Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 21, 1990 TAG: 9004210071
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE: CHARLOTTE, N.C. LENGTH: Long
George Shinn, the Hornets' owner, has taken more bad shots than the gunning Chapman in the club's second season. He has fired a coach and had a respected general manager quit. He has threatened to move his team across the state line to Fort Mill, S.C., Jim Bakker's old home.
Shinn has gone from a man lovingly celebrated for his personal drive to bring the NBA to the Carolinas to a man derisively referred to as "George Shinnbrenner."
In the league, he is being compared to Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, whose hands-on approach doomed that franchise for several years.
The owner's antics wouldn't have raised such a storm had the Hornets improved on the floor. But Charlotte, entering the finale of its second season Sunday at Dallas, drags along.
The Hornets spoiled their rabid followers last season with 20 wins. If they lose Sunday, they will fall a victory short of that.
The team has endured injuries as well as controversy, using 20 different starting lineups this season.
The Jan. 31 coaching change from Dick Harter to Gene Littles changed how the Hornets felt about themselves, and in the last month - whether coincidental to Chapman's injury or not - Charlotte has played capably. The Hornets have nine of their 19 wins in the last 19 games.
Statistically, they remain just above the bottom of the league in most categories - 26th of 27 in scoring and rebounding, 25th of 27 in field-goal shooting and field-goal percentage defense. However, despite the club's stumbling to a 10-50 start and Shinn's antics, the Hornets continue to fill the 23,901-seat Charlotte Coliseum. They have had 71 consecutive sellouts, including all 41 games this season.
Those who watch the Hornets daily say Shinn's naivete as an NBA owner has been the club's biggest problem this season. Some figure he would have been more involved in the club last season if he hadn't suffered a stroke the first week of the season and spent most of his infant team's first year rebuilding his strength.
Shinn talked of patience in building a franchise from its genesis in the spring of 1987, when Charlotte was awarded its franchise. But with the club 8-32 at the end of January, Shinn dumped Harter for assistant coach Littles. Even those who wanted Harter gone couldn't believe Shinn fired the man on the day Harter's brother died of cancer.
The Hornets are paying Harter, who was making $175,000 annually, through August 1991. Harter's last gasp was his telling Shinn that Chapman, the club's original draft choice after only two seasons at Kentucky, should be traded. Shinn considers Chapman a future all-star, a franchise cornerstone.
Chapman, after shooting 41 percent as a rookie, was hitting a .408 percentage on March 11 when he was lost for the season with stress fractures in his lower right leg. The Hornets were shooting 44 percent with Chapman in the lineup. Without him, the figure has improved to 48 percent.
However, Chapman was beginning to play well before he was hurt, averaging 25.7 points in the last three games before his injury. Littles, like Harter, spent much of his time coaxing Chapman to take the ball to the basket - where he had a better chance of being fouled - rather than jacking up off-balance perimeter prayers.
Chapman, who primarily shared time with former Virginia Tech star Dell Curry at shooting guard for Charlotte, was helped by Littles' ascension to the head-coaching job. Littles has the Hornets running more than in Harter's more patient system. Basically, the Hornets' coaching leadership went from General Patton to Major Dad.
"It's more comfortable with Gene," said rookie center J.R. Reid. "I didn't have any problems with Coach Harter. He did a lot of positive things for me. But Gene is easier to get along with. We needed to relax, and we have."
There is some thought that Littles, once he can establish his own system with the start of next season, may be tougher. Three-a-day workouts have been mentioned as possible in training camp, which would be a switch from Littles' hardly grueling practices of the last two months.
"As a leader, [Littles] is patient and pretty easy-going," said veteran forward Kelly Tripucka. "He's not a ranting, raving lunatic. How long he lasts depends on how good the team gets. It's easy to coach good players. If the players respond - if they're committed to him - I think that it will work."
Littles, who was the Hornets' director of player personnel while still an assistant coach, figures to have even more of a stamp of approval on personnel now. He will be working with a new director of basketball operations. Shinn has three finalists for that job, including Denver Nuggets assistant coach Allan Bristow, the star of Virginia Tech's 1973 NIT championship team.
Carl Scheer was the Hornets' vice president and general manager until last month. Then he left for the presidency with the Nuggets, where he was president and general manager from 1974-84. Scheer never had a contract with the Hornets, and last week Shinn tried to hire Rod Thorn, the NBA's director of operations, for Scheer's old job. Shinn offered Thorn a contract.
"Had he offered me a contract, I would have been in Charlotte today," Scheer said a week ago. "I'm real upset and hurt. . . . George told me that he would never give a contract for someone in my position."
Shinn denies the lack of a contract was a problem with Scheer, but that situation was small headlines compared to the foolish statement Shinn made about moving his team out of the Charlotte Coliseum and his threat to build a privately owned arena adjacent to his new Knights Castle baseball stadium in Fort Mill, S.C.
The next day, Shinn recanted his remarks, but it was too late. His complaints were based on the Hornets' $1-a-game lease of the coliseum. All parking and concessions dollars are retained by the coliseum, a gross profit of about $3 million annually. Shinn, whose ability to lure the NBA was based partially on his five-year arena contract at a buck a date, realizes it isn't as "sweetheart" a deal as it once seemed.
Shinn remains non-plussed. The Hornets will pick anywhere between first and seventh in the NBA draft. If they get the first pick, they'll undoubtedly select Syracuse big man Derrick Coleman. There are many questions to be answered before next season, by new faces. But Littles has had the "interim" removed from his coaching title. Mike Pratt will return as an assistant coach, and Tom Nissalke likely will be hired as another aide.
"As cornball as it may sound," Shinn said, "I honest to God believe this Hornets' team is a team of destiny and we're going to build a franchise similar to what the Lakers and Celtics have done. It's going to take time, but if people stick with us it's going to happen."
The Hornets' future improvement must be measured on the floor. Charlotte's franchise has had two years to mature. But they stayed in the headlines this year, by George.
Keywords:
BASKETBALL
by CNB