It's time for the NBA to return to Cincinnati

A Royal Dream

I like basketball. Nowadays, I go to about one NBA game a season.* Last year, it was Boston vs. Detroit; this year, it was a less-than-thrilling contest between two bad teams, the Magic and the Sixers. As it turns out, I’m a Philadelphia 76ers fan because when I was a kid, the Sixers had this exciting rookie named Charles Barkley, and — most importantly — Cincinnati didn’t even have a team.

*I’d like to go to more games, although the NBA — as an entertainment product — certainly isn’t what it once was.

I was in Orlando and I actually went to a Magic game.

Back in the day — long before slogans and hashtags and, I dunno, talking geckos who sell insurance — professional basketball graced Cincinnati. It was 1957, and the Rochester Royals drifted from upstate New York to the Queen City, bringing local heroes and small-town flair with them. Fans at the Cincinnati Gardens caught their first glimpse of the city’s new NBA team, and though it took a while for them to warm up, the franchise soon became Cincinnati’s own.

Yes, it’s all a historical anecdote now, a postcard from a city that no longer exists. A city that once heard the sound of squeaking sneakers and the clang of the rim in deep winter on the pro level. But allow me to dream here for a moment: maybe — just maybe — that story isn’t over? We talk about Seattle and Las Vegas, apparently the favorites for NBA expansion, like they’re the only possibilities. We throw in Mexico City to broaden horizons. We cast envious glances at Kansas City’s fancy new arena. Even Louisville has been mentioned. But why not Cincinnati?

Just for a moment, let’s travel back to the beginning. These Royals (we can argue over whether “Rochester” fit them better than “Cincinnati,” but “Royals” worked nicely with the moniker ‘Queen City’) started as the Seagrams in 1923 — semi-pro ball in a corner of the sports world that couldn’t have envisioned what basketball would look like in 2025. They hopped leagues, changed owners, and played in a tiny arena in Rochester that kept selling out. And then, of all curious developments, Rochester’s minor-league hockey team started drawing just as well or better. And thus began to blow the winds of change that blew the Harrison brothers and their Royals toward Cincinnati.

It was a pretty good setup for a while. To this day, Cincinnati is a completely underrated basketball town — we love our Bengals and Reds, but you know how passionate Bearcats and Musketeers fans are about their college hoops. When the Royals arrived in 1957, pro hoops seemed like a logical step for a city that still had no NFL presence and an undeniable passion for the roundball. Local guys like Jack Twyman (UC) and Dave Piontek (Xavier) helped the cause and the NBA had found a home in Cincinnati.

Alas, tragedy broke the spell. Maurice Stokes, the Royals’ towering, astonishing star, smacked his head on the court and eventually was paralyzed. His heartbreak reshaped the team’s fortunes in the blink of an eye. Jack Twyman, in one of sports’ most compassionate gestures, became Stokes’s legal guardian. Despite the heartbreak, the Royals trudged on, got sold, struggled, and then — like a gift from the basketball gods — Oscar Robertson happened.

It’s impossible to talk about Cincinnati’s NBA past without pausing to appreciate The Big O. He arrived from the University of Cincinnati as a fully-certified hardwood wizard, the kind of player who redefined the very nature of basketball, posting stat lines that looked like typographical errors. Oscar’s Royals squads included other local luminaries like Jerry Lucas, and, for a few glorious seasons, they gave the city a legit NBA brand. Unfortunately, they also kept running into the likes of Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, and Jerry West. No one was beating that Boston team in the ‘60s, and Cincinnati wasn’t alone in heartbreak.

Still, the Royals brought something to this town. The city was just big enough for them, the fans just mad enough about basketball to give it life, but it couldn’t last. Eventually they drifted, first to Kansas City (with a pit stop in Omaha, of all places), then ultimately to Sacramento. You know the rest. That’s all from the past, you say — what about now?

Well, now, we see NBA commissioner Adam Silver talking about the inevitability of expansion to 32 teams. And in all the speculation — Seattle, Las Vegas, Mexico City, even Europe — Cincinnati rarely gets a mention. I think I can make some surface-level arguments for the league returning here, mostly centered around the fact that the Ohio/Kentucky/Indiana region is an honest-to-goodness hotbed of basketball passion. The city has grown since the Royals left, revitalized its downtown, built a soccer stadium and, perhaps, drowned out some of the old narratives about poor attendance. Folks are packing the stands to watch FC Cincinnati, the Bengals have a star quarterback that sells out seats, and even the Reds — despite their ups and downs — still draw decently when hope is in the air. It’s no longer the city that lost an NBA team in 1972. It’s not the city that used to struggle to fill seats. Is there room for pro ball on the dance cards of passionate UC and Xavier fans?

To be fair, if we’re going to dream about the possibilities, we should also acknowledge the very real obstacles. Back in 2015, fellow Substacker Paul Daugherty — love him or hate him — pointed to a few: Where’s the money coming from? Who builds the new arena, since U.S. Bank Arena is, well, lacking in many respects? Could the city and region truly support a third (or fourth, depending on your opinion of MLS) major franchise, given the limited corporate base and the presence of the Bengals and Reds? And that’s before you consider the Pacers in Indianapolis, the Cavs in Cleveland, the Pistons in Detroit. They’re all a few hours away. The NBA likely sees Cincinnati as being caught in a swirl of markets already served by established teams.

So, yeah, the argument against the NBAs return is realistic. Seattle has the heartbreak story of the Sonics leaving for Oklahoma City. Louisville has a shiny downtown arena and the University of Kentucky’s reach to its south. Kansas City has a big, modern building just waiting for a tenant, and it’s no secret the NBA loves new arenas. Meanwhile, Cincinnati still wrestles with renovating or replacing an aging venue on the banks of the Ohio.

The least realistic part of the tweet above is: “Cincinnati builds an arena.” I get it.

It’s not gonna happen, but I can dream. When I picture a prospective NBA return, I imagine a new brand — or maybe the “Royals” name dusted off from the attic. I imagine Bearcats faithful and Musketeers fanatics uniting behind a single cause.* I imagine the next Oscar Robertson stepping onto the floor in a Cincy uniform, dropping triple-doubles.

*Okay, THAT might be the most unrealistic sentence in this entire dream sequence.

Will it happen? Nah. But I like to keep the flame alive if only because it’s Cincinnati, and we believe in tradition, and in the power of sports to shape our identity.

Or something like that. Mostly it’s because I’m sick of the Joel Embiid-era 76ers. I need a new team.