re: This town can become a Pelicans town

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Getting AD to resign will be very tough.

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The NBA team that drafts you basically owns you for 7-9 years. We won't hit the point in the contract life cycle where he can leverage his way out a la CP3, Kevin Love, Dwight, etc. until 2020.

Or even both at the same time. Look at cities like Boston and San Francisco, they not only have top level support for their basketball and football teams, but baseball as well. All of which overlap to some degree. Theres no reason rabid support for Pels and Saints can't exist side by side

NOLA will never be "a Pelicans town" if you want to use that terminology. The Saints will always rule the city's identity.

But yes, NOLA can absolutely support an NBA team. There is no reason why the city can't have full-fledged Pelicans fever from Jan/Feb to June. I remember how frenzied Hornets games used to be with CP3 and that squad. The atmosphere last night on TV seemed like the closest thing it's been to '07/'08.

From David Fisher last night:

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Electric. The Smoothie King Center was absolutely humming all game long. The game began slowly for the Pelicans and the Spurs were out to an early 4-0 lead. An Omer Asik dunk finally got New Orleans going and we were off. Everything on the court was difficult. The officials, understanding the meaning of the game and how each team would approach things, wisely elected to let the teams play. This was thankfully retained throughout the game. Regular season fouls were just contact ignored. Pushing, holding, and grabbing off the ball was liberally applied by both teams. Asik and Duncan looked like two kaiju battling over a meal for every single post-up by the Big Fundamental.

This played to the Pelicans advantage. A game with flow allows the crowd to stay up. New Orleans fans understood what the Pels needed all game long, even if the man running the in-game soundtrack was clueless. (Seriously, stop playing DAYO! Stop it. Now.) This city gets a bad wrap as a "bad" basketball town. Once upon a time that was also true for New Orleans Saints fans, shown almost exclusively wearing paper bags over their heads. Given the opportunity to support a winner, residents of the Big Easy filled the Blender to capacity.

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If you win, they will come

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and he will probably be a bigger star than Drew Brees.

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Not bigger locally, not bigger than the guy that brought the Saints a Super Bowl.

He'll need to start collecting rings like MJ or Bill Russell to get near that territory.

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If we win a few playoff series and AD wins an MVP, things will change in a heartbeat

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Yes, things will change.

But things won't get to a Saints level with an MVP and a Western Conference Final trip, not even close.

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But things won't get to a Saints level with an MVP and a Western Conference Final trip, not even close.

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You're right. Things won't get on a Saints level because basketball and the Pels have some things working against them. The Saints have almost 50 years of being intertwined with this city, the Pelicans/Hornets have 15. The Saints fan footprint is a lot larger stretching from Houston to Pensacola and as far North as Arkansas. The biggest issue probably is the 41 home games and not a lot of coverage nationally.

I can only hope to see more consistent crowds of 12K+.

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a lot of fans are upset now because he isn't willing to budge on renegotiating his contract.

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These are the segment of fans you ignore, because this isn't true.

Anyone denying the demonstrated potential is simply ignorant of the facts, either willfully or accidentally.

This team was 98% sold out for the season in 08-09, bought thousands of full season tickets while there was not basketball, and Louisiana produces basketball players at a normal-to-high rate and hall-of-famers at a high rate. These are just a few of the facts.

Saints or Pelicans: choose one... Is a false choice. Ask Benson.