For Years People on here said...

[Walt Cronkite]

(1) You literally said building the facility on taxpayers dime as though the owners aren't paying. Taxpayers are paying $30M. This article says the price tag for new facilities is $70-90M (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5965981/2024/12/05/nba-practice-facilities-arms-race/). So it's extremely likely the team is paying the majority of the cost.

(2) Either you don't know what exponential growth is or you don't know what the team sold for. The team did not go up in value exponentially.

In this Forbes piece (https://www.forbes.com/teams/charlotte-hornets/) it mentions the entire renovation is a $275 million project with the city still on the hook for only 30m. So the team is definitely paying a big chunk of the upgrades. The athletic article was a good read, a bit disappointing the Hornets facility is indeed an outlier to the trend of the practice facilities being funded entirely by the team.

[Robot Rock]

Hornets haven't been a serious franchise for a long time. All about selling a little bit of promise for another wasted season, then repeat that for two decades.

[yosemiteben]

I didn't say they were, I said they get a ton of money from taxpayers, more than other teams have been getting for similar facilities by far, essentially free land from the city, and the rest they get at basically 0% interest through league financing. These guys aren't "writing a check" for the cost of these facilities. They're getting a check from the city and borrowing against the league, a league that literally cannot let them fold. Nobody is spending a dime. Its not really a conspiracy theory at all, thats how this stuff works. Why do you think a team like the Hornets can go up in value exponentially over the course of the Kemba Walker/Al Jefferson era. its a free money printer whether they win or not

(1) You literally said building the facility on taxpayers dime as though the owners aren't paying. Taxpayers are paying $30M. This article says the price tag for new facilities is $70-90M (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5965981/2024/12/05/nba-practice-facilities-arms-race/). So it's extremely likely the team is paying the majority of the cost.

(2) Either you don't know what exponential growth is or you don't know what the team sold for. The team did not go up in value exponentially.

(1) you misunderstood , I literally described the terms the same way in this original post viewtopic.php?f=53&t=2424349&start=60#p116076538

they are funding it with low interest credit (themselves) and city money. i dunno, maybe you think the owners are over there cutting a check out of their Wells Fargo account for the amount and not using credit, i can assure you thats not how it works.
never once did i claim the facility was fully taxpayer funded.

(2) i dont know what the term for growing 10x in 10 years is if its not exponential, i havent been to college in over a decade. not really relevant anyway other than recognizing that the team is an absolute money printer despite having basically no fans and no success, because the system is built for that to happen

(1) I don't understand why we are criticizing the owners for using debt to finance their building, but I guess go on. I'm in M&A, I'm very aware of how this all works.

(2) As seems to be a pattern here, you are fudging the numbers to fuel some bizarre criticism about the owners. The value of the team did not grow 10x in 10 years. It's been reported that MJ bought a majority stake in 2010 for $275M. I don't know the exact percentage, but let's assume that it was 55%. That means the team had an implied valuation of roughly $550M. This year (so 14 years later), he sold a portion of his stake that implied a valuation for the franchise as a whole at $3B. So, assuming the valuation numbers I mentioned are accurate, in 14 years the valuation went up 6X.

I do not know the budget for a franchise so I do not know if the team was profitable in the interim. It is very possible that the team was losing money even with luxury tax payments coming their way.

[KembaWalker]

(1) You literally said building the facility on taxpayers dime as though the owners aren't paying. Taxpayers are paying $30M. This article says the price tag for new facilities is $70-90M (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5965981/2024/12/05/nba-practice-facilities-arms-race/). So it's extremely likely the team is paying the majority of the cost.

(2) Either you don't know what exponential growth is or you don't know what the team sold for. The team did not go up in value exponentially.

(1) you misunderstood , I literally described the terms the same way in this original post viewtopic.php?f=53&t=2424349&start=60#p116076538

they are funding it with low interest credit (themselves) and city money. i dunno, maybe you think the owners are over there cutting a check out of their Wells Fargo account for the amount and not using credit, i can assure you thats not how it works.
never once did i claim the facility was fully taxpayer funded.

