Minnesota Timberwolves failed relocation to New Orleans

In 1994, several groups were involved in an attempt to relocate the Minnesota Timberwolves of the National Basketball Association (NBA) from Minneapolis, Minnesota to New Orleans, Louisiana. The proposed relocation would have been the second involving a Minneapolis-based franchise in the span of two years, as Minneapolis had lost its National Hockey League (NHL) franchise to Dallas in 1993. Timberwolves owners Marv Wolfenson and Harvey Ratner were considering selling the team due to problems with the mortgage on the Target Center, the team's arena that had been built only four years earlier as part of Minneapolis' 1989 entry into the NBA. The events of the attempted relocation resulted in Glen Taylor, businessman and former Minnesota State Senator, purchasing the team and keeping it in Minneapolis.

After their failed courting of the Timberwolves, New Orleans made attempts to lure the Vancouver Grizzlies and Charlotte Hornets to the city in the 2000s. The city found success when the Hornets elected to move to Louisiana in 2002, after considering both New Orleans and Memphis (where the Grizzlies eventually moved). When the New Orleans Hornets renamed themselves the New Orleans Pelicans in 2013, the city of Charlotte reclaimed the Hornets name in 2014 by renaming the Charlotte Bobcats into the Hornets again. As part of a settlement, the second incarnation of the Charlotte Hornets reclaimed the records and history of the 1988–2002 Charlotte Hornets.^[1]