CHARLOTTE -- This city could have been on everyone's screen by now. The new, downtown arena would be under construction instead of being a pipe dream. Potential sponsors and ticket buyers would be lining up instead of moving away. The Hornets would be planning misty-eyed nostalgic tributes to capacity crowds at the Coliseum, instead of frantically trying to get someone, anyone, to come to their games.

	“	The man is magic. No question about it. And if he had gone to Charlotte, he'd have been playing by now because it all would have happened earlier. ”
		— Wizards assistant coach John Bach, on Michael Jordan

All of the above which never happened could well have happened had the man who brought the NBA to Charlotte simply said 'OK' to Michael Jordan a few years back. Jordan wanted to get back into the NBA via ownership and wanted a piece of the team as well as the control of the basketball operations. George Shinn, the clueless owner who has overseen the demise of a once-vibrant entity, told Jordan to forget it.

The rest, as they say, is history.

"I would have to think that he is a jewel," said veteran assistant coach John Bach, speaking of Jordan. "Who would not find a place in his crown for that jewel? The man is magic. No question about it. And if he had gone to Charlotte, he'd have been playing by now because it all would have happened earlier."

Rejecting MJ was just one of many bonehead moves made by Shinn, who is detested in Charlotte and won't speak publicly about the situation. The more public face of ownership has fallen to Ray Wooldridge, who lives in Atlanta. He met Monday in Louisville for talks to try and convince the city to accept the Hornets and build them a new, state-of-the-art arena with all the attendant bells and whistles that the cavernous Coliseum currently lacks. Talks are, as they say, ongoing.

It wasn't Wooldridge's first visit to Louisville. Recently, he and Shinn took separate jets there; both of them emblazoned with the Hornets' team logo and in the team's distinctive colors. The jets were parked at the end of an airstrip, well within view of thousands of cars driving along Interstate 65. This was supposed to be a "secret" meeting to explore the possibility of relocation. Of course it was noted and reported.

Down here, Wooldridge and Shinn are seen as the NBA's version of Dumb and Dumber. The Hornets paid almost $400,000 for a special referendum last June which would have started the ball rolling for a new, downtown arena along with some other construction projects. The proposal was trounced, 57-43 percent.

It's a shame it has come to this. Charlotte has long dispelled the notion that it was only a college basketball city. The Hornets led the NBA in attendance for eight of their first nine years in the league. The irony of the situation: This could well be the best team in the 13-year history of the franchise, as well its last.

There is nothing going on with the city, which is basically fed up with Shinn and Wooldridge. A common feeling around town: If those two sold the team, there would be a hole in the ground the next day. But the two are determined to keep the enterprise, which has led to relocation talks because the Coliseum is bleeding money to the tune of more than $1 million a month in losses.

And it's going to get worse before it gets any better. Sponsors have deserted the team, sensing a lame duck. Season tickets are at around 6,000, even with the return of Jordan to the league. One can only imagine what might happen if the owners, as they hope, find a new home by Jan. 1 and file their relocation application with the NBA by the March 1 deadline. That could make for a very interesting April.

None of this would be happening had Shinn seen the light when Jordan came calling. But Shinn was having his own, sleazy personal problems back then which became front page news and disgusted the locals. Jordan not only wanted in, he wanted to be the guy who made the basketball decisions. Sounds reasonable to anyone, especially given Jordan's magnetic personality and his own, Carolina roots. Anyone, that is, but Shinn.

Everything has spiraled out of control since then. Attendance has dropped each year; it was a franchise low last season and even the figures cited don't represent the true turnstile count. The referendum lost in a landslide. Then came Sept. 11 and all of a sudden there are countless priorities ahead of the Hornets. (The Magic, to their credit, announced after the attacks that they were postponing talks with Orlando about a new arena with taxpayer money.)

The basketball team is the innocent victim in all of this. They deal with the relo talk the same way they deal with trade rumors. In the meantime, the team temporarily captured the hearts of Charlotteans last spring by nearly upsetting Milwaukee in the conference semifinals. They could be even better this year, providing anyone is still left to care.

Why the NBA hasn't been more pro-active in this is a mystery. The league would like to keep the Hornets in Charlotte, something that likely would happen if Shinn and Wooldridge did the right thing and bailed out. Could there be a hostile takeover by the league's owners for the "good of the game." Don't count on it. If inept ownership was a reason for such action, several of Shinn's colleagues would already be gone.

The bigger issue is whether Dumb and Dumber can find some city to open its wallets for an NBA franchise in these economic times. Would the citizens of such a city approve of using their dollars to pay for the relocation and a new arena? Shinn and Wooldridge aren't interested in going somewhere to share an arena, such as Nashville or Buffalo. They want their own building and that's why Louisville, Norfolk, Va., and even Oklahoma City have come up.

In the meantime, the Hornets had their exhibition home opener Tuesday against the Celtics in what was pretty much an intimate gathering of friends, family and curiosity seekers. Further to the north, the Wizards, who won 27 fewer games last season, had a private, intra-squad scrimmage at the MCI Center for Washington-area police, fire and rescue personnel. About 13,000 showed up, and not because of Kwame Brown.
Peter May, who covers the NBA for the Boston Globe, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.