Indiana Pacers Moving To Vancouver?

There have been reports that Vancouver Canucks owner Francesco Aquilini has shown serious interest in purchasing the NBA's Indiana Pacers and moving the team to Vancouver.

Some have suggested that Pacers co-owner Herb Simon has floated the rumor that Aquilini is interested in moving the team as a way to leverage a new sweetheart lease from the City of Indianapolis. 

This wouldn't be the first time that Aquilini has looked into buying an NBA franchise. In the past, he had looked into having the New Orleans Hornets relocate to Western Canada. Just how serious those talks were remains unclear.

In many ways, Aquilini's pursuit of an NBA team makes perfect sense. In addition to owning the Canucks, Francesco Aquilini and his brothers also owns General Motors Place, the stadium where the Canucks play thier home games and served as the home of the Vancouver Grizzlies during their six-year stint in the NBA. Like any good landlord, Aquilini is interested in getting new tenants, and an NBA team would occupy the stadium at least 41 nights of the year.

It also makes sense that the NBA would be interested in partnering with Aquilini. During his time owning the Canucks, Aquilini has been an engaged owner who has been not been afraid to spend money. He also owns the stadium his team plays in, which would likely prevent future squabbles with local government like the one that's taking place in Indiana.

GM Place also remains one of the few stadiums in North America that is ready to host an NBA. Since the Grizzlies left in 2001, the stadium has undergone renovations, including the addition of new luxury suites. The stadium will undergo further renovations in preparation for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

A return of the NBA to Vancouver may come as a bit of a surprise considering that the city lost an NBA team less than a decade ago. Vancouver Grizzlies left town back in 2001 after six years of historic ineptitude.

Despite a pathetic tenure that saw the Grizzlies finish with league’s worst record four times in six years, there are still people who think that the NBA could work in Vancouver is worthy of being part of the NBA fraternity. 

British Columbia and NBA All-Star Steve Nash is among those who believe that Vancouver is an NBA city.

“I think Vancouver is a viable market,” said Nash after playing in the Steve Nash Charity Classic game at GM Place back in July, 2007. “They had a tough turn, but the fans supported it. The exchange rate wasn’t great. Maybe the city could have done a little bit more as far as corporate sponsorship but I don’t that that determined the whole thing. I think that this city deserved better. I think that it deserved a second group of management to try to put a winner on the floor.”

For the NBA to work in Vancouver, a new ownership group would have to wipe out the bad memories of the league’s first error-filled stint in the city. Although Nash is too modest to admit it, one of the biggest mistakes the team made was not getting him in a Grizzlies uniform. The team balked at drafting Nash out of college in 1995, and later turned down an offer by the Phoenix Suns to trade Nash for Grizzlies forward Roy Rogers. Nash would go on to became a two-time MVP. Rogers rode into the sunset after four injury-plagued seasons.

It would be too simplistic to chalk up the Grizzlies’ downfall to their failure to trade for a local kid, but Jackson’s inaction is emblematic of the team’s inability to assess NBA talent. During a three-year stretch, the Grizzlies used its top draft picks to take players who essentially played the same position. The worst one of those picks was the 1999 selection of guard Steve Francis who refused to sign with the team. One of Jackson’s other major blunders was signing doughy, slow-footed centre Bryant Reeves to a six-year, US $61.8 million contract that hamstrung the franchise even after it moved to Memphis.

In addition to failing to mine talent from U.S. colleges, the team also did a horrible job of recruiting international players. In the late 90s there was an explosion of players from Europe and around the world entering the league. Despite the fact that most international players had no qualms about playing in Canada, unlike many US-born players, the Grizzlies never featured a European player on its regular-season roster.

The Grizzlies also failed off the court, failing to draw in corporate sponsors and reaching out to the city’s various ethnic communities. Basketball has exploded in popularity in China and among Chinese-Canadians, yet the team made minimal efforts to reach out to Vancouver’s Chinese community.

From the beginning, it seemed the team was surrounded by gloom. The constant losing created a negative sentiment among players, who then complained about petty things like Vancouver’s rainy weather and having to constantly go through Canada customs. The player’s complaints alienated local fans, and the atmosphere around the team became toxic.

When the team was sold in 2000 to Michael Heisley, he promised to change the culture of the franchise. But instead of blaming the team’s woes on mismanagement, the Chicago businessman pointed the finger at someone else: the customers. Heisley claimed that local government and the fans weren’t supportive enough of the team and petitioned the NBA to move the team to Memphis.

Of course, the numbers tell a slightly different story. While the Grizzlies were hardly selling out GM Place, fans were more than supportive considering that the Grizzlies were one of the worst teams in NBA history. For much of it’s run, the Grizzlies ranked in the middle third of NBA teams in attendance, averaging 15,539 fans per game over six years, far better than several NBA cities that managed to hold on to NBA teams.

Many believe that the fundamentals exist for a team to succeed in Vancouver. The Canadian dollar has risen more than 20 percent since the 90s, something that’s critical since a Canadian-based team generates revenue in Canadian dollars, but pays many of its expenses--namely player salaries—in US greenbacks. The idea that NBA players don’t want to play in Canada may also have disappeared thanks to the success of the Toronto Raptors, which has thrived due to shrewd management and a roster full of international players.

If the Pacers do move to Vancouver, it would be deeply ironic. One of the things many critics attributed to the failure of  the Grizzlies was that Vancouver did not have a rich basketball culture or history. Now the city might take away a team from Indiana, a state with the richest basketball culture of all.

If that happens, it will illustrate that the NBA is not about culture or history, but business. The draw of something like a good stadium and deep-pocketed owner is far stronger than anything portrayed in the film Hoosiers.

UPDATE: According to the CBC, Aquilini has denied any interest in purchasing the Indiana Pacers.