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One of the more rude twists of fate in the sports world in recent years happened this week. This oft-proclaimed "Most Beautiful City in North America" rolled out the red carpet to the executives and staffs for the annual NBA meetings within minutes of stunning news hitting the offices of the Vancouver Grizzlies. The team had been sold to Missouri billionaire Bill Laurie, who most assuredly wants to move the team in two years to St. Louis, where he also owns the NHL Blues and the Kiel Center in which they play.

Television talking heads reported it as if it were a death in the family and radio talk shows were filled with mean spirit. There also were three different sections of the weekend edition of the Vancouver Sun with features and columns explaining why it would make no sense for Laurie to keep the team here.

And this comes just four years after NBA commissioner David Stern ignited the globalization of his game into new territory by the unveiling of franchises in Vancouver and Toronto. The rate of exchange is bad enough that billionaire John McCaw is the second man to sell the team (Arthur Griffiths initially launched the franchise) within four years.

"Do you really think I'm going to just give up on that globalization so quickly?" Stern said. "I'm in this and the league's in this for the long haul. I'm not going to go into it, but there's a long way to go here (in Vancouver)."

It still appears more conceptual than realistic, if only because this caught the generally nimble Stern so off-guard. The local media and fans already are beginning to speak about the Grizzlies in past tense. The move to St. Louis appears inevitable.

"We spent all this time supporting a bad team, and now that it looks like we're headed in the right direction, they're going to leave," said NBA fan Bill Jonason, a local salesman who was strolling downtown Saturday.

"There doesn't seem to be a reason to support the team now other than any of us loving basketball. It doesn't make a lot of sense for him to keep the team here since he owns the building in St. Louis and loves the game."

There's more to it than that, and the pathetic 56 wins by the Grizzlies in four seasons. This is a novelty, where even the native NHL Canucks are struggling to make a buck. In St. Louis, sports are a passion. Even when the football Cardinals left for Arizona, the Rams replaced them shortly thereafter. That loss was more the function of greedy owner Bill Bidwill than a lack of support for the Cardinals. The baseball Cardinals and Blues are legion.

Sun Page 3 columnist Pete McMartin wrote with biting sarcasm: "But, oh, an American billionaire buys the Vancouver Grizzlies -- a perennially underperforming team of other American multimillionaires -- and the city, going by the news coverage, faces a crisis of confidence." He went on about the American billionaire was about to "take his new bought toy and go home," and "The players and coach? Americans. Probably doing cartwheels at the thought of being repatriated."

Of course, those are the words of a guy who is paid to have an edge, although no doubt that cynicism is intrinsic. He isn't reflective of the new fan that understands what it's like to have a big-time sport on which to hang a hat. You don't have to be a season ticket-holder to love a team.

There are still those who build their evenings around watching the game on television, or functioning normally with the game as background either on television or radio.

Stern wants to be fair, and Vancouver is part of the big picture. The last time this happened in the NBA was in 1983. Back when the young and wealthy were millionaires instead of billionaires, Gregg Lukenbill was torn between purchasing the Indiana Pacers or the Kansas City Kings, both franchises in financial ruin. When mall magnates Mel and Herb Simon saved the Pacers for Indianapolis, Lukenbill bought the Kings. Like Vancouver, they had two years to prove they were capable of keeping the Kings through attendance and promotion. If Kansas City did the trick, they would keep the Kings and the NBA agreed to give Lukenbill an expansion team for Sacramento. Of course, Kansas City failed to support the Kings, and in 1985 they moved to Sacramento.

Most assuredly, Stern and the NBA Board of Governors would like to have Laurie (husband of Wal-Mart heiress Nancy Walton) in the NBA family. The Grizzlies have drawn well and the NBA is in superb financial shape now, capable of taking care of shortfalls caused by the rate of exchange and less lucrative television/radio packages in Canada. Remember that Toronto has already gone through a second sale as well in a far bigger market than Vancouver.

Would Stern consider expanding to St. Louis to make it the 30th NBA franchise?

"Times are a lot different than they were (in 1983)," he said. "I don't know about that."

That remains a viable alternative provided the locals in Vancouver hang in there for the next couple of years and still support their local Shareef (Abdur-Rahim). Then again, it might not matter, legally. Sources say Laurie, who lives in nearby Columbia, Mo., already has agreed to pay McCaw $165 million and will pay him another $45 million once he gets the OK to move the team to St. Louis.

Bill Laurie's move of the Grizzlies from Vancouver to St. Louis seems inevitable.(AP)

This is not the same scenario as when the NBA Board of Governors rejected the sale of the Timberwolves to a group headed by boxing promoter Bob Arum in 1994. They didn't like New Orleans, which isn't a great sports town, and they loathed the thought of Arum in their fraternity.

To be sure, expansion is diluting talent in all professional sports, and baseball is even considering disbanding some struggling franchises to enhance the talent pool with less teams. So adding another team in St. Louis doesn't seem like such a hot idea to Stern. That much was obvious by his mode of conversation.

On the other hand, he is fiercely committed to the NBA in Canada, and the success of the NBA has been concurrent with Stern's iron-fist (albeit sugarcoated) reign.

"How can they not approve Laurie?" said one anonymous member of the board. "He would have bought the Nuggets but got outbid. He's a good guy with tons of money and he loves basketball. They either have to let him move the team or give him an expansion team."

Thus the somber notions of Vancouver. Even the NHL Canucks are struggling to make a buck, although McCaw has promised to keep them around.

Still, Vancouver has nearly 600,000 less people in its metropolitan area than St. Louis, and far fewer inherent basketball fans that increases the disparity. The Hawks were successful in a different era before moving to Atlanta, and the Spirits were one of the better franchises in the ABA. An expansion team is a bad idea because the NBA game has lost its luster over the past five years, regardless of the impending rule changes. And be mindful of columnist Pete McMartin's words:

"The perception (is) that a big-league team like the Grizzlies somehow reflects on Vancover as a 'Big League City.' That is, we don't love basketball; we love the imagined prestige bestowed upon us by the big boys of the NBA.

"But we aren't a Big League City."

And as he concluded, "Why would we envy St. Louis?"

So as we head out of this spectacular city, dodging sour grapes, the natives have time to sell the NBA and/or Laurie on its passion for the game. Otherwise, the next 24 months will be nothing more than a self-fulfilling prophecy.