During the announcement today that the Charlotte Bobcats will now be officially known as the Charlotte Hornets going forward, it was noted that the history of the team will adapt the old Charlotte Hornets.
The current franchise’s history will have the statistics of the Hornets from 1988-2002 and the Bobcats from 2004-2014. Essentially, all NBA teams that have played in Charlotte will be part of this franchise’s history. That means the New Orleans Hornets from 2002-2013 will be part of the New Orleans Pelicans history.
It’s hard for me to accept this ruling because I know that the original Hornets team moved to New Orleans and that remains as one franchise. But because of the new name switching, it’s essentially claiming that the original Hornets never moved to New Orleans. Somehow, there was a two-year gap before magically that Hornets team became the Bobcats even though that franchise was still in New Orleans.
According to the record books, everything the Hornets did in New Orleans gets cut off from Charlotte’s record book despite being the same organization. It’s confusing.
This name change has brought on a lot of confusion. The franchise of the original Charlotte Hornets is what we know as the New Orleans Pelicans. The current Charlotte Hornets’ origin is the Bobcats. Mixing in those two historically makes no sense.
In MLB, the Washington Nationals are the product of the Montreal Expos moving, yet they ignore that and instead claim to be the origin of a team from 1905.
In the NFL, none of the Cleveland Browns records prior to 1999 is part of the Baltimore Ravens history.
In the NHL, they do it right. The original Winnipeg Jets/Phoenix Coyotes are one franchise. The Atlanta Thrashers/Winnipeg Jets are another franchise. Both those will never intersect and will never share any history. That’s because that is the reality.
But this situation in the NBA tries to rewrite history and hoping that we ignore what really happened.
I personally feel that this is a mistake. The total demand for nostalgia has now forced the NBA record books to acknowledge something that really didn’t happen. I wish it wasn’t this way. But convenience (and confusion) out of nostalgia is what we have to deal with.
But at the end of the day... 