No one in Charlotte will feel the loss of the Hornets more than Trey and Kerstie Phills, whose father was the team's captain when he was killed in a car crash two years ago.
Five-year-old Trey and Kerstie, 3, have stayed close to the National Basketball Association team since Bobby Phills died on Jan. 12, 2000, while racing his car near Charlotte Coliseum.
PHOTO: AFP
Some of the players and coaches have almost become surrogate fathers. But now the team is moving to New Orleans, and many stories about their father are going with them.
"It's going to have a dramatic effect on my kids," Kendall Phills, Bobby's widow, said Thursday night before the Hornets' playoff game against New Jersey in Charlotte. "For Trey, it's like a part of his dad is going. And my daughter, she never got the chance to know her dad. The only thing she associated with him is the Charlotte Hornets."
The Hornets received final approval from the league Friday to move to New Orleans. The team's owners said they're losing too much money in Charlotte, where voters refused to fund a new arena.
Although Kendall Phills didn't allow her son to attend Thursday's game because it was a school night, Trey is no stranger to the Hornets' locker room. He often attends games, and sometimes participates in on-court skits with the team's mascot, Hugo the Hornet.
The Phills family is closest with Hornets coach Paul Silas and guard David Wesley, who was there when police pulled his best friend's body from his crumpled Porsche. According to police, the teammates were racing when Phills lost control of his car.
"It's been good for Trey to be around the guys," Silas said. "This is all he knows. He didn't really understand who Bobby was, but he knew he was a basketball player. It's too bad it has to end for him. It's going to hurt for a while, I'm sure."
The Hornets applied to move in January, though several NBA owners were skeptical whether New Orleans -- which will be the league's smallest market -- could support a franchise. Last month, however, when it became apparent the team was going to move, Kendall Phills said she broke the news to her son.
"I think he's in denial," she said. "Trey told me that his classmates said they don't have enough money and they can't go."
Wesley has tried his best to help the Phills family cope with the tragedy.
He sometimes takes Trey to the park, where he'll answer any questions the boy might have about his father. Wesley also recently accompanied Trey to his grammar school, where the students were supposed to bring their grandparents.
Not being able to pal around with the players won't be easy for Trey, Wesley said.
"It's fun for him," he said. ``It's a tie to his dad." Kendall Phills also said it's important for her son to interact with the players. Even though she can tell stories about her husband, there's a part of him that even she never knew.
"Now they can know the locker-room Bobby," she said.
"Bobby joked all the time, but it's a different type of humor with the guys."
The team's move to New Orleans, where Kendall and Bobby Phills grew up, won't end the family's association with the Hornets. Kendall Phills said she and her children will visit Louisiana and the Hornets players after training camp opens in October.
"The team, like Bobby, is gone but won't be forgotten," she said.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary