It is certain that the New Orleans Hornets organization will split its time between New Orleans and Oklahoma City next season.Beyond that, the team is scheduled to return to New Orleans full-time, although public uncertainty about the return still persists.E-mails posted on various sports Web sites, including Saintsreport.com, gave details of the organization’s contingency plans for moving its March 8 game from New Orleans to the University of Oklahoma campus before they were made official by the organization. The game was the Hornets’ first in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina.
The e-mails also mentioned a financed grassroots effort to make a temporary relocation situation permanent in Oklahoma City.
The e-mails were posted on the Internet on Feb. 18.
“The e-mail exchanges … were in fact posted here on Saintsreport.com back on Feb. 18 by one of our members and subsequently discussed by many of our members,” said Andrus Whitewing, Webmaster of Saintsreport.com.
“I cannot vouch for the validity (of the e-mails),” Whitewing added.
Numerous attempts by The Maroon to contact Hornets officials by phone and e-mail to confirm the authenticity of the e-mails were unsuccessful.
One e-mail concerned the relocation of the March 8 game against the Los Angeles Lakers and was purportedly addressed to Hornets team president Paul Mott, director of corporate communications Michael Thompson and chief financial officer Brice Collier. It was written over the name of Hartzog, Conger, Cason & Neville law firm partner Armand Paliotta; the e-mail was purportedly carbon-copied to John D. Robertson, a fellow attorney at the Hartzog firm in Oklahoma City.
One e-mail said, “I spoke with OU’s general counsel this afternoon, and he has quietly ‘reserved’ March 8 for us if necessary.” The plan, according to the e-mails, was to have “an out from N.O. for the March 8 game” taking “the less soft approach.”
“I don’t think it is our job to hide the continuing problems that we face. If the problems are so severe that we can’t play, and we’ve been talking about these problems, it will look like N.O.’s fault if we move the game to O.K.C.” the e-mail added. “If we talk about the problems, yet we still play the March 8 game in N.O., we look good because we overcome the problems in an effort to ‘play back home.'”
The e-mail then added that the Hornets organization should “get in the press the fact that we are encountering difficulties as follows: ‘Despite a mountain of challenges getting our business up and running in New Orleans sales for the three March games are …” and the e-mail stops.
The morning after the e-mails were posted, The Oklahoman ran a story announcing a contingency plan in Norman, Okla., should the New Orleans Arena not be ready. In the article, Thompson said, “It’s important we cover all our bases and make contingency plans.”
He later added, “If we find out that (New Orleans) is not an option for us, then certainly we’d be interested in playing in Norman.”
Oklahoma City was not an option for the Hornets’ March 8 game because the Cirque du Soleil was booked in the Ford Center – the Hornets’ Oklahoma City home venue.
A second e-mail titled “Answer to Times-Picayune question” was purportedly sent from Thompson to Mott, Collier, Paliotta and Hornets employees Clay Moser and Pete Wyatt. It opened, “ticket sales for the three March games are going well despite a mountain of challenges to getting our business back up and running in New Orleans.”
The Times-Picayune never ran the quote.
A third e-mail, supposedly authored by Robertson, made mention of a group named Bee Keeper, a grassroots effort whose Web site would sell T-shirts and gather signatures for a petition to keep the Hornets in Oklahoma City.
The e-mail stated that the person the group hopes to design the Bee Keeper Web site (identified as Michael) had no “connections to any of the Pioneer Partners.”
The e-mail mentions a woman named Jennifer, Michael’s wife, and continues as follows: “I explained to Jennifer that we have a client that wants to see the Hornets stay in O.K.C., but that I could not disclose the client’s identity, and that we wanted Michael to set up the Bee Keeper Web site and update it with the new materials/information as we move forward.”
Calls and e-mails to Robertson and Paliotta were unreturned. Calls and e-mails to Thompson, Collier, Mott, Moser and Wyatt were unreturned as well.
Mott responded to The Maroon in an e-mail addressed to Collier, Moser, Thompson and Wyatt. In the e-mail, Mott writes, “because of the nature of this situation – I will explain later – only our legal counsel will respond. You will be contacted if needed. Otherwise, you are not to respond to any overtures. If you find yourself on the telephone with anyone, you should demure. Expect an e-mail from our law firm shortly about what you may and may not say.”
All of the e-mail addresses listed in the e-mails are valid addresses; Paliotta’s and Robertson’s status with the Hartzog law firm is valid as well.
When asked, after the March 21 game against the Los Angeles Clippers, if the Hornets organization could say anything regarding the e-mails, Thompson said he had “no comment.”
Ramon Vargas can be reached at [email protected] Lopez can be reached [email protected].