(2) i dont know what the term for growing 10x in 10 years is if its not exponential, i havent been to college in over a decade. not really relevant anyway other than recognizing that the team is an absolute money printer despite having basically no fans and no success, because the system is built for that to happen

(1) I don't understand why we are criticizing the owners for using debt to finance their building, but I guess go on. I'm in M&A, I'm very aware of how this all works.

(2) As seems to be a pattern here, you are fudging the numbers to fuel some bizarre criticism about the owners. The value of the team did not grow 10x in 10 years. It's been reported that MJ bought a majority stake in 2010 for $275M. I don't know the exact percentage, but let's assume that it was 55%. That means the team had an implied valuation of roughly $550M. This year (so 14 years later), he sold a portion of his stake that implied a valuation for the franchise as a whole at $3B. So, assuming the valuation numbers I mentioned are accurate, in 14 years the valuation went up 6X.

I do not know the budget for a franchise so I do not know if the team was profitable in the interim. It is very possible that the team was losing money even with luxury tax payments coming their way.

(1) I didn’t criticize them for that part, I criticized them for leeching taxpayer money and I’m saying it’s not actually some major sign of big spending to turn this franchise into a winner. It’s not bad, it’s simply a complete nothingburger that is more about a sweetheart government deal than some big push towards competitive basketball. Again, this facility doesn’t even give us a true edge as much as it gets us to the bare minimum modern standard, years after almost everyone else

(2) none of us know the exact numbers of course, you can take it up with CNBC who calls it a 10x return on investment and I’ll source it here https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/06/16/michael-jordan-is-selling-his-stake-in-the-charlotte-hornets-.html

Either way, irrelevant to the main point which is that the team prints money even if the worst possible moves and decisions are made and nothing approaching a competitive product is ever put on the floor which is the main appeal to these guys

[SWedd523]

edit: @yb

If memory serves, those numbers are all **** up.

Pretty sure that 275 was closer to total value and his buy in was a percentage of that.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2018/02/07/the-nbas-highest-paid-players-on-and-off-the-court-for-2018/?

As recently as 2013 the Hornets were "only" worth 410mil.

Currently valued at 3.3 billion

Average team value has doubled in the last two years and it's expected to continue skyrocketing with recent media rights deals

[Chapelchilla]

unrelated to the current kerfuffle but I absolutely hate thread titles like this. One of my biggest forum pet peeves


Back to the arguing about how billionaires **** down the fans while providing subpar products

Thanks Dude! lol
On the other hand, this has been one of the most engaging threads on here for quite awhile.....so, hmmm. Feel free to come with your own titles on your threads.

[JDR720]

edit: @yb

If memory serves, those numbers are all **** up.

Pretty sure that 275 was closer to total value and his buy in was a percentage of that.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2018/02/07/the-nbas-highest-paid-players-on-and-off-the-court-for-2018/?

As recently as 2013 the Hornets were "only" worth 410mil.

Currently valued at 3.3 billion

Average team value has doubled in the last two years and it's expected to continue skyrocketing with recent media rights deals

They should celebrate the franchise value increasing so much by giving everyone on RealGM a PS5.

[JMAC3]

A lot to unpack here..
First, the roster is better than our record. Especially the top of our roster with good young building blocks. Had we had slightly better injury luck I think we would be more in the thick of it along with teams like Chicago, Atlanta and Indy. Missing Melo, Mark were expected some. Grant going down and Bridges/Richards/Mann also missing half the year were the ones that killed us because now we are playing our 11th, 12th and 13th best players nightly.

Had we been in the mix for the 6/7 seed right now, I would say screw the first round pick because I am a heavy believer in advancing our timeline by getting into a real 7 game series even if we get swept. That would be huge for our players experience, coaching staff experience, along with removing outside pressure from media on us being so bad and give us breathing room from the Melo trade stuff.

