The Charlotte Observer reported today thaCharlotte Bobcats majority owner Bob Johnson has blocked the attempts of minority owner Felix Sabtas to donate his shares of the team to charity.

 

 

 

Snippet from the Observer 

Charlotte Bobcats managing partner Bob Johnson has blocked minority owner Felix Sabates' effort to contribute his share of the team to charity.

Sabates wants to give his Bobcats stock, which he values at about $1.34 million, to the foundation that supports Carolinas HealthCare System. Sabates sits on the board of that system.

"I was surprised Bob wouldn't approve this, considering it's a donation," Sabates told the Observer in an interview Friday.

Link to full article  

I'm all for making sound business decisions and doing whats best for the future of your company,  but in this case the benefits of the positive press that he and the Bobcats would receive (which is badly needed) would outweigh any negatives of allowing this charitable donation.

{moscomment} 

Heading into Friday night’s game against the Jazz, I had three critical questions:

1. How would the Bobcats respond to the Wednesday night Knick-ocaust?
2. What’s worse, being unable to sell your arena’s naming rights like the Bobcats, OR selling them to a toxic waste disposal firm, as the Utah did with their newly-christened “EnergySolutions Arena”?
3. Is Jazz forward Mehmet Okur’s first name pronounced “meh-MAY” or “meh-MO”?

We all know the answer to the first question; the Bobcats dominated the Jazz in nearly every facet of the game. I’m not a gambling man, but I’m willing to bet the Bobcats covered the spread on this one. Seriously, even though I’m elated with the outcome, a part of me is afraid that the NBA is suddenly becoming completely unpredictable. Think about it: the Heat are (is? I hate non-pluralized team names) awful, the Clippers are terrible, and the Nets are dreadful. Meanwhile, the Lakers, Trail Blazers, and Raptors are suddenly highly respectable. Yes sir, the NBA: it’s the new NFL.

As for the second, the jury is still out. We probably won’t know the answer until the Bobcats actually do sell the arena’s naming rights. If the highest bidder ends up being something normal, and “Charlotte Bobcats Arena” becomes, say, “IBM Arena,” then it’s always better to sell the naming rights. But if it ends up being called “Paco’s Bail Bond Arena,” then I’d prefer we keep it sponsor-free.

As for #3, I STILL don’t know how you pronounce that Turk’s name, which is even more incredible considering I watched this game on FSN Utah (not that I had a choice, thanks once again to News14's 1-outta-3-games-ain't-bad telecast policy). As it turns out, even Okur’s own announcing team can’t seem to agree on the pronunciation. The only sure thing is that Okur gets my vote for “NBA Player Who Most Looks Like He Just Rolled Out of Bed.” Memphis’s Pau Gasol and Toronto’s Jorge Garbajosa keep it close, but Okur gets the edge because on top of being slovenly, he also looks stoned. In fact it’s easy to picture him on off-days lying around on a vomit-stained frat couch, eating a box of Frosted Flakes, milk dribbling into his goatee.

Anyway, I don’t want to detract any further from this upset, because this is a great Jazz team we just beat. And they’re huge too—they’re average size has got to be 6’8”. Even their guards are "guard"-gantuan; if star PG Deron Williams played for us, Coach Bickerstaff would probably be rotating him in at power forward. Up and down, the roster is solid. Besides Okur, Carlos Boozer is having a great year (interestingly, he was booed so lustily by the Charlotte crowd, you’d have thought it was us he’d stabbed in the back a few years ago rather than Cleveland). They’ve also got stat-machine Andrei Kirilenko (fun fact: thanks to the good folks at FSN Utah, we learned that AK currently has the longest shot-blocking streak in history going: 28 games. Is it me or does that seem low? I would have thought that Wilt Chamberlain would have had a block in, like, 200 straight games.) Derek Fisher’s a cagey veteran, Harpring and Giricek are solid off the bench…Plus they have phenom Paul Millsap, who is so highly-touted that for the past three weeks it seems like ESPN.com analyst John Hollinger can’t go to sleep at night without writing at least two articles on what a travesty it was that Adam Morrison got the November Rookie of the Month award over Millsap. Hollinger’s been so outraged by this decision, by the way, that after he got done showing how much better Millsap is than Morrison in every statistical category, he began making up his own statistical categories and had Millsap dominating those as well.

