Back Up the Bandwagon

Sports commentators get paid a lot of money to prognosticate and dissect. Almost to a man, they said the Hornets would wither under the playoff lights. Not a ONE of them picked the Hornets to beat Dallas in the first round. Not only did the Hornets beat the Mavericks, I'm pretty sure they are now all our bitches with the possible exception of Brandon Bass (a former LSU standout, by the by). Once we eliminated Dallas all these experts had to say was that of course we all knew Dallas was flawed. Oh really? Then why did you think that a 56 win, 2nd seeded team would not be a match for them? To add insult to injury, all these experts went on to predict that the Hornets would not be able to handle a "real challenge" like the defending champion San Antonio Spurs. How's that working out so far? (For those who don't know we're up 2-0 in the best of seven series). Of course it's not improbable the Spurs could come back and win this series but the way things have looked so far, I wouldn't bet on it. Which brings me to another point. How strange is it that New Orleans has a sports team this good? I'm not counting LSU because they are based in Baton Rouge. And I don't want to hear about Tulane's undefeated football season a decade ago. The Zephyr's minor league championship a few years back doesn't count either because, well...it's the minor leagues. Saints? Don't get me started. Yes, there was that NFC Championship game two years ago but if you can't beat a team quarterbacked by Rex Grossman you probably aren't as good as you think. No, the Hornets are the real deal and possibly the best team New Orleans has ever seen. We are the two seed in the Western Conference in a year when pretty much everyone agreed the conference was as tough as it's ever been. We won our first division title. We have the coach of the year. We have the MVP runner-up (who, seriously, should have been the winner but hasn't been in the league long enough). This team is young, fast and athletic. We can score, we can defend. We can play pretty much any way you want. The bandwagon's starting to fill up. Jump on now.