Having said that, I do think it will be tough to get up to that 7 spot, but it also might be difficult to out-tank the following teams. They are all just as bad as we are but are all shopping key contributors in favor of playing younger worse players.

Pelicans- Ingram, Zion, McCollum
Jazz - Sexton, Collins, Clarkson, Kessler
Wizards- Kuzma, Jval, Brogdon, Poole
Trailblazers - Grant, Simons, Ayton, RobWill
Raptors - Poltl

Vs the Hornets who are getting key guys back and probably shopping reserves like Martin, Vasa, Richards and not our big min pieces. That might lead us finishing the year with lets say the 6th worst record. The two most likley draft slots would be 7 and 8 in that scenario, which isn't likely to be a franchise changing talent.

We also might see Chicago and Brooklyn fall in the standings depending on how many Vets they move before the deadline.

[JMAC3]

Second, bigger picture outside of this year...we are in a good spot moving forward, we have a surplus of picks, 2 key building blocks and some other interesting young talent. Also, new young coach, new GM, new owners, new practice facility on the way, all good things compared to the old Jordan ways of doing things.

We could be a lot worse than that, we could have drafted Scoot, still had Rozier and PJ on the roster which would be less cap flexibility and 2 less first round picks. Also, I highly doubt the old regime would have found Diabate we would have just signed some terrible option via Greensboro, never would have pivoted from Rhoden to Wong. We haven't done anything major yet but these little transactions add up and we weren't good at them under Mitch and Jordan, we were too stagnant.

I also think they have done a good job of not blowing our load from day 1 trading for the first disgruntled player regardless of price. We would be better right now if we had traded for Beal, Lavine or Dejounte Murray yes, but would we have a brighter future if we gave up multiple good assets for those players? I urge us to be patient still and not chase the guys who are bad fits both on the court and financially with Butler, Ingram, Ayton etc all about to hit the trade market. We need to wait for the right guy.

.. but it is a balance. I agree we can't continue to draft top 5 and expect to flip the team around. Eventually we have to get aggressive with the roster and take that chance of trading 2-3 maybe more first round picks for a guy that can help us win now. We have never done that, we have always played it safe and never performed a big trade. That should be the plan and I hope in the next 6 months we are a team that is being mentioned as "interested" or "checking in" when these stories drop about the soft trade market that exists. Thus far it seems very quiet both on the buyer and seller side.

[Rich4114]

I will say, there is way more promise and hope with this roster/team than there has been in a very, very long time. Possibly ever since the reboot. We're just all impatient after watching this for so long. Since we let Kemba walk and truly entered a rebuild is really what we should be measuring against.

That being said, JMAC brings more reason to this thread than some of the sky is falling we're going to be terrible forever folks. And I get it, I feel like that too often because I'm sick of watching us lose and be an embarrassment. However as Fats mentioned, they do seem to have a plan. Idk if it's the best one, but at least it's a plan and they seem to have patience for it. You wouldn't draft a guy like Saloon if you didn't have patience and you wouldn't have an ultra conservative injury management program either -- something that we should be welcoming as a change. They seem like they're stealth tanking to preserve this frp. But they definitely need to be conscious of LaMelo's timeline now. He's sort of arrived given he's a 30ppg scorer that also gives you a lot of other things including closing ability and 4th quarter fire.

So to me, the plan should be to figure out what we want this team to look like long term this season and make moves either at the trade deadline and/or this summer to shape the roster into one that is playoff ready. We simply cannot do 4 years in a row of this.

[amcoolio]

edit: @yb

If memory serves, those numbers are all **** up.

Pretty sure that 275 was closer to total value and his buy in was a percentage of that.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2018/02/07/the-nbas-highest-paid-players-on-and-off-the-court-for-2018/?

As recently as 2013 the Hornets were "only" worth 410mil.

