CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Hornets owner George Shinn says he's responsible for many problems that caused the team to move to New Orleans and he will support Charlotte's effort to acquire a new NBA team.

"In hindsight a lot of things could have been different," Shinn said earlier this week in an interview with The Charlotte Observer in New Orleans.

"Moving was something I absolutely did not want to do. I never dreamed I'd have to do it, right up to the final day.

"In my heart I didn't want to do it but I knew I had to" because of the Hornets' eroding support in the community and at the turnstiles.

The Hornets announced their move to New Orleans earlier this year, with Shinn and minority partner Ray Wooldridge saying they couldn't afford to keep the team at the Charlotte Coliseum.

Shinn said he would like to see Charlotte land a new team. As a member of the expansion committee that decides whether Charlotte gets a team to play in the 2003-04 season, he will have a hand in that process.

"They deserve another team," Shinn said. "And I'll do everything I can to make that happen."

Negotiations to build an arena full of the luxury seating the team needed might have gone differently had he taken a more active role, rather than having Wooldridge take the lead, he said.

But he said he believed there was no way to avoid relocation once voters rejected a proposal to finance a new arena in a June 2001 referendum. He said he was asked by some city leaders last spring to announce the Hornets would stay in Charlotte but could not because of losses of more than $1 million per month.

Charlotte politicians made a mistake when they put the arena issue to a referendum vote rather than making a decision themselves, Shinn said.

"I think the mistake was, we had political leaders who didn't want to make decisions," Shinn said.

Asked about Shinn's perceptions on holding a referendum, city council member Lynn Wheeler said, "His opinion that we sidestepped our responsibility as elected officials is subject to interpretation."

Shinn said he finally realized the night of the referendum that he would have to move the team.

"To me that was a clear sign that the citizens did not want to put any more money in a new building," he said.

He acknowledged his own mistakes, particularly involving a 1999 nationally televised civil trial in which a woman accused him of sexual assault. Shinn, who won the case but had to reveal embarrassing personal details during the trial, said he accepts responsibility for that.

"I made a mistake," Shinn said. "I'm basically a good person and I'm going to prove to my critics that I'm a good person. I'm going to survive this thing."