So even though we led by an astonishing 20 points at the half, there was no reason to be particularly optimistic—especially after Wednesday. I was treating this very much the way my buddy, a die-hard New Jersey Devils fan, did in junior high school when he actually dated the Devil’s coach’s daughter (who also happened to be totally hot): it was unbelievably awesome but couldn’t possibly be expected to last long, so just try to enjoy it while you can.

And sure enough, in the third quarter the wheels started to fall off. Emeka Okafor got into foul trouble, and a groin was pulled—guess who’s? Yep, Brevin Knight is out again after “aggravating” his groin; he and his groin are like an old married couple at this point. “Bad Boy” Primoz Brezec also fouled out again for the second straight game (although not before getting 14 points and 11 rebounds—I’m kinda digging this new high-foul/high-scoring version of PB). But Jake Voskuhl of all people stepped up with 8 big points (at one point he scored 6 straight for us, which had me thinking it would have been cool if FSN had put up a “Voskuhl on 6-2 Run” graphic). The announcers were psyched that the quarter ended with the Jazz only trailing by 14, but I was frankly surprised that they weren’t ahead.

The fourth quarter was about one man: Matt Carroll, Jedi-Knight. On this night, the force was with young Carroll, whose perpetual sweatiness causes him to resemble Luke Skywalker on Dagobah. After the Jazz cut the lead down to 5 and all seemed lost, Carroll bailed us all out in one spectacular play: he hit a three pointer, drew the foul (and later made the free-throw), AND knocked out Kirilenko’s tooth. It was a four-point play at a time when we couldn’t buy a basket. It was the equivalent of Skywalker’s triple-flip off Jabba-the-Hut’s plank to save the day in Return of the Jedi. I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen anything like that before. The only down side of it was we had to watch the ref pick up AK’s tooth off the floor and bring it to the scorer’s table—gross! And the ref did it with his bare hands and was all casual about it too; it reminded me of Reservoir Dogs when Blonde cuts off the cop’s ear—the only thing the ref didn’t do was jokingly talk to the thing.

Anyway, Okafor looked great (21 points, 10 rebounds), Gerald Wallace had 12 points, 7 rebounds, 5 steals, and 1 block (and a partridge in a pear tree), and Raymond Felton (18 points, 12 assists, 3 steals, and even 5 rebounds) is fully in command of this team. We’ve now taken out the Cavs, Spurs, Jazz, Pistons, and Nets. Just keep us away from those Grizzlies and Knicks…

{moscomment} 

There’s losing, and then there’s losing to the Knicks in double-overtime. I think some of the images from this game will scar my memory for life: Stephon Marbury, fresh off a 53-minute, 10-point, 9-assist performance, celebrating wildly as if his team had just won Game 7; Matt Carroll standing in blank, horrified shock, looking like Carrie without the pig’s blood; Isaiah Thomas, eerily rocking in his chair throughout the whole game, smiling slightly, looking for all the world like a man strapped with dynamite and preparing to blow up a bank. Yes, it was a spooky, haunted affair. Even the impromptu standing ovation for Michael Jordan—in Madison Square Garden, mind you—was creepy.

Mostly though, this was just a badly played game between two teams who were undermanned (and who aren’t very good even when they are at full-strength). No Sean May (who is out until next week at the earliest) and no Brevin Knight AGAIN (question: is it possible to hate a man for his groin?) for the Bobcats. And the Knicks, as you may have heard, were without a number of players due to suspension. They also didn’t have Jerome James. By the way, everyone who follows the League seems to be questioning why Coach Thomas wasn’t given a suspension for his threats to Carmelo Anthony. My answer to that one—and I’m honestly surprised this hasn’t occurred to more people—is that Commissioner Stern thought it would be an even greater punishment for the Knicks if he allowed Thomas to continue coaching.

