If a train left Charlotte at 3 p.m. going 52 mph and another left Vancouver at 11:15 a.m. going 89 mph, when would they meet in Memphis?

	Grizz owner Michael Heisley is coming to the USA, but will it work?

March 2001. The mystery-of-the-ages for elementary school kids was solved last week. Now go clean your room.

The only thing stranger than the Hornets and Grizzlies bumping into each other like that while house hunting is that David Stern didn't head this mess off ahead of time and tell George Shinn and Ray Wooldridge to go to ... Louisville. Instead, the commissioner had to contend with Charlotte's co-owners putting in a late bid on Vancouver's new digs, going the diplomatic when the Hornets applied for relocation and also picked Memphis by saying the Board of Governors would have at it and that the process would settle everything, when everyone knows the Grizz have the priority.

It had been 16 years since a team moved in the NBA, and the rust is showing. Al Davis had gone up and down the California coast more than the Beach Boys in that time, but this instability thing is obviously new ground for this league. That's not a bad thing, of course, only to point out that maybe it shouldn't be such a surprise that the Hornets and Grizzlies are wrestling a vase back and forth and arguing who had dibs on the lawn chairs.

The last relocation was in 1985, when the Kings went from Kansas City to Sacramento, a transition that the league celebrates today more than ever. Apart from Phil Jackson, that is. It wasn't a no-brainer at the time, though. Sac-town was untested as a major sports market to such an extreme that it didn't have a big-time college or another pro sports operation, unlike all but one of the expansion franchises that would follow: Charlotte (ACC country), Miami (NFL, Hurricanes football), Minneapolis (baseball, NFL, NHL, U. of Minnesota), Toronto (baseball, NHL) and Vancouver (NHL). Only Orlando was close, but that city had at least proven itself in marketing and promotions as Land 'O Amusement Parks.

"Portland had been a very successful franchise before Kansas City moved to Sacramento, so I think that was kind of the basis for which they allowed the move," said Jerry Reynolds, who accompanied the team in 1985 to become an assistant coach and is now the director of player personnel. "Of course it worked great in Sacramento, and then you saw Charlotte in the same kind of situation, where you had small markets and where the NBA team was the first and only major-league franchise. Kind of a captive-audience kind of thing. I think it had a big part to do with the NBA being as successful as it was."

So did the timing. The NBA could do virtually no wrong, marketing wise, popularity wise, in the mid-to-late 1980s. So they planted a tree in Sacramento and it grew money.

By 2001, it's become a forest in the area, even as other cities found a come-down from the glory days. Now comes another try at going into a town as the only pro sport, not that it wasn't once red-white-and-blue ball proud of its Memphis Tams.

"Certainly it's a market of similar sizes," Reynolds said. "It does not have a major-league sports franchise. It's a good sports town. In my mind, it's not nearly as nice a market. Here in Sacramento, what's overlooked is that because of the government, you've got a lot of professional people. People that are maybe not rich, but have discretionary income, where I think Memphis is like a lot of Midwestern towns. They want NBA basketball, but they don't know what the cost is yet. I think that may be a surprise. Louisville and Memphis are great college towns, but a great season ticket costs $250 and everybody can kind of be a bigshot for $250. They know the NBA is different, but they don't know how different and I think there's going to be sticker shock in those areas. Sacramento, where it's different, it wasn't even a college town."

Charlotte was and still is, because of Tobacco Road. It was once an NBA town too, but that was before roster instability and a series of off-court incidents did the impossible and turned the people of Carolina off to basketball. Even this season, when the best players are finally locked up in long-term deals and the team has offered reason for optimism, attendance is among the worst in the league. Not exactly the best time for the owners to go asking for public funds for a new building, but, hey, it's been a while since outcry over arena funding was Shinn's worst image problem.

The situation remains very fluid, with the possibility existing that the Hornets will be sold and be able to go back to Charlotte with a new start. But here's what is known for sure under the current ownership: they are nearly in an impossible spot because of the timing. They had until April 30 to exercise an escape clause to break the lease at Charlotte Coliseum and get a referendum in early June for public funding on the new arena, in a package deal with a stadium for a Triple A baseball team and several cultural centers. But both those dates were after the March 26 to file an application for relocation with the NBA.

In other words: