When this season started I professed to the world that I would not be another one of those guys that just harped on every little bad thing that the team did. As it turns out, it’s good that I held onto that idea as long as I did; there are just too many things. However, now that my optimism has turned into skepticism I find it hard not to complain about something.

Michael Jordan needs to fire Paul Silas.

Yes, you’ve heard me complain about the man before, but his abject refusal to even try to win a game has me shocked that he’s still got a job. I can’t stand that he’s having his son coach the team. It’s not his job. Paul needs to be doing whatever he can to lead the team to victory. That doesn’t include getting his son experience as a head coach.

This alone is enough for me to fire him if I ran the team. The fact that he didn’t even try to have the team do something when they were only down by five with 14 seconds left Wednesday night against the T-wolves was just absurd. At the least he should have had the guys foul Minnesota and make sure they earned the win.

I could care less that the man came out of retirement to coach the team or that he’s 68; no one made him take the job. Being tired is no excuse to do a shoddy job down the stretch. It’s no wonder that the team packs it in on occasion. I guess the players think it’s okay to pack it in since the head coach does.

Poor Rick Bonnell.  Did you catch his recap of Wednesday’s latest loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves?  There are no quotes or analysis; it’s more like a set of bullet points:

The Bobcats outscored the Timberwolves 20-9 in Najera’s seven first-half minutes

Najera scored only two points, but he grabbed eight rebounds and play rugged defense.

Henderson scored 11 points in the first half, getting to the foul line six times.

Reserve point guard Walker added nine points, earning four trips to the foul line and making them all.

Not exactly a page-turner.  I can hardly blame him, though.  What are you supposed to do when your team is 7-41 and has the league’s worst FG%?  Oh, and then when you ask Corey Maggette about it, he gives you quotes like this: “We’ve got guys who can score. We just haven’t been making shots.” I’ll tell you what you do: you write recaps that read like police reports of murdered prostitutes.

Or you start supplying hilariously unnecessary definitions, like he did in his recap of the recent 76ers game:

“The Sixers…more than doubled the Bobcats in second-chance points (24 to 11). Second-chance points are all scoring resulting from offensive rebounds.”

I found this one especially amusing because it comes at the bottom of the article, which left me wondering the following:  what person out there would a) care enough about basketball to read this entire recap of one of the worst teams of all time losing another forgettable game, but b) not know what the phrase “second-chance points” means?  Anyway, the point is, we all do what we can to keep from turning into a JetBlue pilot.  So hang in there, Rick, make sure your bunker is secure, and remember to keep your iodine tablets handy for when you run out of potable water.

After the Bobcats lost to Milwaukee on Saturday, Rick Bonnell wrote that it “was the 20th time in a 7-38 season the Bobcats have lost by 20 or more points.”  Well the joke’s on you, Rick: it’s only been 15 games.  How do you like them apples, sucker?  I actually went back and counted to verify it, which is a totally depressing exercise, by the way; it’s like counting your herpes sores.  (Remember that 112-68 loss to the Trail Blazers!?  Holy Jesus.  Holy Buddha.  Holy Zeus.  Holy Mormon Garden of Eden in Jackson County, Missouri.)

Anyway, the fact that we haven’t lost as many games by 20 points as I feared was about the only good news to come out of the Milwaukee game—that and Stephanie Ready’s outfit.  I didn’t know that Burberry had recently merged with Skittles.  I guess this was in support of the latest retro-Cougars outfit night, but she should always do that; even her face was a refreshing burst of fruit flavors.  The rest of the game was not only nightmarish, it was prolonged unnecessarily by Milwaukee coach Scott Skiles’ inexplicable need to take 4 full timeouts, including one when they were ahead by 23 with four minutes to go.  Skiles’ moods range from frothing-at-the-mouth to silently seething, but I would have have thought that even he must have felt something approximating satisfied.

Without an experienced center, the Bobcats’ interior defense has emptied out faster than Charlie Sheen’s medicine cabinet.  Tyrus Thomas and Bismack Biyombo are constantly sliding to help the beaten guards, and neither of them boxes out very well.  And Thomas isn’t good at covering his own man, let alone helping others. The end result is 72 points for the Bucks in the paint (or maybe it was only 65—not sure if I can ever trust you again, Rick), led by Drew Gooden, who continuously swooped down like the Avenging Angel of Offensive Rebounds to smite the Bobcats.  Bobcats color commentator Dell Curry used the phrase “all alone” to describe Milwaukee’s bigs and back-door cutters so often he sounded like he was reading from the Craigslist personals section.

Some may consider this no big deal, but I think it is.

The supposed head coach of the Charlotte Bobcats stepped aside Saturday night and let his son—who does happen to be one of his assistant coaches—and let him coach the team. Apparently it was not the first time he’s done this but the fifth. Two of the other times it was because he was ejected; twice it was by choice.

So since it was not the first time that he willfully gave over control of the team it should not be surprising, but it’s the first I’ve heard of it being done. Had I heard about this before, I would have written this piece then.

Paul Silas is the head coach of the team. It is his job to get the players in shape to win the game every time they step on the court. Yes, he has assistants that will help him in the task, but the job and responsibility is ultimately his.

When I read the news that the Charlotte Bobcats had bought out the contract of Boris Diaw I couldn’t help but think that it was about darn time.

All season long we’ve been reading about a guy that plays hard when he wants to; he slacks off; he’s talented; he can’t focus. Aargh! It was like reading a list of reasons why the really dumb kid in class was smarter than the valedictorian!

What always got me was the way that Paul Silas just seemed to accept it. Now some of you might think ‘what else is he going to do?’ The answer to that is easy—for quality coaches. You either get the best out of someone or you bench his sorry behind. Yes, you do have to sometimes have to temper your style to fit the player, but Diaw was not coach-able.

The guy needed to get cut some time ago. There has been little to cheer about in Charlotte this year, but losing is no excuse for the lack of effort that this guy often exhibited. He wanted to be elsewhere? So what. He didn’t like losing? No one does.

When you’re being handed the gift of all gifts, the chance to play a game and get paid ridiculously well for it, you should be happy to be on any team. You don’t get to pick and choose who you get to play with or where all the time.

I’m not a fan of Paul Silas, but I like the way he handled being asked about Diaw leaving:

“I’m not going to say anything about that. We have to go straight up with who we have and we wish him well.”