One more thought on the Brawl: Knicks PG/budding Civil Rights Activist Steve Francis cites racism as the reason why the Nuggets-Knicks fight got disproportionate media coverage. Believe me, except for maybe Larry Brown and Jeff Van Gundy, few people are less interested in Stevie Franchise’s thoughts than me. But I also know this:

1) The fight was front page news on USA Today—not front sports page news, front page news.
2) NBC Nightly News had a full segment on it, complete with Brian Williams’s patented earnest introduction, delivered as solemnly as when he sets up a piece on the Middle East.
3) WallStreetJournal.com felt compelled to cover it on their daily podcast, although it's probably safe to guess that its effect on the Dow Jones Industrial Average was minimal, at best.
4) ESPN’s Mike and Mike in the Morning covered it extensively, and they almost never stray from baseball or football (and, technically, even their football coverage is 99% limited to the subject of “quarterbacks”). In fact, this was the first time I could remember them talking about basketball since the "Dress Code-gate" last year.

Keep in mind that #’s 2 and 3 on that list haven’t mentioned sports at all in the year+ I’ve listened to them, despite the TO/Ozzie Guillen/Manny Ramirez/Albert Haynesworth/Jeremy Stevens knee-to-the-groin insanities, the Janet Gretzky gambling pool, the steroid scandals, etc, etc., etc. So what exactly is going on here? I never thought I’d write these words, but Francis, I think you’ve got a valid point.

Anyway, Nets-Suns this wasn’t. Witness this sequence of possessions in the first OT:

1. A Bobcats 24-second violation (resulting in a turnover)
2. A Knicks 3-second violation (resulting in a turnover)
3. A Bobcats missed shot, a Knicks defensive rebound-and-bad-pass-out-of-bounds (resulting in a turnover)
4. A Bobcats offensive foul (resulting in a…you get the idea) Yeesh, this was like a crazy duel where the rules call for each combatant to take turns shooting himself in the foot, and whoever dies first loses.

But what most maddening of all were the blown leads. We had a 19-point lead in the first half that actually had me thinking to myself, “Uh-oh, Coach Bickerstaff better not to forget to pull his starters with less than five minutes to go.” TV commentator Matt Devlin, clearly giddy to be back in the saddle after missing two games, was tossing out some stellar hyperbole. “When he gets off to a hot start,” said Devlin, after an early Primoz Brezec FG, “watch out!” Devlin later speculated, “I don’t know if there’s a center out there who can shoot with the likes of Brezec.” This was pretty funny, considering PB’s career high is 26 points, and it happened two seasons ago. Incidentally, Brezec had one of the best worst games ever: 21 points, but he fouled out and was entirely incapable of guarding Eddy Curry.

Ahhh, Curry. I actually spent much of the first quarter making up a list of “Fat Guy”-jokes about him (e.g., “this could be the game where color commentator Stephanie Ready sets the unofficial record for number of times saying the phrase, ‘wide body’”). Then I spent about half of the second quarter debating the moral/ethical implications of using them, because I forgot that Curry’s body type might be attributable to his heart condition (thus it wouldn’t be cool to joke about his appearance). Then towards the end I scratched them all out anyway, because, let’s face it, Curry absolutely KILLED us.* 29 points and 9 rebounds—the man was unstoppable (and if he had just made a few more free throws–7-12 from the line–he could have spared us all about 45 minutes of OT). Curry + Channing Frye (30 points, 6 rebounds, 2 blocks) + Jamal Crawford (four 3-pointers, apparently he's a rare sufferer of the peculiar disorder in which the patient is only able to score when the distance is twenty feet or greater) = Bernie Bickerstaff head-slapping himself enough to raise welts (Tom Coughlin, I hope you were watching—THAT’s how you look properly pissed; poor Bernie put on a clinic tonight).

It’s all right. There’s no shame in it. If we think we feel bad, imagine how the Jazz felt. And now we get to play them next. As Corky taught us all in the moderately successful 1989-1993 family drama: life goes on.

*It wasn’t a total wasted effort, though—I’ll just have to save them until our next game against Jerome James

{moscomment}

Time for Round 3 of this year’s Boston-Charlotte Trilogy, and although it hasn’t exactly been Ali-Frazier, it’s hasn’t been Holyfield-Ruiz either. Once again no News14 coverage (although if you looked close during the last two games, you could actually see poor Matt Devlin sitting sadly in his announcer’s chair anyway, looking pitiful without his headphones—he’s like an angel stripped of his wings), so we have to go with Boston’s FSN “commentators,” and I use the term loosely.