Currently valued at 3.3 billion

Average team value has doubled in the last two years and it's expected to continue skyrocketing with recent media rights deals

They should celebrate the franchise value increasing so much by giving everyone on RealGM a PS5.

This post needs to be in the HOF

[Rays Pompadour]

The reset happened last summer with the Washington and Rozier trades and, of course, the Hayward heist. Still, all the losing...

Injuries aside, the roster building isn't complete enough to put out a consistent winner. The franchise still lacks a bucket-getter and is a year away from developing a defensive identity. Ball bombs away, but remains Mister Glass. Miller is not Paul George and won't be until he learns to dribble. The rest...role players, the lot of them. And the trade deadline will not save this franchise, not that the front office has the stomach for such things.

But having new ownership, a new coaching staff, a stable of young talent and a decent draft portfolio certainly gives hope for the future. Hopes and dreams a pixie dust don't change culture, however. Winning is the only thing that does that. And until the Hornets start winning, the fan base has every right to gripe.

Here's an honest, legit question: How many on this board actually want the Hornets to win this season?

[JMAC3]

The franchise still lacks a bucket-getter and is a year away from developing a defensive identity. Ball bombs away, but remains Mister Glass. Miller is not Paul George and won't be until he learns to dribble. The rest...role players, the lot of them. And the trade deadline will not save this franchise, not that the front office has the stomach for such things.

Here's an honest, legit question: How many on this board actually want the Hornets to win this season?

Huh? I think all of us would love the Hornets to win if that was a realistic option.

LaMelo has played 19/26 games this year, all in all assuming he stays healthy again for a decent run period you have to be willing to accept that in today's NBA.

Miller is in 96 games into his career, he shouldn't already be a superstar. George averaged 10ppg through 2 years of his career, Miller is at 18.3 ppg through 96 games and showing improvements on both sides of the ball. Anthony Edwards wasn't an allstar until yr 3 like most guys. Miller is ahead of schedule for most #2 overall picks.

[KembaWalker]

I was hoping for a little more from Miller this year based on his rookie year and given that he’s pretty old for a guy not even half way into his second season. He’s got all star trajectory right now.

Right now I’d put Melo as a guy that could be the third best player on a contender with generic talent distribution (like maybe he could be a 2 next to Jokic but definitely a 3rd with basically any other player) Miller right now would be more like a 4th or 5th best player on a title team with potential to get to 3 where Melo is imo. So that leaves us with probably 2 star players needed that are better than Melo, or Jokic. Kind of puts into perspective how ridiculously hard it is to win a title or even be a contender. I guess the Rockets could give us some hope as a more ensemble cast type contender but I don’t think anyone is taking them too seriously

[JMAC3]

I was hoping for a little more from Miller this year based on his rookie year and given that he’s pretty old for a guy not even half way into his second season. He’s got all star trajectory right now.

Right now I’d put Melo as a guy that could be the third best player on a contender with generic talent distribution (like maybe he could be a 2 next to Jokic but definitely a 3rd with basically any other player) Miller right now would be more like a 4th or 5th best player on a title team with potential to get to 3 where Melo is imo. So that leaves us with probably 2 star players needed that are better than Melo, or Jokic. Kind of puts into perspective how ridiculously hard it is to win a title or even be a contender. I guess the Rockets could give us some hope as a more ensemble cast type contender but I don’t think anyone is taking them too seriously

Meh, I think there are about 12 guys who true Tier 1 talents in the League and you are usually almost always need one of those guys to win the title. After that 13- 35 are pretty fluid and is heavily influenced by if your team is winning that year or not.

Miller and LaMelo are both talented to be top 35 players in the NBA, but until we start winning games they won't be viewed as top 25 talents. They are also under 23 yrs old so they won't hit their true prime for another 3-4 years if they follow the suit that most NBA players do.

Indy made the ECF with Haliburton and Pascal as their two best players and just a bunch of solid guys around them. Haliburton now viewed as top 30 player when last year people were talking MVP candidate top 15 player... I think most of us would call that huge success for the Franchise if we had a run similarly in the next 3 years.

