Don't feel bad. Plenty didn't come. A matchup of reigning NBA MVP Steve Nash against promising rookie Chris Paul drew an underwhelming 7,302.

(Keep in mind Hurricane Katrina-weary south Louisiana didn't fill up Tiger Stadium for a series of Saints games, either.)

A few weeks later, the Hornets - known then as the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets - pulled the plug on a plan to have another five games in Baton Rouge that season.

NBA Commissioner David Stern had already been talking on the record about how Oklahoma City, would make a fine candidate to land a future franchise, and with the way that city had embraced the Hornets , you had to figure they were never coming back, right?

Or, if they did come back to the Crescent City, it wouldn't work, right? After all, the franchise had played in front of often lukewarm crowds since arriving in New Orleans from Charlotte, N.C., in 2002.

All of this seems so distant now. The 2007-08 season, when the Hornets returned after two seasons in Oklahoma City, changed the perception of this franchise and, to a degree, the franchise found its soul, became changed by the exodus from and the return to a devastated city, an experience singular in all of professional sports.

"After Katrina, coming back was really more of an emotional decision, doing the right thing," Hornets President Hugh Weber said. "When we first came (in '02), I think the mind-set of the organization was, we're an NBA franchise and now we're in Louisiana. The mind-set coming back the second time was, we're a Louisiana business that happens to be in the NBA."

Paul - who has emerged as a superstar and a beloved figure in New Orleans - led the team to a supernova season in 2007-08, with the Hornets winning their division and winning over the city as well.

Moving forward, the Hornets want to have a place in the hearts of Baton Rouge and even Lafayette, where the team is opening practices with a weeklong camp.

They'd like to snare more of the casual fans who come for a game here and there. They'd love the corporate sponsor. And they need to build the statewide support for their team when they seek state money.

"We want the Hornets to become a state team and not just a New Orleans team," Hornets owner George Shinn said.

Now with a marketable superstar in Paul, some stability and identity, the organization can and wants to branch out.

"Two years later, as that ripple has moved out (from the return in 2007-08) - now, it's in Baton Rouge and it's moving on to Lafayette - you'll see us take even more and more presence," Weber said.

Weber said the Dallas-Fort Worth area, obviously with substantially more population upon which to draw, nevertheless compares geographically with the trio of New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Lafayette.

"That's a very long-term vision, obviously, but we have to grow our roots today," Weber said.

That's an important step for the financial well-being and the competitive well-being of the franchise. Keep in mind, the aims go hand in hand.

There is a finite amount of folks and wealth in this area, while salaries and other operating costs will always escalate.

"We're competing against Chicago, L.A., New York and everywhere else, and we're doing it with the cheapest ticket in town," Weber said. "Which means we have to be very, very efficient. We have to be very smart. We cannot make mistakes. That's the business model we operate under. Razor-thin margins."

Weber said, even in a difficult economy, season-ticket sales and other benchmarks of the bottom line remain strong, and to that end, he called the Hornets "one of the flag bearers in the league."

He said he's expecting the Hornets to surpass their 23 sellouts of last season. "It's just a situation that the market is not the best, but you have to work it hard," Shinn said.

The success in all of the franchise's three stops - Charlotte, Oklahoma City and New Orleans - has further enforced Shinn, who never lacked for confidence. All three cities - all labeled as too small and/or unattractive for different reasons - have NBA franchises now, and that speaks to Shinn's impact.

"We're the smallest market in the NBA, and you have to take that into consideration," Shinn said. "My philosophy is the same today as it was when I was trying to get this expansion team in Charlotte. ... It's not the size of the market, it's how you market the market."

The Hornets did well enough last season that they didn't need a state subsidy and an escape clause tied to attendance never became an issue.

The state's current agreement with the Hornets runs through 2014, Weber said. Shinn said in 2008 he'd be interested in a 10-year deal with state subsidies. Some of those surely will focus on improvements to the New Orleans Arena, now a decade old.

Maybe you didn't think this about the Hornets if you were at the Assembly Center a few years ago - or didn't even care to show. You see them differently now, though, huh?