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Who needs fans? Hornets may be gone, but at least they're going in stylePosted: Thursday May 02, 2002 3:32 PM
The Charlotte Hornets are the lab rats in our latest little sports experiment, boys and girls. Unloved, unwanted, stepping over their already-packed suitcases in the locker room -- hey, you'll like it in New Orleans -- they have become the most beguiling public collection of orphans since Charles Dickens put down his quill pen. They're proving that home sweet home ain't all it's cracked up to be. The megaboard hanging over the court exhorting a packed house to yell the word DEE-FENSE? Doesn't matter if nobody answers. The certified crazies, covered in body paint, frothing at the mouth over each foul call? Don't need 'em. Paying customers, heading toward the big-deal luxury boxes, clutching their bobblehead dolls, the banners, their five-buck hot dogs and team-logo credit cards? It would be nice, but ... Heading into the second round of the NBA playoffs, Mr. Baron Davis and Co. are basketball players, pure and simple. They're proving -- as the Montreal Expos are also proving in baseball so far -- that all the other stuff, the gee gaws around the game don't necessarily have any influence on the game. The buffoons who have run the operation might have painted it into this strange corner, the team all but gone from Charlotte, off in search of more gumbo and gravy, but the players are bringing an order and dignity to the exit that is extraordinary. How about this, boys and girls? A lame duck can still fly. Leigh Montville's commentaries appear regularly on CNN/Sports Illustrated.
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