Big McLargehuge
Fragile Traveler
The NBA in its formative years never considered Pittsburgh and were content to have a team in Syracuse.
Today it is a Steelers town by a considerable margin and the Pens and Pirates are a distant #2 or #3.
The Pens are most certainly not a distant #2, at least not among the under 50 crowd.
Basketball would fail in Pittsburgh, though, at least for now. I'm softening on my 'this is the worst idea ever' stance I've had forever, but it's still a horrible idea. Pittsburgh isn't big enough to support four teams, nor do I think there is any real desire for a NBA team...at least among the over 20 crowd.
The way people talk about hockey not existing in parts of America - that was basketball in Pittsburgh in the 80s & 90s. It's grown since then, but it's not hard to grow from nothing. Basketball in Pittsburgh is like hockey in Indianapolis...it exists and there's probably more support than most people think, but it's still gotta be around the 10th most appealing option as a new market.