Mayor still excited over possibility of NBA team

Erin Neff

Thursday, Oct. 28, 1999 | 11:20 a.m.

Mayor Oscar Goodman is more enthusiastic than ever about Las Vegas' chance to net a pro basketball team.

His attendance Tuesday with 12,000 others for a preseason game at the Thomas & Mack Center gave him reason to cheer not just for returning hometown son Shawn Marion and his Phoenix Suns, but for pro hoops in general.

"We're going to get a team here," Goodman said Wednesday. "To have that type of crowd with two teams that really have no nexus here on a Tuesday night opposite the third game of the World Series is phenomenal."

Goodman's pep over the exhibition game between the Suns and Los Angeles Lakers will either reach a high point or be taken down a notch Friday after he speaks with National Basketball Association Commissioner David Stern.

Stern is meeting with NBA owners today and is expected to ask them how they feel about Las Vegas having a team. Historically, the NBA has been the most skittish pro sports league when it comes to gambling.

The NBA granted franchises in two Canadian provinces with a ruling that the teams would have to leave if any city within the province so much as enacted a lottery.

Sports books statewide have had a lukewarm response to Goodman's attempts to bring the NBA to Las Vegas. Many fear the league will require no betting on any pro basketball, an edict some books will not accept.

Goodman believes the owners aren't as strict when it comes to gambling. For one thing, he cites ownership of the Sacramento Kings by the Maloof family, which also owns the Fiesta hotel-casino in North Las Vegas.

The mayor also said he believes local sports books would accept a "UNLV rule," in which a Las Vegas-based team would be taken off the board.

Seven of the nine sports books his staff surveyed said they would favor the UNLV rule. One sports book said it would not favor the UNLV rule, and one chose not to comment.

Even though there are no franchises available or plans for expansion pending, Goodman touts Las Vegas as a city where a team would reap financial and fan success.

"It's going to happen," Goodman said. "I can feel it in my gut."