Nice work over at The Sports Frog, calling out Hornets owner George Shinn, for doing the same thing Saints owner Tom Benson did, and turning his back on the city of New Orleans. Shinn’s probably even worse than Benson… he doesn’t just want to leave, he’s hammering to city itself.
“Shinn said he has received positive feedback about Oklahoma City from employees, who have said ‘they’ve got a great school system, the place is very clean and the people are very nice. In New Orleans, you’ve got high crime, you’ve got a bad educational system. Because of all the tourists, it’s hard to keep the city clean. It’s just hard. It’s entirely two different markets,’ Shinn said. ‘They couldn’t survive without tourists. The whole city is built on it, and you’re not. You’re built to draw people that want to grow families. And a couple things impressed me, I’m a person of faith and I love this country. I’ve seen more flag-wavers here (Oklahoma City) and more people that are God-fearing than any part of the country.”
Well, certainly, if a city has a lot of people with American flags on their car, and they all fear the angry and spiteful Creator, then yeah… that’s where you need to be. Because those people, without fail, are the best people on planet earth, and they deserve basketball.
It’s just disgusting. If you didn’t like New Orleans, dickbag, why did you move there to begin with? Were there not enough flag-wavers and Bible-thumpers for you in Charlotte? Too many people there who believe in evolution? Not enough gun racks? Or maybe the people in Charlotte and New Orleans believe in those crazy religions where kidnapping and sexual assault are wrong.
Just dispicable. Thank you for making the impending Chris Paul era impossible to enjoy. Dick.
DookieStyle
What a complete asshole.
May 10, 2006 at 8:11 am
Rusty
He is an asshole. But what’s lost in all this is that OKC has proven that it’s a major league city that has proven it deserves the Hornets.
May 10, 2006 at 8:25 am
Adam
When he moved to NO he probably never even considered that OKC could actually support an NBA team, now he knows that it can. I don’t really care if he moves the team, it’s not like the people of NO gave a shit about them anyway. The Hornets leaving isn’t going to harm the city’s rebuilding efforts. They have bigger things to worry about than any sports team, especially a sports team they didn’t ever follow anyway. Shit, I doubt the majority of New Orleans even knew they HAD an NBA team.
May 10, 2006 at 9:10 am
Bouj
Hypocritical douchebag, even if he has a point about OKC being a better market for basketball than NOLA.
Wilbon made a argument in favor of OKC on PTI. He pointed out that OKC would be a midwest version of Sacramento and Portland (only game in town, and fans crazy for it), and that it would work.
May 10, 2006 at 9:12 am
Michigan
So, the guys an asshole. It dosen’t make him wrong.
May 10, 2006 at 10:19 am
telly
when the revolution comes, he’ll be right on top of the “guillotine list.”
Seriously, what this guy, and others like him (ahem, federal government) have concluded is that New Orleans isn’t fit to be a city any longer. Make no mistake, this decision was made for purely economic reasons, but he had to rub it in the faces of New Orleans residents that, in this fucker’s eyes, Oklahoma City is more “God fearing” and “patriotic.” Remind me to shed some tears when the next dust bowl comes and covers half of the city with sand.
http://encarta.msn.com/media_461513264/Dust_Bowl.html
May 10, 2006 at 10:39 am
max power
throw out the ‘bible, faith’ crap and the dudes right. New Orleans was, is, and probaly always will be a shit hole of a town. just ask Houston.
May 10, 2006 at 11:04 am
VTHokie
Get ‘em, MJD.
May 10, 2006 at 11:53 am
Bouj
Damn right, max power! I’m convinced the Texans passed on Reggie Bush so the Saints would take him, make all the NOLA residents excited about them, and then get them to go home!
NOLA took advantage of our hospitality and just took a gigantic dump all over it. I was all in favor of helping, but crime is way up, and things are just getting shadier and shadier. I had to move to the suburbs to get away from the refugees & the criminal element, and I lived in a decent neighborhood.
Sorry to go off-topic like that, but it just frustrating….
May 10, 2006 at 12:18 pm
adam
Holy crap, Shinn is a total douchebag. We hated him in Charlotte, and yet we still adored the Hornets. It was sad to see them leave, but we were glad to get rid of that whackjob, Shinn. That article MJD linked to was only the tip of the iceberg for all the shit he tried to pull off.
May 10, 2006 at 12:34 pm
seamus
Also, the Hornets doubled Oklahoma’s black population.
May 10, 2006 at 6:39 pm
MattP
See, stuff like this is why nobody in Charlotte was sad to see Shinn and his team go. What a bum.
May 10, 2006 at 6:46 pm
V.P.
Most God fearing people he has ever seen? Apparently he has chosen to strike the near 20 years he spent in Charlotte from his mind. We have done the same with Shinn. He also must have forgotten that to get to the old Coliseum here you had to get off of BILLY GRAHAM PARKWAY! BILLY F’ING GRAHAM! And I ain’t talkin’ about the wrestler.
May 11, 2006 at 9:46 am
MNJ
Yeah, it’s insensitive, but it’s not like he’s lying. N.O. is a mess and this is first and foremost a business, and you can’t stay there just to be sentimental or kind. Yeah, the guy is a dick, but if I were him, I’d stay in Oklahoma City, too. It’s an Arco Arena-type atmosphere and it was a mistake to move to N.O. in the first place (attendance sucked, it’s a football state).
May 11, 2006 at 11:29 am
Richard
This guy has links to much of the evil that Shinn has done. A rapist? Who knew?
http://ashleymorris.typepad.com/ashley_morris_the_blog/2006/05/shinn_the_n_is_.html
May 12, 2006 at 12:21 am
flubby
More “god-fearing”??? What the hell does that mean? New Orleans history and traditions are deeply intertwined with religion and has been long before OKC appeared on any maps. Ever heard of the Saint Louis Cathedral? Being proximate to ORU doesn’t give you the monopoly on piety.
I suspect “god-fearing” is code for “right-wing Protestants.”
May 13, 2006 at 9:42 am