Originally, the new team was going to be called the Charlotte Spirit, but a name-the-team contest yielded "Hornets" as the winning choice. Franchises were also granted to Miami, Minneapolis-Saint Paul, and Orlando. On April 5, 1987, NBA Commissioner David Stern called Shinn to tell him that his group had been awarded the 24th franchise of the NBA, to begin play in 1988. Some critics doubted that Charlotte could support an NBA team one Sacramento Bee columnist joked, "The only franchise Charlotte is going to get is one with golden arches." However, Shinn's ace in the hole was the Charlotte Coliseum, a state-of-the-art arena under construction that would seat almost 24,000 spectators – the largest basketball-specific arena ever to serve as a full-time home for an NBA team. Charlotte was also one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States, and was previously one of the three in-state regional homes to the American Basketball Association's Carolina Cougars, from 1969 to 1974. Smith, had large and loyal fan bases in the city. The Atlantic Coast Conference's four North Carolina teams, as well as local teams UNC Charlotte, Davidson, and Johnson C. The Charlotte area had long been a hotbed for college basketball. George Shinn, an entrepreneur from Kannapolis, North Carolina, wanted to bring an NBA team to the Charlotte area, and he assembled a group of prominent local businessmen to head the prospective franchise. In 1985, the NBA, then at 23 teams, was planning to expand by four teams by the 1988–1989 season.
1988–2002: Original Charlotte Hornets/George Shinn era 1985–1988: Birth of the Hornets
The purpose of this project is to collect all of the Geni profiles of those who were involved with the original Charlotte Hornets franchise of the National Basketball League.
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