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Back in Vancouver for the first time in more than 14 years, former Grizzlies guard Mike Bibby sat courtside to see the Toronto Raptors play the L.A. Clippers at the arena he once knew as GM Place.
Muggsey Bogues sat one seat away among a 19,000 capacity crowd at Rogers Arena Oct. 4 for the first of four basketball games in the Canada Series, a pre-season cross-country exhibition tour that brings NBA teams — not just the Raptors — north of the border.
Spectators showed basketball smarts but not the feverish delirium of previous Raptors visits when the post-season energy in the arena was punctuated with teal appreciation and nostalgia. Except for the kid who got Bibby to sign his eponymous Grizzlies jersey, there was scant Grizz merch in the crowd. The minimal vintage on displace was the purple of the Raptors’ past.
Like the Toronto Blue Jays, the Raptors have worked to tap the entire nation for a cross-country fan base as the only Canadian team in their respective league. Players wore black shirts that read “Vancanver” in capital letters. By playing pre-season games across Canada and using the tagline “We The North,” they’re succeeding, and in this province it doesn’t hurt that the Seattle Supersonics were relocated to Oklahoma City in 2008.
Bibby, who played 14 seasons in the NBA starting in Vancouver as the second-overall draft pick in 1998, said the city can “definitely” support another team — at least its basketball fans can.
The expansion Grizzlies of 20 years ago may have cult status today, but the team’s losing record was among the worst in league history, one reason the First Team All-Rookie said players let down fans.
“Fans got the short end of the stick,” said Bibby after Sunday’s game. “We weren’t winning any games. I probably wouldn’t have came to watch us either. It was tough for them. We were out there fighting as a young team.
“ When the team first came here, the team was young. It’s tough for any expansion team to get off the ground and our veterans were 22 years old, 23 years old.”
The Grizzlies — part of a 1995 expansion that included the Toronto Raptors — ended their six-year tenure in Vancouver with a win percentage of 28 and finished last in their division all but one year.
“We weren’t winning so there wasn’t that many people in the stands so that might have played into why they moved the team,” said Bibby, who lives in Phoenix where he coaches his teenage son at the same high school he attended.
“Winning solves everything,” he said. “If you win, there is nothing they can do and we weren’t winning.”
L.A. Clippers coach Doc Rivers remembered Vancouver on NBA road trips as a "vibrant," "nice," and "amazing city."
"I miss Vancouver may be the better way of saying that. It's just a really great city, it really is," he said. "Deserves a team, obviously, along with Seattle.
The NBA has no immediate expansion plans, but the previous week a source with knowledge about NBA Canada said Vancouver is this country’s next target city. A possible scenario is a simultaneous NBA expansion to Seattle and Vancouver — not that fans should hold their breath.
In Sunday’s tilt, the Raptors led by as much as 23 points on their way to a 93-73 win over the L.A. Clippers.
Kyle Lowry put up 11 points in the first quarter for Tornotn, going seven for seven from the free throw line and finishing with a game-high 26 points.
