There really is no other way to look at it. Bower is still under contract with the Hornets, yet the Hornets gave him permission to interview for the soon-to-be-vacant New Jersey Nets’ General Manager position. If the Hornets wanted to keep him, that would never have happened. Why would they put themselves in competition with another team for the services of someone they already have? That makes no sense, financially.
Yes, Bower has already stated he is not interested in the Net’s position. That doesn’t mean, however, that this is the end of it. To me, it seems that Bower is having an amicable divorce with the Hornets. The Hornets will let him play the field a little, just as long as he pays attention to the family while he does so, doing the draft, poking through the free agent bargin bin, compiling offers for Chris Paul, etc.
Make no mistake, though, he’ll probably be gone, and probably sooner than later.
The driver here, of course, is Chouest. And no, I’m not claiming that Chouest has a vendetta against the Hornets’ General Manager. He probably just wants to do what every businessman does when he takes over a company: put his own people in charge and give the organization his own stamp. Really, he’s already started doing that. He was hugely involved in the coaching search. He reportedly had some input on the Draft as well. So far, he’s been involved in every major decision this off-season and really is operating as a majority owner, despite the formal agreement making him officially the owner has not yet having been fully settled.
I think we’ll be in for a pretty . . . eventful . . . 12 months as this all shakes out. I’m particularly interested in seeing if the new front office is going to try to work with the core of West and Paul, or if they are going to take dynamite to the roster, using the excuse of new blood to start over.