With moves, it’s time for fans to embrace the Pelicans

This past January, I sat courtside in the New Orleans Arena to watch the Hornets host my beloved Houston Rockets in NBA regular season action.

Unfortunately, I was one of probably just 5,000 people in the building.

The crowd was mute.

The team’s home court advantage was nonexistent.

I truly couldn’t tell if I was in an NBA arena or watching some sort of college or semi-pro affair.

Unfortunately, nights like these have been a little bit too common in the recent history of our NBA franchise.

Here’s to hoping that with a new and more Louisiana team name and some big-time acquisitions boosting the roster, that Louisianans will finally embrace the local NBA franchise.

We need to – because there are a lot of cities around the country willing to love the team if we’re not going to.

Believe it or not, we’ve had the Hornets/Pelicans for more than a decade.

I remember where I was when the news was made official – I sat in a classroom at Golden Meadow Middle School.

My classmates and I jumped for joy as the headline flashed across the screen. We are all big hoops fans. To us, it was just the coolest thing in the world that our state would have its own team.

But unfortunately, not a lot of people around the area felt the same way.

Sure, the Hornets had some buzz (no pun intended) in the early years when there was a new car smell inside of the New Orleans Arena.

But it didn’t last, and we soon got lackadaisical in our treatment of our NBA team. As a result, attendance numbers plummeted, and we’ve been in the bottom-half of this statistic ever since.

The biggest reason for the apathy regarding the Hornets has been their lack of on-court success.

Louisiana sports fans are fickle. We are the same breed that praise Les Miles at 3:43 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon, but want him fired by 3:45.

We are the same tribe that used to routinely fail to sell out the Superdome in the mid-1990s. Many who did go to the game did so while wearing paper bags over his or her heads.

For some reason, Louisiana sports fans have an entitlement about them. We feel like our teams should win – big.

If they don’t, we point fingers at the organization (head coach usually) and then tune out until a change is made.

The Hornets/Pelicans have been blessed with Chris Paul and now Anthony Davis during their stay in the Big Easy – players that other franchises would die to have.

With Paul, the team reached the playoffs a handful of times and fielded teams that were among the best in their conference.

But it still hasn’t been enough. The team hasn’t been a legitimate threat to win the title, and the fans haven’t bought in for that reason.

But away from victories, there is a lot of psychological reasons why the team hasn’t become more popular in Louisiana.

The people of this state are loyal to their own.

We love the Saints. We love LSU.

Those teams are like our biological children whom we will support unconditionally through thick and thin.

The Hornets would have that same distinction if they were given to our city as an expansion franchise.

Instead, they landed in our laps as an adopted middle-aged child with their own history and identity – one foreign to Louisiana.

We know that we’re supposed to love the step-child team.

But no matter what, it’s just not the same as if the team was born and bred from our backyard.

The Hornets/Pelicans have never developed their status as a way of life among our friends and neighbors the way that the Saints and Tigers have.

Instead, they are just something cool to do on a random Wednesday night – often while wearing the jersey of the best player on the opposing team.

But that’s why the whole transition from Hornet to Pelican is so brilliant. It’s also why Tom Benson buying the team will be a major blessing in disguise.

With their new name, the team will finally have a Louisiana identity. With new colors, a new logo and a mascot that embodies Louisiana, it will be easier for our people to identify with the team.

Having Benson around helps, too.

For better or worse, the Benson family is a major part of our state’s sporting history.

We’ve won with Benson and we’ve lost with Benson.

He’s a face that we’re accustomed to, and having him a part of the Pelicans’ future sort of legitimizes the NBA franchise as belonging to the city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana.

I sure hope so, anyway – because the Pelicans deserve a better life than the Hornets experienced in their 10-plus years in the Big Easy.

Next year looks like it will be a promising campaign for the team, which now oozes with young talent.

So now it’s up to us to bring it all together and pack the New Orleans Arena.

In a sport like basketball, that is a bigger help than one may realize.

It’s time we learn to appreciate this local team to the same extent that we do the Saints and LSU.

If we don’t choose to love them, someone else will.