It's OK, MJ! It'll be OK!

Can’t win for losing.  I mean seriously, the Hornets?  The Hornets, George Shinn ruined this city for NBA basketball and now, the Hornets get the Number One overall pick in the 2012 NBA Draft?

I don’t even want to get into the conspiracy theories, because it’s so simple to look that direction.  I just want to wallow in the misery of losing yet again, in an arena where no one was in control.  The Charlotte Bobcats will select second in the upcoming draft.  Anthony Davis, the unibrow, the consensus player of the year in the NCAA as a freshman, will be a New Orleans Hornet and the Bobcats will have to pick from the rest.

It’s not so much that Davis is that much better, it’s the fact that everyone else is within a whisker of each other.  So from one crap shoot to another.  I still contend, as I would have if the Bobcats had won the lottery, that there is no such thing as a sure thing when it comes to evaluating 19 year olds to play basketball.

So, now it comes down to talent evaluation.  Haha, you see what I did there?  Anyway, I feel like the Bobcats have a great team in place to select exactly what they need.  Hell, Rich Cho and Rod Higgins could come up with a guy they like better than the prohibitive favorite, in the goofy-lookin’ Davis.  (I will continue to bash him, until he’s out of the league in 3 years)

King Kong plays Ping-Pong, with... Nah, I'm good on finishing that one.

“Other than the birth of my child,”  or “Except for finding my wife,” are two things people love to say before they claim something as a big deal, the biggest in their life, career or whatever.  The Charlotte Bobcats would have to preface Wednesday’s NBA Draft Lottery by saying “Other than the founding of the team,” yes, this year’s Draft Lottery is the biggest deal in the young history of the team.

Hopefully this won’t be the biggest ever, but it could set things up that hopefully, likely would be much much bigger than any ping-pong announcement.  I keep calling it a “thing” or a “deal,” because it is abstract to me.  Hopes and aspirations of a franchise, maybe the future of the league staying in the city, based on the way ping-pong balls go.  It’s only fair, but still, after an unbelievably poor season, you would hope for more than a 25% chance at getting that #1 overall pick.

The Bobcats winning % was almost 20% worse than the next worse team, the Wizards but their chances to win the #1 overall pick is only 5% better.  I don’t know if I’d advocate for a weighted lottery, based on winning % rather than simply the order in which teams finished, but this year, I want every advantage the Bobcats can get.

Arguably, Anthony Davis is significantly better than whoever might be drafted second.  The fact we can’t name the #2 prospect says a lot about how much better Davis is than the other players but I wouldn’t put him in the realm of Patrick Ewing, Shaquille O’Neal, David Robinson, Lebron James or any of the handful of “must win” the lottery players over the history of the activity.  That said, I still want the Bobcats to have the pick in order to get him.

It’s been reported in a really good post by Yahoo! Sports’ Marc Spears, that Rod Higgins, the Bobcats’ head basketball man, isn’t losing any sleep over this.  It’s complete chance, luck is the only factor now.  No need to stress over the selection.  What bothers me that I didn’t know before reading that post is that the Bobcats actually have a better chance at getting the #4 overall pick, at 35%, but that’s after the #1, #2 and #3 draws, if I know the process, which I may or may not.  But the Bobcats are guaranteed no lower than #4.

It’s a strange sort of spectacle.  It’s almost like sitting in the Keno room in a Vegas casino.  Everyone hopeful, everyone awkwardly sitting there waiting on the numbers to be shown.  Only this time, the people holding tickets are a strange assortment of owners’ kids, NBA legends, team executives, star players and basically, mascots.  ESPN will awkwardly interview several of the “participants” as they sit on a dais, and probably show some of the little “good luck” trinkets.  It is a bit of a farce, but only in that there’s no better way to do it, and personally, I hate that the NBA trivializes what would and could be a massive moment for a franchise’s fortunes.

No, I don't want the next Bobcats Coach to wear a "?" mask all the time

With apologies to former Boston Celtics coach, Rick Pitino:  ”Bernie Bickerstaff is not coming through that door!  Larry Brown is not going to be walking through that door!  And Sam Vincent isn’t walking through that door!”  Sam can’t walk through that door because he can’t figure out how the handle works, or if it’s a push or a pull.  Actually, the only guy welcome to walk through any door at 333. East Trade is Paul Silas, and that’s because he’s actually still a member of the franchise, in some undefined role.

Paul Silas won’t be coaching the team again next season.  As discussed at length, you can’t keep the CEO of Lehmann Brothers around after the great collapse of 2008 and you can’t keep the head coach of a team that went 7-59 around for another year.  I appreciate what all those names above did for the team in their time.  All, except of course, for Sam “Ham Biscuit” Vincent.  Bernie got things rolling as head coach and general manager and actually never let the team finish in last place.  He was integral to the roots of development that the franchise started out with.  He was around for 4 years, but coached for 3 seasons.  He wasn’t Michael Jordan’s guy, so his contract wasn’t renewed.  He was sent on his way, given a very awkward “retirement” party after the final game of the ’06-’07 season.  Awkward, because he didn’t retire.  He went on to be an assistant coach with both Chicago under Vinny Del Negro and Portland under Nate McMillan and whoever the hell replaced Nate when he got the axe.  

Do You Think He Get's this pissed in staff meetings?

I’d like to pick this thing apart like an autopsy.  The Bobcats 2012 season was dreadful.  I guess you have to still call it 2011-2012 season, because the Bobcats actually played 3 games before New Year’s Day.  But does it really matter?

Actually, yes.  It does matter because likely the most significant positives came in those first two games.  The Bobcats actually won against Milwaukee in that first game, and former Bobcats Stephen Jackson and Shaun Livingston.  The next game, it took a Dwayne Wade last second shot to beat the young Bobcats.  Wade showing “the Superman” to Cam Newton, who was in the crowd, hopefully cheering on his hometown Bobcats, was an indelible image from the season.

No, those were the salad days.  When the season was young.  If you look at the big picture of the season, you see one glaring, overwhelming, undeniable truths that will likely not be pushed aside for years, if ever: The Charlotte Bobcats are the worst team in NBA history.

“The worst,” isn’t defensible.  You can’t make claims like “Well, they show some promise and if it weren’t for….”  No, you can’t defend the Bobcats of the 2011-2012 season.  Epic futility, even in a shortened season, with a young team in flux, isn’t able to be cast aside like it was expected or a link in a chain of events that was somehow planned.

Tanking couldn’t be the reason for the lowest winning % in NBA history.  Michael Jordan claims that the Bobcats weren’t even going for the most ping-pong balls.  So, worst in the league, not a goal, worst ever?  Far from it.  I still argue we’re talking about Michael Jeffery Jordan here.  He’s one of the world’s greatest competitors.  They invented the quote “I don’t care if you’re playing basketball, checkers, tidly-winks or whatever, he hates to lose,” about the owner of the Bobcats.  But, we all also know that his exploits as owner and executive haven’t come close to what he did as a player, even in his time with the Wizards.  That says a lot.

"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.