... As Hornets seek to run from home.

• Position: Charlotte Hornets basketball team - Brief Article

Charlotte Hornets officials have had to little to say since Queen City voters squashed plans to build the Bugs a $190 million arena downtown. It would have been a sweet deal: The city would have picked up the tab, paying for it with tourist taxes and the Hornets' rent.

Conventional wisdom suggests team owners would be stung by the rejection -- 57% of those voting in the June 5 referendum said no -- but there's another explanation being shopped around: They don't want to let slip how grateful they were to be told, in effect, to buzz off.

Now, the theory holds, the team can portray itself as the innocent victims of an ungrateful public. Rejection of the arena, which backers persuaded the City Council to bundle with cultural projects in a $342 million package, leaves the Hornets stuck for another year in the Charlotte Coliseum, where the team says it's losing $1 million a month due to a dearth of suites and club seats. But the team can appeal to the NBA next spring for a transfer without appearing to be abandoning a place that once led the league in attendance. "They want it to look like they were thrown out rather than left," says Ted Arrington, a UNC Charlotte political scientist who has tracked the Hornets saga. "They can...