Memphis? We all know Elvis used to hang there. We know Johnny Rivers sang about the city. We know John Grisham sets some of his oeuvres there. We know that Beale Street is a main drag as well as an occasional crossword puzzle answer.

	If Memphis is OK with John Calipari, then why not Shareef Abdur-Rahim?

Memphis is fine. It's got a suitable building until a new one can be built. It's a city with no professional ties, which can be a good thing, as the NBA has discovered in Sacramento, Portland and Orlando. It's got a decent climate -- always critical in this day and age of the 'Practice-and-a-quick-18 on off days' mentality. You can get there from here.

It's even got a hoop heritage of sorts. The old Memphis Sounds of the ABA existed there for five seasons. Their record: 139-281. The Grizzlies or Hornets should fit right in there with what remains of the area's discerning fan base.

Memphis also has that All Important Corporate Presence, which, unfortunately, drives the decisions in today's NBA. That may have been the proverbial cherry on the sundae which sealed the deal. Things like naming rights and luxury suites and preferred seating are critical because, as we've seen all too often, they are purchased by corporations who then don't use the seats.

But Memphis is best for an even more important reason: it isn't Vancouver. You might prefer the lovely city by the bay for vacation, but, for the NBA, Vancouver was akin to San Quentin. Any of the cities on Heisley's short list was preferable to Vancouver.

As much as David Stern wants to trumpet the globalization of the game, the NBA is still a dominantly American enterprise. The players come from the USA. They play their basketball in the USA. They want to live in the USA and, for reasons that the good people in Vancouver already know; the players can't live in Canada during the off-season.

So Memphis is a sound (pun intended) selection because it doesn't have customs, it does recognize currency printed in Washington, D.C., it does have employment opportunities for wives, girlfriends, and Significant Others. It won't tax you onerously and you can live there year-round if you choose. You can get ESPN on the television, Doritos at the local supermarket and curling is something you do with weights, not with a broom stick on a path of ice.

This is as easy as ABC -- Anywhere But Canada. The Toronto Raptors are eventually going to face this same crossroads as soon as Vince Carter tells them that he would like to test the market. You can be a wonderfully cosmopolitan city with efficient transit systems, upscale housing, great dining, haute couture, and it still doesn't matter. If those things were important, we'd see teams in Paris and Florence.

This wasn't a basketball decision. It was an economic decision, pure and simple. Do you think the good people of Memphis who follow the NBA -- I'm making a broad assumption here that they do exist -- are excited to have a team? Vancouver is, flat out, the single most uniformly horrible team that the NBA has had over the last six years. A 20-win season constitutes a milestone for the Grizzlies. Until this year, they had not won a road game in March for years.

Maybe in three-to-five years, when Portland is rebuilding, Utah is rebuilding, Shaq is chilling and David Robinson is relaxing in Aspen, the Grizzlies will be in a position to do something. That's their plan, anyway. The difference now is that the players might be less inclined to go elsewhere. We've yet to find a single player who liked Vancouver enough to want to stay as a professional. Maybe that would have been different had the team won. But it didn't.

So Memphis works in the same way that all those nationwide job searches work when the chosen one is the guy down the hall who's married to the boss's sister. It works the same way that Al Gore worked for the Democrats -- he was less boring than Bill Bradley (although he couldn't come off a pick as well) and he had the necessary corporate backing.

	Wright

	Hardaway

	Webber

I'm sure they have nice restaurants and museums in Memphis. They probably even have good soul food, which might tempt Chris Webber to go there. Penny Hardaway came from Memphis. He did all right. Lorenzen Wright is from Memphis. Well, he's trying to do all right. Memphis is the new home of John Calipari, who, lest we forget, did something quite substantial: he actually got the New Jersey Nets into the playoffs.

The business community in Memphis seems genuinely excited about being asked to join the exclusive NBA fraternity. There is certain to be proverbial honeymoon where the new team will be a novelty. We saw that in Charlotte, where, unfortunately, the novelty has long worn off. But that's a topic for another day.

Memphis? Why not? Did Louisville, Anaheim or New Orleans really excite you? OK, did Louisville or Anaheim really excite you?

New Orleans would have been fun, but the city doesn't have the All Important Corporate Presence and it does have the Coaches Nightmare Party Presence. Everyone but the people in the league office wanted Las Vegas for the, uh, climate, of course. That wasn't going to happen.

You might find some cynical naysayers and nabobs of negativism trashing Memphis, but not here. And not in a more important place -- the Grizzlies' locker room. They can still have the condo with the water view, but this time, it'll be the muddy Mississippi River they'll see. It'll be a gorgeous sight.

Peter May, who covers the NBA for the Boston Globe, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.