erase boards and not keyboards, the bosses at Y! might let me keep my job. (Might.)

PF: TrueHoop, Beyond the Arc and Eye on Basketball. Smart people Kevin Arnovitz, Chris Herrington and Matt Moore preview Game 6 between the Memphis Grizzlies and Los Angeles Clippers, with the Grizz trying to exact revenge on the Clips for ousting them in last year's first round and L.A. trying to extend the series to a deciding Game 7 at Staples Center.

SF: Hardwood Paroxysm, HoopChalk, Posting and Toasting and NBA.com's Hang Time Blog. Hey, New York Knicks, and especially Carmelo Anthony? Maybe take it easy on the isolations in Game 6 against the Boston Celtics, huh? Just a little? Because they're not working NEARLY as well as you think.

Read More »

Hey, everybody: Phil Jackson's back in the NBA! Well, sort of.

Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores announced Thursday that he's tapped Jackson, the legendary head coach who won 11 championships on the sidelines with the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers, to serve in "an advisory capacity" to help find the Pistons' next head coach. The team fired former bench boss Lawrence Frank two weeks ago following consecutive disappointing seasons that saw Detroit go 54-94, fail to consistently show meaningful improvement and never really sniff postseason contention.

The Pistons are looking for something better from their next hire, and billionaire businessman Gores figured the team's search for coaching talent might benefit from the input of arguably the greatest coach in NBA history. From Keith Langlois of Pistons.com:

“Phil Jackson is a friend and one of the best minds in the business,” Gores said. “We are thrilled to have him as an adviser as we make some very important decisions for this franchise. Joe [Dumars] and I discussed this and he and I are in full agreement that this is a great opportunity.” [...]

“Phil Jackson and Tom Gores are friends,” said Mark Barnhill, a partner in Platinum Equity, Gores’ California-based private equity firm. “Based on that relationship, Phil has agreed to provide advice and counsel on the coaching search and immediate basketball needs. He will be in Detroit next week as a resource to Joe Dumars, who is leading the search.

It's nice to have friends. Especially friends with enough rings to make typing troublesome.

Read More »

A look around the league and the web that covers it. It's also important to note that the rotation order and starting nods aren't always listed in order of importance. That's for you, dear reader, to figure out.

C: Sports Illustrated. Former NBA center Jarron Collins, on his brother Jason: “I’ve never been more proud of him.”
PF: TrueHoop. I am at a loss to try and ape Kevin Arnovitz’s words, so I will just relay the headline: ‘Jason Collins and the pride of identity.’
SF: SportsNet. Michael Grange on Jason Collins’ giant step, the doors it will open, and his ability to push those who were unaware of his gifts out of their comfort zones.
SG: Sports on Earth. Will Leitch on Collins’ role in a world that has, thankfully, grown up around him.
PG: Los Angeles Times. Metta World Peace credits Jason Collins for relieving the “unnecessary stress” that comes from not being open with others about your sexuality for fear of backlash. He also invokes Cookie Monster.

Read More »

Any discussion of the NBA postseason eventually turns to Michael Jordan, the greatest player in NBA history and a strong point of comparison for today's stars 15 years after he participated in his last playoff game. That was particularly the case on Saturday, when Chicago Bulls guard Nate Robinson came up one point short of Jordan's franchise record for fourth-quarter scoring in the postseason in a wild Game 4 win over the Brooklyn Nets.

However, the day was an important one for Jordan for reasons entirely unrelated to basketball. More than a year after becoming engaged in December 2011, Jordan married fiancee and former model Yvette Prieto, his girlfriend of five years. People.com has details:

After five years of dating, former NBA star Michael Jordan, 50, and his model-fiancée, Yvette Prieto, 35, made it official with a wedding in Palm Beach, Fla., on Saturday.

About 500 people arriving by tour buses piled into an Episcopal church called Bethesda-by-the Sea, where Donald Trump was married to Melania in 2005.

Jordan invited another 1,500 to join them for the reception at the Bears Club, a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course community in Jupiter, Fla., where Jordan recently built a 38,000-square-foot home.

While 2,000 combined guests does not exactly suggest a modest affair, the full size of this monstrous event cannot be communicated by words. After the jump, check out aerial photos of the wedding tent.

Read More »

The first thing I thought of after news broke Tuesday afternoon that the Charlotte Bobcats had fired head coach Mike Dunlap was the scene in "Major League II" in which radio announcer Harry Doyle (Bob Uecker) narrates the aftermath of pitcher Rick Vaughn (pre-the-worst Charlie Sheen) convincing manager Jake Taylor (Tom Berenger) to let him pitch to slugger Jack Parkman (David Keith), who was hitting "a shade under .900 against Vaughn."

"Obviously, Taylor's thinking ... I don't know what the hell he's thinking," Doyle says.

Firing Dunlap isn't some grave sin in and of itself; it's not like he'd proven himself to be a Coach of the Year candidate in waiting during his lone season at the Bobcats' helm or anything. No, it's more the "lone season" thing. Wasn't the whole point of veering away from the retread path to try something different? To acknowledge that just trying to get back to being good enough to get wiped out in the playoffs wasn't a goal worth striving for? To accept that rebuilding takes time, commitment and clarity of vision?

If so, then what does changing course after one year accomplish?

[Also: Pacers swingman Paul George wins Most Improved Player award]

Bobcats president of basketball operations Rod Higgins made the firing, which was first reported by Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer, official in a brief Tuesday statement:

“[General manager] Rich Cho and I conducted our season-ending review and met with Coach Dunlap to reflect on this season. As an organization, it was decided that we needed to make a change with the head coach position,” Higgins said. “We want to thank Mike for his contribution and wish him the best in his future endeavors.”

Higgins was a bit more forthcoming in an email sent Tuesday to season ticket-holders. In that email, which was obtained by Steve Reed of The Associated Press, the team president wrote that he and Cho "'ultimately decided that [Dunlap] was not the right fit to lead our team into the future' and that 'in order to reach our goal of reshaping this franchise into one that can sustain long-term success, we needed to make this change.'"

"We believe our head coaching position will be an attractive one to potential candidates," Higgins said in the email. "This offseason, we will have an excellent opportunity to acquire a quality player with a top-five pick in the upcoming NBA Draft and we could have up to $21 million in space under the salary cap to add players via free agency or trade, so the foundation is solid for someone to come in and continue to build on our on court performance.

"With a young core that includes Kemba Walker, Bismack Biyombo and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, we feel positive about where our team is relative to our plan."

Read More »

The actual particulars of Jeff Van Gundy’s latest rant don’t matter, because his point is spot-on. So the fact that the former coach and ABC/ESPN analyst is defending recently fired Detroit Pistons coach Lawrence Frank really shouldn’t get in the way of his salient argument. It’s a players’ league, and not only don’t the coaches play the games, they also don’t draft, sign or trade for the players who play the games.

While appearing on XM’s Mad Dog Radio with Chris Russo, Van Gundy let loose with a classic coach’s lament:

"Detroit Pistons basketball slogan: When the going gets tough, we fire the coach," Van Gundy said. "It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. You know what surprises me, Chris? These new owners in Detroit have to be exceedingly bright to have made as much money as they have. And to be duped again that your G.M. tells you that the roster is good and the coach is bad ... what was the problem with Michael Curry? What was John Kuester? Now Lawrence. They run through coaches and they haven't even begun to address their problem. They have very little talent and very little basketball character. You combine that, you're going to be in a long rebuild.

Read More »

A look around the league and the Web that covers it. It's also important to note that the rotation order and starting nods aren't always listed in order of importance. That's for you, dear reader, to figure out.

C: Oakley and Allen. A very important supercut of New York Knicks coach Mike Woodson being very upset at, in all likelihood, J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert compiled from throughout the 2012-13 NBA season.

PF: Project Spurs. After Monday's tragic explosions at the Boston Marathon, Spurs blogger and artist Jesse Blanchard decided to donate some of the proceeds from any of the pieces of art he sells from April through the end of the playoffs to Boston relief efforts; he reached out to a few likeminded artists, who decided to join him in doing so. You can check out the participating artists, the great pieces of NBA-related art they've got for sale and contact information so you can reach out for more info on where your money's actually going to go, if you're so inclined. It's pretty neat when communities, especially ones as disparate and oddball as The Basketball Internet, come together to try to help out people in times of need.

SF: Deadspin. Yeah, that sounds like a pretty "late-era Chris Duhon with the New York Knicks"-style of effort.

Read More »