"What the hell man? Can't have the worst win % and come back?"

I thought it was strange, early in the year, when there was a meeting that apparently absolved Paul Silas and his coaching staff of all responsibility of the misery heaped upon the franchise through epic losses.  I thought Silas might see the Bobcats through whatever was coming after this horrible season, but I was further confused when I heard Marv Albert and Mike Fratello on the TNT broadcast basically sealing Silas’s fate as Bobcats’ coach.

They said, basically, that Silas could come back to the team, in some aspect, but likely not as the head coach.  This was confirmed today, by Rick Bonnell of the Observer.  For all we know, this could be Paul’s decision.  He has had health issues, some serious and he’s no spring chicken.  If you ask me, however, this was simply a case of not rewarding a guy who led the worst team in NBA history.

The only good thing about being so bad this season is that the Charlotte Bobcats are virtually guaranteed to get a pretty solid player in the coming NBA draft. That can’t always be said, but the talent pool looks pretty darn good so whether they get the first, second, or third pick (or lower) via the lottery they are going to get someone who can contribute immediately.

That is, unless His Airness does something crazy, but in Jordan we trust right?

As the whole world knows, Mr. Unibrow (aka Anthony Davis) is going to be the No 1 pick in the draft. Should that pick not belong to the Bobcats, who else should they choose?

They can’t go wrong if they opt to go with the sophomore forward from Ohio State Jared Sullinger.

His stats are solid. As a freshman– the year most people expected him to enter the draft—he averaged a double-double with 10.2 boards and 17.2 points a game. That number dipped a tad last season (9.2 boards but 17.5 points a game), but he went up in many other areas.

He went from averaging a block every other game to 1.1 a game. His free throw percentage improved from .704 to .768. As a big man he will not be expected to drain a lot of 3s, but he got better at that too hitting 40 percent (16-40) last season compared to 25 percent as a freshman (3-12). His field goal percentage took a dip (.519 to .541), but with his smaller size he was likely taking more jump shots than he did as a freshman.

Look at it this way, Bobcats fans: at least “.106 winning percentage” doesn’t make for a very catchy derisive chant.  Not only is Charlotte officially the worst team ever, with 23 losses to close out the season (23—the Irony-Meter’s on 10), one month-old Bobcats fans everywhere are wondering if the Bobcats will ever win a game in their lifetime.  At least Scott Fowler should be happy.  The Charlotte Observer columnist wrote an idiotic article on Saturday hoping that the Bobcats would lose out in order to achieve a sort of “worst-ever” celebrity status.  “Make this season one for the record books,” Fowler wrote, “and then rebuild.”  Call me crazy, but I see no upside in being associated with the worst-ever team.

Actually, Fred Carter would call me crazy.  The unofficial spokesman for the 1972-73 76ers, the NBA’s now-former worst-ever team, really did seem to revel in the notoriety.  Back in 2010, when the Nets were threatening to displace the 76ers as the worst-ever team, Carter told the New York Times that he hoped it wouldn’t happen. “Immortality only comes in so many different ways,” Carter reasoned, sounding disturbingly like how I imagine Charles Manson looks back on the Tate-Labianca murders.  Then again, Carter also claims credit for being the person who invented the fist-bump, so he might be a few beers short of a six-pack.  I’m even slightly worried that Carter might take out a lawsuit against the Bobcats for a combination of defamation and copyright infringement.

Damn, I knew I liked something about those throwback uniforms...

Hello, Friends!  And I do mean friends.  After over a year in exile, I, Andrew Barraclough/BIGCatBobcat/theRobertoGato (the original, accept no imitations), am back home at BobcatsPlanet.com.  Ziggy and I talked through our issues, and believe me, they were many (they weren’t really many) and I’ve agreed to come back.  I had one condition however:  my first post back has to have a picture of the hottest Bobcats dancers, on the front page and as big as I’m allowed to make it.  You’re welcome.

If you actually want the sordid details of my time away from BobcatsPlanet, the first and what should have been the only place I ever posted, we can deal with that on a personal basis.  But I will tell you this, I missed everyone here, especially our hero, the man who runs this site “Ziggy.”

We never had any issues, of course he bid me farewell and wished me the best when I thought a special opportunity arose and didn’t say “I told you so,” when I came to him as a friend when I ran into issues.

Can I tell you the area of the photo to the left that is in the window as I type is fantastic?  Just works out that way and if I keep typing, it might go away…

That’s why they made the scroll wheel, right fellas?  Many of you know, me, many of you might not.  Quite a few of you might not even care, but I’ll tell you this, I’m passionate about the Charlotte Bobcats.  If you’re here, if you post in the forums, you are too.  Judging by the TV numbers and attendance (I’m talking about the people who have season tickets or come to the odd game as a Bobcats fan, not these front runners that cheer Miami, Boston, Chicago, the Lakers or the Clippers) we are a select few.  That’s ok.  We’ll be the guys in 10 years saying “Yep, I was there for 8-58 (that’s right, they’ll win against either Orlando or New York),” or “We were on BobcatsPlanet posting from the beginning, or well, yeah the early days.”  We’ll be the old men in the online version of a rocking chair telling the whipper snappers they don’t know how good they’ve got it, when the Bobcats are perennial playoff contenders and Anthony Davis is in that Tim Duncan, waning part of his career after 2-3 championships.

The draft will be here in no time and as diligent basketball fans that hope our beloved Charlotte Bobcats will climb out of the cellar next season we know the importance of the coming draft. When you get the chance to make what will hopefully be one of the first picks of the draft you should get an immediate impact player, but not everyone fits that bill.

On the chance that we don’t get the No 1 pick and Anthony Davis we have to do our homework on the other available studs—like Thomas Robinson of the Kansas Jayhawks.

What can I say, but that I like this guy. Unlike many of the other projected lottery picks he is not a young, one and done kind of player. He has taken the time in college to hone his craft and improve his game before trying to make the jump to the NBA. I would trust in a guy like him that has spent some time maturing in college being ready to contribute before I would a 19-year old kid.

Now he likely did not make the jump because no one would have taken him after his freshman year or sophomore year. He played a lot his first two years, but other players were the key to the team’s success those years. Once he got his chance to shine as a junior he did just that.

During the 2011-12 season he averaged an impressive double-double, 17.7 points and 11.9 rebounds a game; both big improvements off his sophomore numbers. On the season he recorded 27 double-doubles beating Drew Gooden’s single season record of 25 set back in 2002.