Jordan Finally part owner of a Charlotte NBA team!

[Trauma-san]

Michael Jordan tried to buy a piece of the Hornets years ago, and was going to even play a year before accepting ownership... but our piece of shit owner turned him down, only to sell half of the Hornets 6 months later to some other jackass. 

FINALLY, Michael Jordan owns part of the Charlotte NBA team. 

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http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/basketball/nba/06/15/jordan.bobcats.ap/index.html

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -- Michael Jordan is back in the NBA, resuming his basketball career in the state where it started.

Jordan became part-owner of the Charlotte Bobcats on Thursday in a deal that gives him a stake in most of majority partner Robert Johnson's ventures.

Jordan's investment makes him second only to Johnson as the largest individual owner of the Bobcats.

Johnson, who spent $300 million on the expansion Bobcats in 2002, said Jordan will be the managing member of basketball operations.

"Ever since I acquired the Bobcats franchise, one of my goals has been to get Michael Jordan to become my partner in operating the team," Johnson said. "I don't think I have to make the case for Michael's basketball expertise, his knowledge or his competitiveness as a player.

"I am very excited to have a native North Carolinian be a part of the Bobcats and excited to have a friend of mine -- who I have absolute confidence in -- oversee our basketball personnel decision making process."

Jordan, who led the Chicago Bulls to six NBA championships and won five MVP awards, bought into Johnson's existing portfolio. The founder of BET has financial interests in several media, entertainment and financial services, and became the first black owner in the NBA when he beat out a Larry Bird-backed group for Charlotte's new team.

He tried from the get-go to bring Jordan into the fold, offering him any position he wanted with the team -- except majority owner. Jordan eventually passed, citing his desire to pursue ownership in his own team.

Now, with Johnson in the midst of a major management shake-up on his fledgling team, he's bringing in the greatest NBA player ever to help.

"I'm excited to join Bob, and invest alongside one of the most astute businessmen I know," Jordan said. "I am also looking forward to providing my advice, where needed, to Bobcats management in order to put the best possible team on the court."

Jordan's involvement was largely welcomed across NBA.

Commissioner David Stern said he was "elated to have Michael back in the league," while Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban offered up some immediate advice.

"Welcome to my world, Michael," he said. "Get out the checkbook."

Charlotte guard Raymond Felton, like Jordan a North Carolina alum, was hopeful that Jordan's involvement will carry over onto the court.

"He's known as the best player to ever play this game -- he'll be a big asset to this team," Felton said. "He's going to be a guy who's probably going to come down and talk junk to us a lot and mess with us, but he's a great man.

"I think he'll be at a lot of practices with us, messing with us, he might even practice with us some time."

The move comes two weeks after Johnson began a house-cleaning project that ousted team president and CEO Ed Tapscott, followed by the firings of the top marketing and operations officers.

Johnson gave no reason for the removals, but was believed to be unhappy with the business-side of the franchise because he was losing money and had a very small season-ticket base.

With Jordan now in the mix, he'll have one of the most beloved sports figure in state history by his side. But in giving Jordan the final say in basketball decisions, he's risking a repeat of the same mistakes Jordan made with the Washington Wizards from 2000 to 2003.

Jordan became part owner and president of the Wizards' basketball operations in 2000, and was criticized for selecting high schooler Kwame Brown with Washington's first overall pick in the 2001 draft.

He also came out of retirement and played two seasons for the Wizards, failing to make the playoffs before retiring again.

He assumed he would return to his front office job, but owner Abe Pollin instead fired him -- Jordan's first basketball setback since he was cut from the varsity high school team as a sophomore in Wilmington.

Johnson, who met Jordan at a Bulls game almost 17 years ago and struck up a lasting friendship, offered Jordan any job he wanted with his basketball team that same day.

Jordan mulled it over for close to four months before passing on the offer. He also tried to purchase a majority interest in the Milwaukee Bucks, but Sen. Herb Kohl ultimately decided not to sell.

Jordan had been largely out of sight since then. But now that he's back, he'll have to rebuild a fan base still bitter over the Hornets' departure to New Orleans in 2002 and fix several of Johnson's early missteps.

The Bobcats ranked 28th in attendance after their first season in the outdated Charlotte Coliseum, then moved into a new $265 million arena last season that has yet to secure naming rights. Though the arena received rave reviews, the Bobcats sold out only seven of 41 games and averaged 16,366 fans, 22nd in the NBA.

Even worse was their season ticket sales, which is believed to be right around 5,000 and third worst in the NBA. In response, Johnson announced the team would lower season ticket prices for next year.

Charlotte's product on the floor is also poor. The Bobcats went 18-64 in their first season, but improved to 26-56 and closed last year with a four-game winning streak despite numerous injuries.

Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

[africas seed]

congrats to jordan. hopefully he can turn the team around.

[herpes]

feel bad for your team lol

[Now_Im_Not_Banned]

feel bad for your team lol

LOL!

On the real though, Bobcats, as an expansion team, are on a GREAT path. They made a huge mistake by waving Rush though...PeACe

[Spicemuthafuc*in1]

feel bad for your team lol

LOL!

