It's called "The List", and it has members of the Charlotte Hornets' front office on edge these days.

It also brings into focus another dark side of the Hornets' proposed move to New Orleans at the end of this season.

According to sources inside and outside the organization, co-owners George Shinn and Ray Wooldridge recently drew up separate lists of employees they plan to take with them to New Orleans if the NBA approves the move.

The thinking, apparently, was this: Anyone on both lists would be guaranteed a job in New Orleans, and those on neither list would be out of a job once operations cease in Charlotte.

What happened, though, is that some of the names on Shinn's list, including some longtime loyal high-ranking officials, were not on Wooldridge's list. And some of the names on Wooldridge's list weren't on Shinn's.

So employees from every department, from advertising to accounting to media relations to the ticket office, wonder if they'll be going to New Orleans or if they'll be out of a job come summertime.

And for those who were on one list but not the other, they stand to lose even if they win, because even if they are taken to New Orleans they will know that one of their bosses wanted to dump them.

Shinn and Wooldridge don't show their faces in Charlotte anymore and could not be reached for comment about The List. But even on the off-chance that all the sources are wrong and The List is pure fiction, it magnifies how much concern there is inside the organization about job security.

This is a curious, delicate situation for many reasons.

There are about 100 employees in the organization, between basketball and business operations. Players, coaches, scouts and the like come and go through a revolving door, but many of the front-office employees have been around since the early days of the franchise. Some, in fact, have been around since the start in 1987.

Indications are that almost everyone on the basketball operations side is safe, no matter what happens. That's to be expected, because most of them - coaches, players, scouts - are under contract, and the ones who aren't - trainers, video coordinators, equipment personnel - provide useful and necessary skills and would provide continuity during the transition.

It's far different with the office workers, however, and one executive recently estimated that as many as 50 percent of that work force will not be taken to New Orleans.

Some of that's understandable. There's obviously a need to hire advertising salesmen, for example, in New Orleans who already have connections there and understand the lay of the land. And that puts the ad salesmen in Charlotte at risk. The same is true for the marketing staff, to a lesser degree.

One of the reasons Shinn gave for not selling 50 percent of the franchise to Michael Jordan a few years back was that he insisted on being loyal to his employees. Shinn implied that Jordan would have wanted to clean house in the front office and bring in his own people, and Shinn would have no part of it.

Is Shinn ready to do an about-face and abandon those same loyal employees? These are employees who have stuck with Shinn through thick and thin, who have put up with all the abuse directed at Shinn and the franchise throughout the community.

And who will win the power struggle between Shinn and Wooldridge when The List is completed? Shinn owns 65 percent of the team and would seem to have the final say in who goes and who doesn't, yet so far he has deferred to Wooldridge on the moving issue.

Wooldridge has already hired a business operations executive to set up shop and get the ball rolling in New Orleans, and sources say he favors a massive overhaul in several departments. In fact, sources say, Wooldridge is in favor of getting rid of most of the franchise's 11 vice presidents and going on from there.

So Shinn and Wooldridge will continue to get the opportunity to show their true colors as this situation plays out.

The one comforting thought in all of this is that the good people in the organization should come out of this all right, one way or another. Bad things happen to good people sometimes in life, and some good employees are going to be innocent victims if the Hornets move and they're fired - but one must believe that those people will go on to bigger and better things.

On the other hand, some of the people who have perpetrated Shinn and Wooldridge's lies and cozied up to their bosses at the expense of their personal integrity, well, they could be about to be victimized by the same back-stabbing they've delivered so many times themselves.

The one thing Shinn and Wooldridge are forgetting is that The List has at least one fatal flaw.

No matter who they take and who they leave, there will always be two names on it that ensure failure: Shinn and Wooldridge.

They can move the franchise. They can clean house. But wherever they go, that problem goes with them.