When/(Is) His Airness going to do Something?
If there is one thing that the sporting world knows it is that Michael Jordan is one ultra-competitive individual. He proved that time and time again during his days with the Bulls, in college with the Tar Heels, and heck, even with the Chicago White Sox minor league team he played for.
We know this man wants to win, so why isn’t he doing anything to improve the worst team in the NBA—his team, the Charlotte Bobcats?
Yes, he has gone into the locker room and given the guys a piece of his mind, something that had to hold weight with this young team since most of these guys probably grew up idolizing Michael Jordan. Other than that, has he even showed any emotion in regards to all the losing? Not that I’ve seen.
Being a competitive guy with his own money on the line, one would think that he would be making an effort to improve the team now rather than wait and see who he gets in the next draft. Other than the rumored possible trade with the Washington Wizards, Tyrus Thomas for Andre Blatche, there is no help for the Bobcats on the way.
Number Crunching
Hello Bobcats fans. Shortly after the loss to the Boston Celtics last night, I got to thinking. We have had some bad seasons in our short history, but this one is pretty bad. Our first season (2004-05) ended with an 18-64 record. This year, we’re on pace for 9.84 wins. That’s right folks, we’re on pace to win half as many games as a team that featured the immortal names Primoz Brezec, Jason Hart, and Melvin Ely.
What’s more is the Cats are currently mired in a twelve game losing streak. One more and we tie the franchise mark set in the 05-06 season. Even worse, our average point differential thus far this season is -13.6. The Bobcats are the only team in the last decade to have a negative point differential in the double digits. I think it’s safe to say that we are in full-on tank mode (or maybe we’re just that bad).
Wait a second though; there is a silver lining right? With the worst record comes the highest chance of landing the first overall pick in the strong 2012 draft. Well, not so fast. Some draft lottery history must be understood before we get too comfortable with ourselves. The lottery has been in effect (in some form) since 1985. In the 27 total draft lotteries, the team with the worst record has won the first overall pick a total of… four times. By comparison, the team with the third worst record has won the most times (6) and the team with the fifth worst record has won it five times.
The 2011-12 Charlotte Bobcats: Not the 2011-12 Phoenix Suns!
Wow, I finally feel like I’ve found a team more hopeless than the Bobcats. Though the Phoenix Suns prevailed on Saturday night, 95-89, the game was close until about midway through the 4th quarter. Moreover, the Suns are an old team who could make up their own “What Ever Happened To?” trivia category (with the answers being Grant Hill, Michael Redd, Sebastian Telfair, Josh Childress, and Hakim Warrick). And in a situation that eerily parallels Phoenix’s housing crisis, the Suns are saddled with terrible contracts and busted prospects. They are also lorded over by Robert Sarver, a hated owner who overpaid for them in the first place and is compensating for it by running them on the cheap (Sarver’s actually managed the impressive feat of being hated more for his association with the Suns than with Western Alliance Bancorporation). Add it all up (or maybe, “subtract it all up”), and I’m honestly happier to be a Charlotte fan, which is something I never thought I would say this season.
Not that this revelation made it any easier to sit through this game. The AP recap focused on the 9-point spark provided by Robin Lopez in the 4th quarter, but to me the real difference-maker was a tactical decision by the Bobcats to constantly double-team Steve Nash and Telfair. For some reason, coach Paul Silas was obsessed with doing this at every chance. Clearly Silas gave these orders to Bismack Biyombo before letting him out of his cage, because Biyombo would be up on Nash/Telfair almost immediately after they crossed half-court, and doing so with the type of energy and passion that he usually reserves for committing personal fouls. This made absolutely no sense to me, because Nash and Telfair are among the few guards who are actually slow and small enough for Kemba Walker to cover. And Nash, being Nash, was smart enough to recognize the double-team and dump the ball off to a now wide open Marcin Gortat or a now wide open Redd; it’s similar to what happens when defenses constantly blitz Tom Brady. Thus, the only reason this game wasn’t more of a blowout was because Gortat went just 5-for-11 (way too many misses, considering all of his shots were in the paint), and the Suns missed 12 wide-open three’s. Indeed, I’m surprised Redd waited so long after his injuries to sign with the Suns; technically he could have played his role while still on crutches; all he had to do was park in a corner and wait.
When Will the Pain End for the Charlotte Bobcats and Their Fan(s)?
