Hornets Probably Pond’s Best NBA Hope

With the Clippers on the verge of again rejecting overtures to move to the Arrowhead Pond, the Charlotte Hornets offer a glimmer of hope that the Anaheim arena might finally attract an NBA team.

The Clippers, playing well, drawing well and turning a profit at Staples Center, have an option to break their lease after this season. But they are not expected to use it. The Hornets, touring the country in search of an arena with plentiful luxury seating, this week added Anaheim to a growing list of potential new homes.

Ray Wooldridge, co-owner of the Hornets, met Monday with Pond General Manager Tim Ryan, Anaheim City Manager James Ruth and Tom Etter, senior vice president of Ogden Corp., operator of the arena. The Hornets had rebuffed interest from the Pond for weeks, but delays in assembling arena financing proposals in Louisville, Ky., and Norfolk, Va., prompted team executives to expand their search.

“I think it’s wise for the league to look at a real building in a proven market,” Anaheim Mayor Tom Daly said.

Wooldridge has declared Louisville the front-runner to land the team. In Louisville and Norfolk, the Hornets would become the primary tenant in a new arena, and the Hornets have asked the cities to deliver arena financing plans by Jan. 1. The Hornets must apply for NBA permission to move by March 1.

The team’s other options: St. Louis, where they would share an arena with the NHL’s Blues and would likely have to sell all or part of the team to Bill Laurie, who owns the Blues and runs the arena; New Orleans, where a new arena lacks an NBA or NHL tenant; or staying in Charlotte--where the team led the NBA in attendance eight times in nine years--if plans for a new arena are revived.

Pond executives cite the Clippers’ average attendance of 14,830 as part-time tenants from 1994-99 as proof an NBA team would draw well. However, league officials are concerned a third franchise in Southern California would struggle to secure radio and television deals in a market Commissioner David Stern has described as “saturated.”

The Clippers this year failed to secure a deal with an over-the-air television station.

Although the Clippers’ lease at Staples does not expire until 2005, they can opt out by giving notice by Dec. 31--an unlikely occurrence considering the team’s season-ticket base jumped 44% this season and its average attendance of 16,591 is up 19% from the same number of games last season. “We’re pleased with the way things are going here at Staples,” said Andy Roeser, Clipper executive vice president.

The Clippers have talked with Pond executives this year, owner Donald Sterling even meeting with Ogden chief executive Scott Mackin. But recently, negotiations have focused on Staples, with the sides exploring possibilities for sweetening the remaining three years of the lease and for a long-term extension, Staples Center President Tim Leiweke said. “The Clippers generate more off this building than they would off the Pond,” Leiweke said. Ryan declined comment.

Even had the Clippers faltered in Staples, some observers are skeptical Sterling ever would move to Anaheim, given his business and social ties to Los Angeles. Sterling rejected a lucrative offer to move to the Pond in 1996, when Staples was only a dream and the Clippers struggled to draw 10,000 fans per game to the Sports Arena.