Sorting out the history of what one can claim for team history — the New Orleans Hornets have changed their name to the New Orleans Pelicans, jettisoning the team nickname they had when they were based in Charlotte.  This allows the new team based in Charlotte, the Charlotte Bobcats, to change their name to the Charlotte Hornets.  Which sets up the odd question: who owns the team history of the old Charlotte Hornets?

The answer is, apparently, New Orleans.  The fans in that city get to dote over the old performances by Glen Rice and the rest; Charlotte fans are stuck with their brief history.

This makes things a little odd for fans in Seattle, who had to scuttle all the memories of — like, losing to the Bulls in 6 in the NBA Finals (“Sweepless in Seattle!”) and Gary Payton carrying the team for a few years thereafter, and the Brent Barry era, and their one Title from the late 1970s.  All of that belongs to the team located in Oklahoma City — that city’s fans get to claim it.  It appeared for a while that fans of the Seattle Sonics could pick up on the history of the Sacramento Kings and claim all their history — “Hey!  Remember Vlad Divac!  What a player!” — but just when the fans in Seattle had a chance to implant this team’s history into their collective consciousness — the Kings are staying put, apparently.

Hard to be a Seattle sports fan.  The city’s NBA history has been wiped blank, and moved to Oklahoma — nothing happened in this city, and if a new team comes in, the history of basketball in the city will start over

Interestingly, if the Seattle Seahawks ever moved, it would be different.  The precedent has been set with the Cleveland Browns, whose franchise moved to Baltimore and then when a team came back into Cleveland, all the old Cleveland Brown history belongs to the new Cleveland Browns team and not the Baltimore Ravens.  So, Baltimore will just have to content themselves with their two Superbowls (and Trent Dilfer shouting “I’m going to Disneyland!” because of the pr nightmare Disney would’ve had in sending the game’s mvp there) — and when Cleveland’s team gets to claim that time John Elway marched 99 yards down the field on them.  Lucky them, I guess.

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