Sengun is another good example, most people viewed him heading into the year as a top 50 player, if Houston makes a deep run he probably passes guys like Bam, Sabonis who heading into the year were borderline top 20 pieces to most.

[Rays Pompadour]

The franchise still lacks a bucket-getter and is a year away from developing a defensive identity. Ball bombs away, but remains Mister Glass. Miller is not Paul George and won't be until he learns to dribble. The rest...role players, the lot of them. And the trade deadline will not save this franchise, not that the front office has the stomach for such things.

Here's an honest, legit question: How many on this board actually want the Hornets to win this season?

Huh? I think all of us would love the Hornets to win if that was a realistic option.

LaMelo has played 19/26 games this year, all in all assuming he stays healthy again for a decent run period you have to be willing to accept that in today's NBA.

Miller is in 96 games into his career, he shouldn't already be a superstar. George averaged 10ppg through 2 years of his career, Miller is at 18.3 ppg through 96 games and showing improvements on both sides of the ball. Anthony Edwards wasn't an allstar until yr 3 like most guys. Miller is ahead of schedule for most #2 overall picks.

Yeah, and there's the rub. I see the franchise making a turn toward the sunlight, but in my opinion it's still a degree or two away from making it out of the shadows.

I want the team to win. But I don't want it to win enough to damage its long term sustainability. I agree with the few that playoff experience would be valuable for this young squad. Yet I don't see enough energy on this board for an all-in to win...unless it's an all-in to win long term. Hard to see a pathway to that without adding more pieces.

Seriously - is anyone THAT upset that the Hornets are 7-20?

[Robot Rock]

The franchise still lacks a bucket-getter and is a year away from developing a defensive identity. Ball bombs away, but remains Mister Glass. Miller is not Paul George and won't be until he learns to dribble. The rest...role players, the lot of them. And the trade deadline will not save this franchise, not that the front office has the stomach for such things.

Here's an honest, legit question: How many on this board actually want the Hornets to win this season?

Seriously - is anyone THAT upset that the Hornets are 7-20?

You mean 7-30?

[Rays Pompadour]

Seriously - is anyone THAT upset that the Hornets are 7-20?

You mean 7-30?

We don't usually bury people until they're dead, but, yeah.

[Robot Rock]

You mean 7-30?

We don't usually bury people until they're dead, but, yeah.

To be fair, King Tutankhamun is more alive than this team.

[KembaWalker]

Another thing to look at if you want to eye the owners more critically, yeah they got us a new staff but cmon, this has got to be the most shoe string budget group of nobody coaches I’ve seen assembled in some time.

Since we’ve been comparing to the Suns and Clippers recently in this thread you can just look at some of their staff. Suns have Bud obviously, the premier coaching free agent of the last couple years along with Fizdale as a premium assistant that probably costs more than our entire assistant stable combined. Not too much after that

Clippers have Lue along with JVG, Larry Drew, Brian Shaw, Jay Larranaga. I can only imagine how much more this staff costs than ours but you can assume it’s astronomical.

Who’s the veteran of our staff supposed to be. Chris Jent? lol. This guys Wikipedia highlights him as LeBron James shooting coach in Cleveland 1st stint as if that’s supposed to be something good. Everyone remembers LeBrons complete shooting overhauls multiple times in Miami of course where he finally became respectable from distance

Anyway, sorry for the tangent but yeah. This staff is a bunch of cheap nobodies probably all promoted up the chain or on their first or last chance. Outside of Kemba of course, the goat. Gotta stop listening to what these guys are saying they are doing and looking at what they are actually doing. Collecting taxpayer money, budget hires, low payroll, g league scabs instead of veterans.

I could probably dig into this “performance staff” if I wanted to and find the same thing, cheapo promotions and newbies. Maybe I will later, absolutely dead at work this time of year