Mike Gorman and Tommy Heinsohn get my early vote for worst announcers in the league. These guys announce like Brian Scalabrine plays. Had I not known that one of them was a former Hall of Fame player, I would have had difficultly distinguishing who was play-by-play and who did the color. They were both clueless, the kind of commentators who never have any idea what happened when a whistle blows, wait for the arena announcer to tell the crowd (“Foul on # 3, Gerald Wallace, his second”), then insultingly repeat it to TV viewers (“That one was on Gerald Wallace, #3 for the Bobcats, and that’ll be his second one of the game.”), as if we can’t hear the arena announcer for ourselves. I know I’m treading on shaky ground here, because Heinsohn is a Boston legend, but I have no idea how Boston viewers can stand him. Other than offering key analytical points like “Wow!” and “Yes!” after Celtic field goals, his four primary functions last night were:

1) Accusing the Bobcats of fouls while they were on defense
2) Accusing the Bobcats of traveling while they were on offense
3) Giving out “Tommy Points” (in which a cheap little “Tommy” cartoon pops up on the screen, reminiscent of Whammies on the old game show Press Your Luck) at arbitrary moments when he saw hustle from the Celtics (to give you an idea of their worth, I think Scalabrine got two)
4) Complaining of having his view blocked. He literally did this about six times, which is really not something you want to hear from someone who is supposedly getting paid to watch the game—did he not have a monitor??

I’m sure I’m just a bitter jerk who’s pissed his team lost, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Celtics fans actually loved Tommy. They probably keep him around the way Yankees fans used to tolerate Phil Rizzuto. But at least Phil was amusing; he told stories, and he never talked bad about the other team. Heinsohn just hurls accusations and sounds senile. He baselessly accused Wallace of sticking his leg out under Celtics shooters “a la World B. Free” which was ridiculous for two reasons: 1) after what he’s gone through, no one is more reticent of not harming others nowadays than Wallace; and 2) if Heinsohn wants to make “ankle-turning goon” comparisons, someone should tell him that the more updated culprit (by nearly thirty years) is Bruce Bowen.

As for the game, the injury bad news was plentiful for both sides. The Celtics were without Ryan Gomes, and I think the only one more upset about this than Boston fans was me, because this meant extended playing time for the atrocious Scalabrine. I can’t emphasize enough how much I hate watching him play; I find not just his skills but his entire appearance to be a desecration of the game. He makes me feel the way I imagine the President feels when he watches footage of someone burning the flag. The Bobcats, meanwhile, had no Brevin Knight, and when Raymond Felton picked up two quick fouls, Derek Anderson of all people took the point.

Which brings us to…this will be hard to even type…Sean May, who sprained his ankle early in the second period and didn’t return. Of course he was in the midst of scoring eight points in ten minutes, spurring us on a 13-2 run. And of course as soon as he left, we blew a 9-point lead. After several screams of helpless horror, I had two thoughts: 1) why oh WHY couldn’t his injury have happened against a team like Phoenix, rather than against one of the few teams we actually have a chance of beating; 2) I was willing to trade BK and May to Philly for Iverson right now, on the condition that AI be ready to come in at the start of the third quarter. *

To their credit, the Cats rallied and were in it until the end. Okafor had 19 rebounds and 8 blocked shots. He missed some key put-backs but still finished with 12 points. Wallace was a force of nature: 31 points, 6 rebounds, 3 blocked shots, and a steal. Felton slashed for 16 points and 6 assists. The problem, as usual, was Paul Pierce, who started 7-for-7 from the field (Heinsohn on Pierce: “Wow!”), finished with 35 points and 11 rebounds, and took over in the end, as expected. Meanwhile Tony Allen and Al Jefferson (both of whom Heinsohn frequently referred to as “Al”) have suddenly become potent offensively. Jefferson had 22 points and 10 rebounds (Heinsohn on Jefferson: “Look at Al!”), and the explosive Allen had 11 points, 7 rebounds, and 2 steals (Heinsohn on Allen: “Look at Al!”).

As a final insult, the game effectively ended with the Bobcats blowing a 3-on-1 breakaway late. The “1” was Scalabrine. It was that kind of night…

*FYI: This did not happen, and now that I've had a moment to step back, I've since retracted that thought.

