It finally happened, and it isn't as if the NBA was enthralled by it.

Commissioner David Stern admitted two years too late he was wrong about fighting for Vancouver when the team was about to be bought and moved to St. Louis by Bill Laurie. It required Grizzlies owner Michael Heisley losing some $40 million this season to prove it.

Newly acquired Jason Williams will be asked to electrify a franchise that fizzled in Vancouver.(Allsport)

The most beautiful city in North America just won't cut it as an NBA city. So it isn't going to have a team anymore.

Just six years into their young existence, the Vancouver Grizzlies, as of Tuesday, officially became the Memphis Grizzlies. Well, wait a minute. How about the Memphis Blues? Or the Memphis Tams? Whatever the case, the team is on the move, and will play in the 19,000-seat Pyramid next season as the locals continue to sort out the future of a new building.

Let's get to the skinny on this and why NBA basketball didn't fly in Vancouver, becoming the first franchise to relocate since the Kings moved from Kansas City to Sacramento in 1985.

First of all, it's a relatively small market -- about the same size as Seattle, if not smaller -- that tried to creep into the Sonics' umbrella across the border. That wasn't going to work. Even in the tiny town of Blaine, Wash. -- a 3-pointer away from the Canadian border and about 100 miles north of Seattle -- you cruise through the local convenience stores and see Sonics garb everywhere.

No Grizzlies in sight.

But there were plenty of Canucks hats, shirts and pennants.

Yes, argue all you want, the basketball populous for a team that struggled to win just couldn't succeed when hockey held all the history. The Grizzlies won all of 101 games in six seasons. They lost 358.

That adds up to winning once every four games or less. No franchise can tolerate that much failure -- even in a lush building like General Motors Place. The closest they ever came to the playoffs was being 140 miles north of Seattle.

Toronto, meanwhile, has experienced far more success in those six seasons for a number of reasons. First of all, the front office has made plenty of moves -- not all good -- that have produced a moderately successful product. The Raptors have a bona fide superstar in Vince Carter and made the playoffs for the second consecutive season, even moving on to the second round. They have won 92 games in the past two seasons ... just nine less than the Grizz have won in six.

The population of the Toronto metro area is more than twice as large as Vancouver, which not only accounts for the better attendance, but for corporate sponsorship that laps what was available in Vancouver. Even though the rate of exchange is positive, the taxes are killers and going through customs grates on the players every time they fly. They all seem eager to leave.

Rather than bore you with all the bad deals the Grizzlies have made to hurt the franchise -- and they apparently just made two more last week by dealing their two best players (Shareef Abdur-Rahim and Mike Bibby) -- let's consider the potential success in Memphis.

Other than Federal Express and AutoZone -- the two big-hitters that coerced Heisley into coming to Memphis instead of Louisville's Colonel Sanders' Attacks -- it will be interesting to see how all of this will play out. Word has it there is a renaissance of sorts going on in downtown Memphis. That's a good thing, as they attempt to remove the mothballs from the Peabody Hotel.

There are plenty of places to hear good blues and the aroma of barbecue pits wafts down every alley.

But will they support the NBA?

There will be a honeymoon period, and that explains why president Dick Versace swapped Bibby to Sacramento for Jason Williams. Williams, if not a dependable starting point guard, is electric with the ball. He is a miniature version of the late Pistol Pete Maravich -- except for his sense of right and wrong and scoring ability. But he's spectacular with his hands on the ball and will be great entertainment as coach Sidney Lowe tries desperately to get his team past the franchise's woeful record of 23 victories in a season.

The other reason the move was approved is because the Grizzlies will be the only game in town. Nashville, which is 210 miles away, has NHL and NFL teams.

Tickets are expensive in the NBA, the most expensive in professional sports, and Memphis doesn't exactly have a population base flowing with money.

As a result, three years from now when he will likely have his team in a new arena, Heisley's club better be good. Otherwise, Heisley will be stuck inside a windmill with the Memphis blues again.