OKC has ingredients to overcome moving day

Oklahoma City is going to have a basketball now. The Oklahoma City Five. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Welcome Kevin Durant to your permanent home. It’s cattle country, hope you don’t mind. Free agents might, but that’s why you’re here.

Free agents? We don't need no stinkin' free agents.

Moving is a real pain, the packing, the saying good-bye. A player like Durant has probably become used to it. Oklahoma City is going to be the fourth city in as many years that has housed his home court. He should be used to it, as should fellow rookie Jeff Green. Those two just moved to Seattle anyway. Breaking up with friends after a year isn’t that hard.

But for almost everyone else, moving to a new town will be harder. Oklahoma City will play in front of sellout home crowds next year, and the players will need that energy to offset a lack of their own. When you’re moving, free time gets cut down. That or work time. A veteran might already be chalking up this next year a lost cause, a moving year. There isn’t enough time in the day to workout, relocate and relax. Something has to give. For a veteran with a guaranteed contract, work is going to pay anyway. There’s no way to avoid the moving pain and free time is the most important time.

The last five teams to switch cities in the NBA have done well just to maintain the record they’ve had the previous season.

Of the last five teams to relocate from a year before -- Memphis (2004), New Orleans (2002), Sacramento (1985), Los Angeles Clippers (1984) and Utah (1979) -- Sacramento made the biggest improvement from one year to the next, six games. The Kings won 31 games in their final year in Kansas City in 1984-85 and upped that total to 36 wins the next season. On the other hand Utah did the worst after moving from New Orleans following the 1978-79 season and that was only a two-game difference. The Jazz too also had little firepower. They won 26 games the year before moving to Utah.

For the most part teams stay even. The Hornets won 44 games and then 46 games. The Clippers won 30 games and improved to 31. The Grizzles didn’t do any better, winning 23 games their last year in Vancouver and their first year in Memphis.

The more telling sign is when can these teams expect a winner. In most cases that depends on what kind of young prospect they can develop. The Kings and Clippers have been bad for most of their existence in their new cities. It took Sacramento 14 years before it made the playoffs and the Clippers eight. But that one playoff year for the Clippers in 1991-92 was an aberration.

The main component to getting good in a new city is drafting a good young player that can grow with the team. The turmoil that surrounds these franchises when they move doesn’t exactly make them free agent magnets and Oklahoma City isn’t going to carry the same cache as New Orleans or Los Angeles. It’s Oklahoma City, there’s not a professional sports franchise around for a far as the eye can see. What can that mean? Ask Utah. The only players that make a difference there are players they force there through the draft.

Drafting John Stockton was the reason it only took the Jazz four seasons to get into the playoffs. For Memphis, who needed three seasons, it was the development of Pau Gasol, who gave the Grizzles a center when most teams didn’t have one. New Orleans was a playoff team when they left Charlotte and made the playoffs in their first season in the Crescent City. But then Baron Davis left and things fell apart. Then a great storm wrecked the city. They spent time in the doldrums until Chris Paul pulled them out. New Orleans is a situation that will be forever unique. At least the Hornets will be able to get free agents to New Orleans.

As for Oklahoma City, at least they’re coming to town with a little meat on their bones because that’s all they could have to eat for awhile.