On the real though, Bobcats as an expansion team, are on a GREAT path. They made a huge mistake by waving Rush though...PeACe

I agree I watched the Bobcats alot last year especially when they played Indy and they have alot of heart. May, Emeka, Felton and G. Wallace, they have a nice lil future.

[Antonio_]

feel bad for your team lol

LOL!

On the real though, Bobcats, as an expansion team, are on a GREAT path. They made a huge mistake by waving Rush though...PeACe

But they stole us my man JJ. 

[Antonio_]

feel bad for your team lol

LOL!

On the real though, Bobcats as an expansion team, are on a GREAT path. They made a huge mistake by waving Rush though...PeACe

I agree I watched the Bobcats alot last year especially when they played Indy and they have alot of heart. May, Emeka, Felton and G. Wallace, they have a nice lil future.

Yeah, that European center is pretty good too, if you ask me.

[Now_Im_Not_Banned]

feel bad for your team lol

LOL!

On the real though, Bobcats, as an expansion team, are on a GREAT path. They made a huge mistake by waving Rush though...PeACe

But they stole us my man JJ. 

Yea, but Phil admitted that we probably shouldn't have traded Jones after his career game vs. us...But at least we got 2 picks for him. With the 2 picks we got last time from Charlotte, we acquired Ronny Turiaf and Von Wafer...I dunno about you, but I much rather have a Turiaf on my team than Jumaine Jones at the current moment, and Von Wafer has some unpolished potential as well...So hopefully we make something out of these 2 picks...PeACe

[Trauma-san]

There's a lot of politics in the reasons that the Bobcats don't have much attendance at their games.  The Hornets led the league years ago in home attendance for several years (partly because back then we had the biggest arena in the nba)... but politically, basketball has not been good to Charlotte.

We promised the Hornets a new arena, and built them one in 1988 on city-owned land that the taxpayers footed the bill for.  At the time, it was the largest NBA arena because it was built with the ACC tournament in mind.... which we did get that year.  After only 6 or 7 years passed, the Hornets were complaining that there weren't enough skybox seats in the arena, and they wanted a brand new, taxpayer paid for arena (with a less than 10 year old arena already built specifically for them).  They built the original arena way out away from the city, but the hornets wanted one downtown. 

So they held a vote, and the taxpayers voted to NOT give the Hornets another arena.  The Hornets left (this was after years of George Shinn being a prick, getting sued for sexual harrasment, turning down Jordan as an owner, trading off all of Charlotte's good players for cheaper nobodys, etc.)... and by then, the city had the Carolina Panthers, in a PRIVATELY funded football stadium downtown. 

So, Bobcat Johnson rolls around, and while the city is excited about having a new team, the fucking mayor built him, again, a brand new stadium downtown, even after we'd already voted not to do that shit with the Hornets.  So we're left holding the bill on two stadiums in less than 20 years for two different basketball teams.  Meanwhile, we have an EXCELLENT football organization who do things 1st class all the way in the Panthers, and a long-term (30 or 40 years) history with the Charlotte Knights, our AAA baseball team.  The Bobcats are welcome but a lot of people are still sour about the politics behind the stadium build uptown... expecially since we have stadiums, arenas, ball parks, and football stadiums everywhere.  Charlotte isn't *THAT* big of a town, but we have tons of performing venues and half of them sit unused frequently.  We have the original Charlotte Coliseum that the Charlotte Stampede and our Ice Hockey team play in, but most of the year, it's dead unless there's some small-time rock concert there.  We have Ovens Auditorium, a classy place from the 50's that legendary musicians and things play at, we have the Bluementhal Pavillion uptown which orchestras and off-broadway shows tour all year, we have the old Hornets "Hive" on Tyvola that's fucking huge and nobody uses for anything anymore... we have the Panthers Ericcsson stadium which holds like 30 thousand people or something, I saw the Rolling Stones there, it's almost brand new... we have like 4 fucking convention centers because they can't make their mind up about *THAT* shit, we have Carowinds pavillion, we have Blockbuster Pavillion, we have the lowes motor speedway that seats 100,000 people, .... the list goes on and on and on, and now here we are building yet another colliseum for the Bobcats. 

[Now_Im_Not_Banned]

Amazing...I hate when teams complain for new stadiums and move when they don't get it. I was sad to see the Lakers leave the legendary Fabulous Forum (then the "Great Western Forum") after years of greatness and tremendous memories in that building. But once the Staples Center came along the Lakers won a championship in the first year, 2 more following that, and I was totally satisfied...Now Staples Center is one of my favorite places ever. So there's no complaints from me...

[M Dogg™]

Amazing...I hate when teams complain for new stadiums and move when they don't get it. I was sad to see the Lakers leave the legendary Fabulous Forum (then the "Great Western Forum") after years of greatness and tremendous memories in that building. But once the Staples Center came along the Lakers won a championship in the first year, 2 more following that, and I was totally satisfied...Now Staples Center is one of my favorite places ever. So there's no complaints from me...

of course the Staples was built completely off privite money. Not one tax dollar was spent. Although it was built off of tax owned land, but it's all good.