I took a driving tour of New Orleans today, and the only thing I can think besides how sad and tragic the aftermath of the entire Katrina situation is is that there is no way the NBA is going to be successful in this town. I am staying at a hotel near the French Quarter, and there certainly are signs of the devastation of Katrina -- boarded up stores, street repairs, blown out windows, closed-off streets, abandoned building, etc. But it is nothing like what I saw today in the Ninth Ward and an area of the city called Lakeview, an affluent area north of downtown on Lake Pontchartrain. First we headed out of downtown along St. Claude Street, and as you got closer to the ninth you would see increasing signs of despair. But there was activity, and while it was bad I didnt think it was THAT bad. So I was of the opinion that things were OK. But then we crossed the canal that had breached, and there is an altogether different feel. You immediately see great swaths of abandoned, dilapidated houses, windows gone, roofs caved in, front porches listing. Each house has an X painted on it, with a date in one of the quarters of the X. I assume it was the date it was abandoned or deemed unlivable. It was truly eery. We turned off St. Claude and drove down some side streets of what once was one of the most dangerous areas of town. It was a ghost town. Nobody around as row after row of homes were completely ruined. Who knows where the people went? Who knows who died? Who knows if the people are coming back, and if they are how? How will they rebuild? It is staggering in the vastness of the devastation. Imagine driving around West Seattle or in the North End and the entire neighborhood is gone. That is what it was like.