All season, the New Orleans Hornets have been desperate for national TV attention. Now, mere days from their first ever appearance on ABC, it seems as if a certain 19 game winning streak could rob them of publicity.
Several websites are citing 610 Sportsradio in Houston as reporting that ABC will broadcast this Sunday’s clash between the Los Angeles Lakers and Houston Rockets — a game that could match the two best teams in the Western Conference. Lakers/Rockets could replace Hornets/Pistons, a game that was added to the schedule only days ago.
ABC and ESPN have made no announcement regarding a change in their NBA schedule, and Hornets/Pistons is still listed as airing Sunday at 3:30 PM.
This is an unlikely move for a variety of reasons. For one, ABC just added Hornets/Pistons to the schedule last week; it is highly unusual to bump a game so quickly after adding it to the schedule.
More importantly, Lakers/Rockets would mark the fifth appearance of the season by the Lakers on ABC, meaning that Spurs/Lakers on April 13 would either be dropped from the schedule, or the Lakers would end up with 6 appearances on network television this season — one more than the maximum.
Under the new television contract the NBA signed with Disney and Turner last summer, the maximum amount of games a team can have on ABC was increased to six. While the new deal does not take effect until next season, the NBA may be more inclined to give ABC an extra Laker game this season. Already this season, the league proved willing to initiate some parts of the new TV deal, as ESPN began streaming games on ESPN360.com in October.
