[raggedy13]

Interesting stuff. I'd be all for the return of an NBA team to Vancouver. I'd agree with the rest of those here who say if we had at least an average-performing team we'd have no problems attendance-wise. We're a bigger metro now too and yes if we could somehow get Yao Ming it would be a very popular team locally! My former roommate from Guangzhou religiously follows the Houston Rockets and he's only been living here for 8 months.

Anywho, this reminds me of an article I read a couple weeks ago and considered posting in the sports section but never got around to it:

Vancouver for Memphis was 'NBA's worst-ever trade'

BY GREG DOUGLAS, VANCOUVER SUN
APRIL 25, 2009

SCENE & HEARD: Debbie Butt and Paul Dal Monte did a double-take in the Canucks' executive offices this week when an old friend dropped by to say hello and didn't ask for playoff ticket favours.

"I told them I might be back in June looking for a pair to the Stanley Cup final," Jay Triano joked Friday.

Triano worked with Butt and Dal Monte during the tumultuous days of the NBA Vancouver Grizzlies under the Orca Bay ownership umbrella.

"Players around the league are always telling me that the worst trade ever made in the NBA was Vancouver for Memphis," Triano says. "Mike Bibby and Shareef Abdur-Rahim still rave about Vancouver. The last time we were in Memphis there couldn't have been 3,000 fans in the stands."

That is "we" as in the Toronto Raptors and Triano hopes to know within the next few weeks if his status has been elevated from interim head coach to strictly head coach.

Prior to his short Vancouver visit to see his children - Courtney, Jessie and Dustin - Triano met with Raptors' president and GM Bryan Colangelo.

"There's a board of directors meeting on May 8," the former SFU, national team star and Olympian says. "We'll go from there."

HERE 'N' THERE: Triano was working as the Grizzlies' colour commentator on Team 1040 when TSN offered him a Toronto-based job as part of the network's NBA coverage.

Triano and Lenny Wilkens, head coach of the Raptors in 2000, struck up a strong working relationship and Wilkens took on Triano as an assistant coach over lunch in Seattle during the off-season. Triano became interim head coach last December after serving seven seasons as an assistant.

"I hate the perception that I was hired by the Raptors just because I'm a Canadian," says Triano, who was born in Tillsonburg, Ont. "I said that just once to Bryan [Colangelo] and he really got mad, reminding me that the NBA is big business, end of issue."

SHORT HOPS: Mickey McDowell, proud member of the Canucks alumni who played under Father David Bauer on Canada's 1964 Olympic team, describes Canucks' president and CEO Chris Zimmerman as "a Level Five Leader."

Says McDowell, who travels the inspirational and motivational speakers' circuit: "His kind are quite rare. He is a master at branding the product and Vancouver is lucky to have him."

END ZONE: With News1130 sports director Garry Raible taking early retirement after 38 years in the broadcasting business, Geoff Rohoman will be the station's new morning sports voice beginning May 1. His background includes a stint with the all-sports station The Fan 590 in Toronto.

[email protected]

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

by Greg Douglas, Vancouver Sun