{moscomment} 

I’d like to begin this recap with an important public announcement, and I can only hope I’m not too late with this one; this could save lives.  Here it is: Whatever you do, stay as far away as possible from the podcast interview between ESPN.com’s Chad Ford and NJ Nets President Rod Thorn.  It is possibly the most excruciating few minutes I can ever remember—it makes Roseanne Barr’s singing of the national anthem sound like the Gettysburg Address.  I kept expecting one of Thorn’s endlessly long-winded, rambling, non-answers to suddenly get interrupted by the sound of Ford stabbing himself.  I’m sure Thorn is a nice guy, and he sounds smart, but without getting into details, you could seriously play this interview to beat a confession out of a POW.
 
Other ESPN.com developments: David Thorpe has released an in-depth scouting report on Adam Morrison.  The most important thing to take away from Thorpe’s analysis is the final 5 words: “I think he will succeed.”  Here’s the crazy thing, though: preceding those 5 words is a staggering 2,750 other words!  Talk about comprehensive, this thing is longer than the Iraq Study Group report.  Before realizing how long it was, I attempted to print it out and actually ran out of ink.  Thorpe’s sweeping epic is broken down into four parts: “Offense With the Ball,” “Offense Without the Ball,” “Defense” (not surprisingly the shortest part), and “Outlook.”  It’s too bad I don’t know any big Morrison fans, because I would have printed this thing out on nice paper and made a Christmas gift out of it.
 
Enough about that, onto the game!  And no, it’s not a mistake, it actually was on TNT.  All day long I kept waiting for TNT to announce that their televising of this game was either some sort of typo that had slipped through the cracks, or it was a practical joke played by Charles Barkley on Kenny, Ernie, and the gang.  I was a little concerned for the Cats, because I think the only guy on the team who has played professionally in front of a national audience is Primoz, and even for him the “national” is referring to his native Slovenia.  Heck, I became nervous for myself; I realized I better be accurate with what I report, because for the first time there’s a chance that someone actually watched this one.
 
So we had that working against us, but here’s what we had going for us: three Magic starters (Jameer Nelson, Grant Hill, Hedo Turkoglu) out of action with injuries.  As a result, except for Dwight Howard, the poor Magic were forced to play with a Bad News Bears-caliber lineup.  At PG was Pistons castoff Carlos Arroyo, who actually has nice moves and a decent outside shot but cannot pass to save himself, which is kind of important if you’re playing the 1.  Some of Arroyo’s passes were downright safety hazards the way they went flying into the crowd.  After about the fifth one of Arroyo’s ballistic slingshots went whipping dangerously into the audience, I became worried that Commissioner Stern, in attendance, will probably now consider putting up hockey-style plexiglass walls to protect the fans.  Also starting was Tony Battie, who is so well-traveled that I imagine every year at family reunions at least one of his relatives asks, “So who you playing for these days?”  Finally, Travis Diener got extensive burn, and he played extremely hard, but he’s about as terrifying a force as Luke Ridenour.  He’s so tiny he makes Earl Boykins look like Hakeem Olajuwon.  Interesting who didn’t get a lot of PT was Darco Milicic, with just 26 minutes despite the depleted lineup—has he already lost the respect of Coach Brian Hill?   
 
Faced with this rag-tag group of misfits, the Cats cruised to a pretty easy victory.  We were a little stiff at first, but Sean May came in off the bench with about 5 minutes left in the first quarter and immediately took over.  He scored 13 of the team’s next 25 points and had a career night.  When he wasn’t scoring field goals he was getting fouls (and making them—14/17 from the line).  The big guy finished with 32 points, 6 rebounds, a block, and a steal, and the Magic really didn’t have any answer for him.  Gerald Wallace also looked a little more like his old self (6 steals).
 
Beating this depleted Magic team is not exactly the upset of the year, but after four straight losses (not to mention three straight for the Panthers), beggars can’t be choosers.  Heck, I’d have settled for a 1-point, triple-OT exhibition victory over the Charlotte Sting at this point.  Oh, and Morrison did pretty well to boot (22 points and 6 rebounds).  I’d like to see it expanded and fleshed out a little bit more, but Thorpe may be onto something with that little memo of his…

{moscomment}