This blog has moved! Yes, already!
As of Thursday, Feb. 12, this little blog has relocated to a new home on AJC.com. It’s the same newspaper, the same Web site and the same writer (feel free to groan) — there’s just a new URL.
New features: Bigger type, more graphics, comments that load 10 times faster and a larger and more recent photo that makes me look pretty doggone old. I think you’ll like it (the blog, not the photo). But I am, as we know too well, often wrong.
Home > Mark Bradley > Archives > 2008 > September > 18
Thursday, September 18, 2008
What if McDavid owned Hawks, Thrashers?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Thrashers open training camp this weekend. The Hawks’ first practice is Sept. 30. On Oct. 6, the lawsuit of David McDavid, the Texas car salesman, against Time Warner is set to begin in an Atlanta courtroom. Is there anyone among us who can look on this convergence of events and not wonder: What if?
What if Time Warner had sold the Hawks and the Thrashers to McDavid, as the conglomerate seemed poised to do, instead of seeking another bidder and finding the many-headed Atlanta Spirit? Could our winter pro teams possibly have been any worse?
A confession: I preferred the Spirit, or at least I did then. (My first sentence the day after the new group of bidders was presented: “This way is better.”) I was leery of McDavid because he had no connection to Atlanta. But there are times now when I’m leery of the Spirit because it seems to have little connection to reality.
The Thrashers still have Don Waddell as general manager. The Hawks still have Mike Woodson as coach. The Thrashers are a one-man team whose one man seems destined to depart. The Hawks saw their fourth-best player depart for Greece. The Thrashers haven’t yet won a playoff game under this ownership, and the Hawks haven’t yet had a winning season.
And it isn’t as if these owners have contented themselves to spend money and keep quiet. They’ve become front-page news by suing one another, and that case still seems years from final adjudication. We forget this now, but the only reason Steve Belkin became a Spirit man is the locals (the Gearons and Rutherford Seydel) and the Washington, D.C., contingent (Bruce Levenson and Ed Peskowitz) were seeking one last investor to join the cobbled-together partnership, and Belkin’s name came up.
Five years later, I wonder: Would a Texas car dealer have done any less with not one but two teams? Would his brother-in-law, acting as on-site steward, have been this ham-handed? Would McDavid have contrived to sue himself?
We’ll never know, and there’s no way McDavid’s suit can rewrite history. (Even if he wins, he’s not getting the teams. Time Warner no longer has them.) Five years ago, I thought Time Warner had done our city a favor by spurning the Texan. Now I think: Some favor.
Permalink | Comments (41) | Post your comment | Categories: Hawks/NBA
