A basketball fans perspective

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Build it and they will come 

If you saw the 1989 movie classic Field of Dreams the headline will be familiar to you. Farmer Ray (Kevin Costner) kept hearing a voice over and over whisper “Build it and they will come.” See the movie for yourself, as for the headline you will locate a connecting story below on the Mavs planned new arena. My question for you….what is categorized as old, American Airlines is coming up on 25 years of existence. How about Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City MO? The downtown Muni opened its doors for basketball in 1935, over that time the building’s been renovated numerous times. It’s hosted the MIAA Basketball Tournament since 2003, its been home to the NAIA Tournament from 1937-1974.

The tournament moved to Kemper Arena and later to Tulsa Oklahoma before returning to Municipal Auditorium in 2002. The venue hosted three of the first four Final Fours, and its last NCAA Tournament game was played in 1964. Although football stadiums eventually became the primary sites for the national championship, Kansas City and Municipal Auditorium hosted more NCAA championship games than any other location for many years. UMKC once played its home games there, later shifting them back to campus, but after hiring Mark Turgeon this spring, the university announced it would return to the Muni. Renovations have given the arena a permanent capacity of 7,300, with room for 2,600 additional temporary seats. The result is an intimate setting with excellent sightlines, where fans feel close to the action. Modern arenas have their appeal, but Municipal Auditorium—known locally as the Muni—still carries a special sense of history and character.

Most annoying fans

Generally speaking whenever the subject of annoying fans are discussed we are discussing colleges, we could be conversing on Cameron Indoor (Duke), Allen Fieldhouse (Kansas) or Rupp Arena (Kentucky). These and other basketball arenas around the nation visiting teams hate to enter not only due to facing the teams but those somewhat annoying fans as well. I’ve never had the opportunity to attend a game in Crypto.com (Lakers), TD Garden (Celtics), Chase Center (Warriors) or Madison Square Garden (Knicks). In this instance I intend to take advantage of information rightly or wrongly conveyed by attendees at each of these venues. We can come to a variety of definitions what details an annoying fan with that let’s take a closer look.

As some are aware there have been incidents where fans actually had altercations, the one incident that certainly is the most mentioned was “The Malice in the Palace.” This was an actual fight between members of the Pacers and the Pistons who then played their home games at the Palace of Auburn Hills. This altercation took place November 19, 2004, do a deep dive for further details. Ja Morant’s father was banned at one time from attending games at the FedEx Forum in Memphis based on his actions toward game officials. Over time there have been a number of other instances. In 2020 after Kemba Walker was ejected during a Boston Celtics game at TD Garden, a frustrated fan threw a beer toward the court near the Spurs’ bench. The incident resulted in a game delay and the fan being arrested. Can we say fans have no always been on their best behavior when attending games especially when consuming adult beverages.

A planned arena

Talk over the past few months has now been confirmed: the Dallas Mavericks announced their plan to build a new arena. The American Airlines Center home since 2001 will be replaced by an arena owned by the Mavericks. The new arena will be built in North Dallas, about 10 miles from downtown. According to a news release, 104 acres near I-635 and the North Dallas Tollway will be purchased, the Valley View Mall once stood on this site. The mall was closed in 2015 and demolished in 2023.

A decision was reported to have been made by December 2025 but delays forced it to slip into 2026 with July being the last possible date for a decision. This timeline had to be culminated in order to stay on schedule and allow for construction of this building prior to the American Airlines Center lease expiring in 2031. The future of the NHL’s Dallas Stars who share the arena remains unclear; reports suggest they may either remain at the current location or build an arena of their own. So it now appears Dallas will join Oklahoma City along with Philadelphia in construction of a new arena for their NBA teams.  

Twins

Before writing this, I conducted a degree of research to uncover how frequently twins are born in the United States. According to information I uncovered twin live births occur every 31-32 times out of 1,000 births, 1 out of 30 live births is a twin. “There are Fraternal twins (dizygotic) twins are two individuals born from the same pregnancy, formed when two separate eggs are fertilized by two separate sperm.” On the other hand “Identical twins (monozygotic) twins result from a single fertilized egg splitting into two, sharing nearly 100% of their DNA.” Despite the rarity of twin births the NBA has witnessed its share over its history.

Tom and Dick Van Arsdale might have been the first twins in the NBA, they played their college basketball at Indiana, they played 12 seasons in the NBA (1965-1977) for a variety of teams. As for the others this is not in order of when they arrived with the exception of Ausar and Amen Thompson. They were each drafted in the Top Five in 2023 the only twins to be lottery picks. As for the other names we have Cody and Caleb Martin, Brook and Robin Lopez, Marcus and Markieff Morris. In addition to them there is also Jason (who recently passed) and Jaron Collins plus Keegan and Kris Murray. This exercise is closed with the names of Justin and Julian Champagnie. It's remarkable that both of these brothers and others had the talent to make it to the NBA.

Mizzou recruiting

Blue Blood programs and those slightly below have managed winning programs with 3 keys in my estimation. They are a winning head coach, a winning program and a continuous pipeline of talent flowing into the school. Of course the pipeline feeds the other two tenants that allow for success on the basketball court. I believe at least two of the tenants are in place at Mizzou, the coach (Dennis Gates) and the program, the third of course is the pipeline. In this instance I’m speaking strictly of high school talent, I am not negating talent brought in from the portal.

In the day of instant transfer eligibility I continue to believe in high school talent. Sure, there is the one and done issue plus transfers out of the program but they are pauses on the road to success. The Class of 2027 has been identified and offers have been made, allow me to introduce a number of prospects identified by the coaching staff and hope they will be Columbia Missouri bound in the fall of 2027. Adkinson is a verbal commit, he and others might choose to attend another school however its good news for Mizzou fans. They are aware the coach and his staff are working continuously to attract winning players to a winning basketball program.

Scottie Adkinson 6-foot 2 combo guard Webster Groves HS 4-stars-verbal commit

Caleb Ourigou 6-foot 11 center OT Elite HS 4-stars

Cameron Barnes 6-foot 7 forward Link Academy 4-stars

Jimmy McKinney III 6-foot 1 combo guard Vashon HS 3-stars  

Davion Thompson 6-foot 2 point guard Link Academy 4-stars

Gassim Toure 6-foot 3 point guard Principia School 3-stars