Charlotte Hornets

The Charlotte Hornets is an American professional basketball franchise, based in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Hornets compete as a member of the National Basketball Association's nba Eastern Conference Southeast Division. The franchise is owned entirely by legendary NBA Hall-of-Fame Michael Jordan who bought a controlling interest in the club in 2010. The Hornets play at the Uptown Charlotte Spectrum Center, their home games. The original franchise of Hornets, owned by George Shinn, was founded in 1988 as an expansion team. In 2002, Shinn's franchise relocated to New Orleans, becoming the Hornets of New Orleans. In 2004, the NBA created the Charlotte Bobcats and was considered a new expansion franchise at the time. In 2013, the New Orleans franchise announced it would rebrand as the New Orleans Pelicans, ultimately restoring Charlotte with the logo, archives and official history of the Hornets. For the 2014–15 season the Charlotte Hornets is officially renamed as the Bobcats. In 1985 the NBA agreed to allow with three clubs for the 1988–1989 season, but then changed to require a total of four franchises for expansion. George Shinn, a Kannapolis billionaire, wanted to bring the Charlotte area to an NBA team and he put together a consortium of prominent local entrepreneurs to lead the prospective franchise. The Charlotte city has been a hotbed for college Basketball for a long time. Charlotte was once one of America's fastest-growing cities, and was once one of Carolina Cougars 'three major in-state homes at the American Basketball Association from 1969 to 1974. The Hornets 'second season was a struggle from start to finish. Unit members rebelled against Dick Harter's defence-oriented approach and are replaced by assistant Gene Littles at midway point after a start of 8–32 Following the move the team appeared to struggle and finished the season with a disappointing 19–63 record. It shortened season 1998–99. The season did not begin until April, as the lockout limited the regular season to just 50 games. For contrast, Glen Rice was traded to the Lakers for Eddie Jones and Elden Campbell, and Dave Cowens left midway through the season. He was replaced by former Celtics teammate Paul Silas, who has been named the franchise's fifth head coach. The team finished with a 26–24 record but did not qualify for playoffs. In the 2005 NBA draught the Bobcats picked Raymond Felton and Sean May from North Carolina. The Bobcats have already opened the Charlotte Bobcats Arena with an overtime victory over the Celtics in their second season. They managed to end the season with four consecutive wins and finish with a record of 26–56, an improvement of eight games from the previous season, after struggling for most of the year. The Bobcats announced during the season that the franchise had purchased a minority stake from NBA player and native Michael Jordan of North Carolina. As part of the deal he was the head of basketball operations while Bickerstaff remained general manager. The first Hornets logo was an anthropomorphic teal and purple hornet wearing white shoes and dribbling an orange basketball glove. The words 'Charlotte Hornets' were written, in teal, above and below the line. The unofficial logo, which was used solely for the 1988–89 season, used a large teal letter 'C' with 'Charlotte' bent upward in black letters below. There was a smaller white letter 'H' written in teal under 'C,' with a black spotted hornet holding a basketball from the birds-eye view in the centre. The 'H' part of the logo featured on the 'warm-ups and waistband' jerseys before the 1991–92 season. Since 2004 to 2012, the main logo of the Bobcats consisted of a snarling orange bobcat facing the indented word 'Bobcats' in red above, with 'Charlotte' floating above it in the same blue colour. A change to a less vivid orange and brown was made in 2007, though retaining the same look. Further colour changes in 2012 turned the bobcat dark, incorporating the blue background of the word 'Charlotte,' which shifted from orange brown. A blue map of Carolina was then used all over the logo. The Bobcats unveiled a new logo in 2007 consisting of a snarling bobcat head faced forward on one side and shaded orange and blue on the other.