Count the commissioner neutral on the issue of the Jazz perhaps some day selling their nickname to the team that now toils in the city where Utah's Jazz were born.
     
"I don't even have a view on that," NBA commissioner David Stern said prior to the Jazz's regular-season opener against the New Orleans Hornets, who have relocated here from Charlotte. "That's up to (Jazz owner) Larry Miller."
     
But Stern does have a hunch as to whether or not the name will ever be sold.
     
And that is no-go.

It is the duty of every newspaper to correct wrongdoings, expose injustices and publish the truth "without fear or favor."
     
In that light, and in the public interest, I will reveal, for the first time, the truth about Aaron James.
     
The man is innocent.
     
He never, ever said he wouldn't play in Utah.
     
May the rumor end here forever.

Outside New Orleans Arena before the first regular-season NBA game the Big Easy has hosted since 1979, the spirits were at work.

Fortune tellers read palms. Skeleton stilt-walkers worked the crowd. Vendors sold 'voodoo barbecue,' vampire makeup artists did whatever vampire makeup artists do, and fire-eaters ate, well, fire.
     
By game's end inside the new SuperDome-shadowed home of the New Orleans Hornets, as confetti fell from the ceiling and cheerleaders stormed the court even before the final few tenths of a second wound down, a rather dispirited Utah Jazz bemoaned a 100-75 loss in the city where they were born.
     
And it wasn't just the loss, but also the fact the Jazz ? who played their first five seasons in New Orleans, beginning in 1974 ? trailed by only 4 points going into the fourth quarter and still fell by 25, and the fact there were all-too-many times they really didn't seem certain about what they were doing.

A standing-room sellout crowd of 17,668 rocked New Orleans Arena with deafening noise as they propelled the Hornets to a 100-75 victory against the Utah Jazz.

"It really felt like a playoff atmosphere, and it was a lot of fun to be out there," Wesley said. "I don't think you could have written it up any better than that. It was pretty sweet to come in here and dazzle the crowd and play as well as we did tonight."

It was a historic game because the Jazz was back to play for the first time since the franchise moved to Salt Lake City in 1979. Jazz legend Pete Maravich's No. 7 jersey was retired in a ceremony at halftime, and several former New Orleans Jazz players were honored at the game.

Finally, the Hornets played a game where all the seats were filled, and Michael Jordan wasn't playing. They got a standing ovation during pregame introductions. They heard loud cheers and claps after every made shot.

More than an hour before tipoff, fans Morgan Stewart and Rick Laraway stopped dead in their tracks upon spotting an 8-foot-tall tomb marked: "Future Gravesite of the Utah Jazz."

They both shook their heads and chuckled. The locals had already buried their opponent, and maybe also the grief of losing NBA basketball when the Jazz abandoned New Orleans for Salt Lake City in 1979.

Karl Malone was in a pensive mood prior to taking on the New Orleans Jazz on Wednesday night.

"Better late than never," the perennial Utah Jazz All-Star said of finally playing in New Orleans.

"Seventeen years ago," he said, "I'd probably have been playing here."

Malone, a native of Summerfield and a Louisiana Tech alum, would still consider that possibility.

The 6-foot-9 forward is in the last year of his contract, and since the Hornets moved to the Crescent City from Charlotte, the notion of possibly ending his career in his home state has been on his mind.

The doors of New Orleans Arena didn't swing open in 1999 specifically for Baron Davis. But it's clear that now that he's here, the joint is going to be his house.

And the Hornets' All-Star guard knows how to toss a housewarming party.

On Wednesday night at the Arena, he was all that in a 100-75 Hornets victory over Utah. And if he can manage to be more -- and his breakout performance in the playoffs last season says he can -- he'll deserve all the love that was showered on him against the Jazz and then some.

"I just play, try to entertain the fans," Davis said after slicing Utah for game honors in scoring (21) and assists (10), to go with five rebounds and two steals in 38 minutes.

The Utah Jazz on Wednesday exercised their fourth-year option on DeShawn Stevenson, a guard who jumped from high school to the NBA.

Stevenson enters his third season as Utah's starting shooting guard. Jazz vice president of basketball operations Kevin O'Connor said Stevenson would have become an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season if the team did not pick up the $1.3 million option by Thursday.

Stevenson averaged 3.8 points in limited playing time in his first two seasons. He started four preseason games this fall and averaged 7.8 points.

Baron Davis brought pro basketball back to the Big Easy with a dribbling, passing and shooting exhibition reminiscent of "Pistol Pete" Maravich.

Despite back spasms that caused him to sit out much of the preseason, Davis had 21 points and 10 assists as the Hornets beat New Orleans' old team, the Utah Jazz, 100-75 Wednesday night in the regular season opener for both teams.

"In the NBA you've got to play through a lot of things and that's what I did," Davis said. "We needed a spark and I thought it was my time to step up."

The game marked the regular season return of the NBA to New Orleans for the first time since the Jazz left for Utah in 1979. A standing-room only crowd of 17,668 was into the game from beginning to end.