My goal is to always remain optimistic without being completely unrealistic when I write my posts, but I have to say that the Charlotte Bobcats are making it awful hard to do that these days.
The scene from White Men Can’t Jump where Wesley Snipes is getting hustled by Woody Harrelson keeps coming to mind when I think of this team. I picture Wesley in a Bobcats uniform with his hand in the air going, “It’s pretty! It’s so pretty!”
Then Rosie Perez stands up and yells out (in her best Puerto Rican accent), “Oh no it ain’t! Go pay your taxes!”
For those of you that do watch the Bobcats I am sure I don’t need to tell you how bad things have been. I think the game Wednesday night against the Portland Trailblazers should be treated like Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter series; it will be “the game that will not be named.”
We knew that this season would be a tough one, but this is starting to hurt to watch; 3-20 and in the midst of an 11 game losing streak following Saturday’s game with the Phoenix Suns. When will the pain end? When will these guys win another game?
Before we figure out the best chance for that let’s take a look at what these guys are capable of and how they stack up to the rest of the league:
Going Off The Rails
The Bobcats are two games into the worst road trip out west since The Shining. And just as it did with Jack Torrance, dementia is starting to spread in and around the team. Midway through the second quarter against the Lakers, with the Bobcats clinging to a semi-respectable 16-point deficit, color analyst Dell Curry speculated, “If the Bobcats can just keep Bryant, Bynum, and Gasol in check, and close out on the perimeter shooters, they could make this interesting.” Whatever you say, Wardell! It was a little like listening to Newt Gingrich describe his plans for colonizing the Moon. Curry might as well have been encouraging a guy in a wheelchair to just jump a little higher. Of course, the Bobcats did none of the above and lost by 33 in a game that should have been hauled off in a straitjacket.
Then in the following night’s contest, a 44-point castration at the hands of Portland, Coach Paul Silas issued this completely deranged analogy, spectacular in its inaptness: “If I had a full squad and we were losing this way, it would be awful. But you take (LaMarcus) Aldridge and (Gerald) Wallace off their team and see what kind of team you’d have.” Then his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he began growling “Redrum” over and over. First of all, I love how he considers the worst loss in team history to not be awful. Second, Silas was presumably attempting to compare DJ Augustin and Corey Maggette to Aldridge and (Saint) Wallace, which is so funny by itself that I can’t even add anything, so instead I’ll just end this sentence by linking to one of my favorite t-shirts.
Dumpster Grease Tire Fire Train Wreck Plane Crash
Like a recurring nightmare, the Bobcats and Wizards played again on Saturday night. My first impression was astonishment at what a large, lively crowd was on hand in Charlotte. Who were all of these self-flagellators, and is there a Guinness Book of World Records category for “Most Masochists in a Single Room”? At least they were semi-rewarded with Kemba Walker’s first triple-double, Boris Diaw’s biweekly check-in from the planet Neptune, and an outcome that was a clear improvement on the four prior games. But it was still a loss, and one that makes the Bobcats officially the worst team in the league.
Besides the obvious culprits—three disastrous possessions in the last minute of play and 12 missed free throws—I want to draw your attention to a particularly vomitous sequence late in the second quarter. The Wizards were up by 3 with Jan Vesely on the line. Vesely misses the free throw, but the Wizards get the offensive board and score. Then John Wall steals it from Diaw, leading to a Wizards dunk. Then Tyrus Thomas attempts a pass to a lucky fan sitting courtside, and it’s Wizards ball and they score. Then Diaw, as if annoyed at being shown up by Thomas, throws a pinpoint pass directly to Vesely—Jake Delhomme couldn’t have done it better himself. The Wizards didn’t score on this one, because they managed a dreadful pass of their own that was stolen by Walker, who—wait for it—makes his own terrible pass back to Vesely. But wait, Vesely gives it to Nick Young, who promptly passes it right out of bounds (I swear I’m not making this up). Thomas then simply misses an 18-footer (which at this point actually counts as progress), leading to a Wall travel, leading finally to a…Walker turnover. The two teams combined for 8 turnovers in 84 seconds, 4 in a row by the Bobcats. What had been a 1-point Wizards lead was now a 9-point lead in less than two minutes. What had been the Time Warner Cable Arena should now be called the Jonestown Arena.
