Sprint Center’s night of NBA action impresses

Matt Moore of Hardwood Paroxysm covered Thursday night’s Heat-Hornets game at the Sprint Center. Here’s his dispatch.

The NBA in Kansas City. Man, that’s weird. It’s like barbecue in St. Louis. It’s just absurd. And coming into Thursday night’s game between the Heat and

the Hornets, I expected the city of KC to mostly respond in kind. Sure,

there would be a fair amount of folks who came out for Mario Chalmers,

Julian Wright and Mike Beasley. But in total, a preseason game in Kansas

City on a school night would be nothing but a primary example of why the NBA

could never work in this market, and an illustration of how small a niche

professional basketball occupies.

Maybe not. Hey, my bad.

When you consider the circumstances (preseason, school night, football

season, MLB playoffs), the announced crowd of 17,116 was actually a huge win

for the NBA in this market. And while the play was sloppy in the

Heat’s 97-81 win over the Hornets, the crowd stayed appreciative

through the end of the game. It was savvy marketing on the part of the promoters

to bring in two teams with Kansas connections, as Chalmers was

received how you would imagine Achilles was received by the Greeks — you know,

before that whole arrow thing. Wright’s return to Kansas was only

slightly less hyped. Beasley had a fair amount of supporters in the crowd,

though he was largely silent for most of the night.