Biyombo

Celebration? or Buyers’ remorse?

I’d like to take a moment to get some readers up to speed if they missed the draft. Charlotte made a huge three team trade sending the team’s best offensive weapon, Stephen Jackson, along with Shaun Livingston and our #19 pick, to the Bucks. The ‘Cats received the #7 pick from the Kings, and Cory Maggette from the Bucks. The Kings received the Bucks #10 pick and John Salmons while sending Beno Udrih to the Bucks.
Charlotte also had a change of General Managers shortly before the draft (June 11) and promoted Rod Higgins to President of Basketball Operations. I’d like to point out that this is the first draft that Rich Cho has ever run as an NBA GM. Cho was an Assistant GM with Seattle/OKC franchise but was not the General Manager running those drafts. Cho was also the GM at Portland for eleven months but did not conduct a draft for the Trailblazers. I’d like to be fair to Mr. Cho and say no one, outside of the Seattle/OKC and Portland franchises, really knows what input he had on their drafts. My hope is that the 2011 draft, the first for Mr. Cho as our GM in charge, is remembered as a success.

Discussion of “mixed feelings”
This is a difficult article for me since I have mixed feelings, some concerning the draft and some concerning the recent behavior of some of our members. I’ll talk about member behavior first.
BobcatsPlanet (BCP) is the only web site on which I’m an active member. I’ve always been pleased to be a member and contribute in any way that I could since the ‘Cats are one of my passions. The thing that I really like and enjoy about BCP is that the members are considerate, within the passions of a discussion, and keep those discussions pertinent -refraining from personal attacks (flames) against other members. This is never an easy task for internet sites since they don’t know if a poster is a “nine-year-old-in-a-dysfunctional-family” or a “ninety-year-old-in-a-dysfunctional-family” who feel it is their job to be rude to everyone on the web, and all those dysfuntionals in between. But for those who do not know having a passion about anything does not make the rest of society “fair game” for our rude behavior, I think that our administrator and moderators do an exceptional job of trying to help us stay on task (our passion for the ‘Cats). I’d like for us all to help them by doing a better job of moderating our own behavior towards fellow members.
My concern about member behavior also comes up as I write my post mortem on the draft.  Please note: just because a team, any team, drafts players that I (the Universal I) don’t agree with does not make me a “hater”. It means that’s not the way I would have drafted and that’s all that it means. I’m an adult and what I think is my opinion, not a fact. I understand that the adults working for the Bobcats’ front office do not on many occasions share my opinion, but that does not make me a hater. The thing I always strive for when I send an article to Ziggy to post is clarity about my opinions. I’m never going to try and convince you that my opinion is the “correct one” and your opinion is not correct, but I’ll always try and let you know why I have it.
I did not expect this to be this long so I’m separating it from my opinions on the draft. The point I’ve hoped to convey is that the camaraderie and passion we at BCP share is for the Bobcats. Let’s always keep that in perspective in our posts, threads, and the way we approach our points in any discussion with other members. It is just as easy to be courteous as it is to be rude.

Chris Singleton

Preparing for the Draft. We are now two days plus some hours (depending on the time of posting) from the 2011 draft. The Bobcats, I’m very pleased to say, have started the prospect workout portion of evaluating players with a fury. Unlike years past, the ‘Cats have had two players, Kemaba Walker and Kawhi Leonard, who are listed in many mock drafts as off the board before we pick, come in for workouts. Coach Paul Silas has made clear he expects the Bobcats to get very good players at the #9 and #19 draft positions and anticipates getting a functional player with #39. Charlotte has had a total of 50+ players in for work outs and with three picks it seems that the ‘Cats are doing due-diligence in the evaluation process. One other change that will have an impact on the draft is hiring Rich Cho as the new General Manager, and Rod Higgins being promoted to President of Basketball Operations.

The ‘Cats have had the best-rated small forwards, excluding the international players, of this draft in for workouts. Coach Paul Silas has had question-answer sessions after all of the workouts and a few of his answers jumped out at me. Some of these things are obvious to the fans but it it is nice to know that the organization is also aware of the team’s issues. This came up after the day three work out On wanting more 3-point shooting “It just puts so much pressure on your opponents when you kick it out and the man is spaced out properly and you kick it out to him.” This is from the day four PM Q&A session On what is tougher to teach up at the next level – defense or offense “That’s something that you can really work on. But the defense – it’s hard to make a good defender out of a guy that doesn’t just have it.”  This is from the day five Q&A session His thoughts on evaluating international players “I look at these guys. Some of them are very, very good athletically. Defensively, there’s a big problem that I have with a lot of European guys.”  I think it is a safe bet to assume the front office knows we need more consistency with our outside shooting, particularly off the bench. Coach Silas also gives us a couple of strong indications that he values defense over offense and that the offensive side of the game is easier to “teach”

If he falls I’m drafting him!

Welcome to the second part of the 2011 “MY Take” on the draft. In part one I talked about the importance, from my perspective, of the need to have a plan as the draft approaches. But we all know that what we think might happen in the draft landscape always changes, as teams trade and draft before us.

This “My Take” will focus on the players, from the cumulative “mocking the draft “, as of 5/29/11. Two players,  Kyrie Irving and Derrick Williams, will not be discussed here, nor included in the “I’m taking them if they fall” poll. Ziggy has set up a poll in the  Bobcats Planet draft forum that gives everyone a chance to vote for three players that, if they drop, you’d draft them without hesitation. Why are Irving(97) and Williams(100) not included, you might ask? They are recognized as the two best players in this draft and we’re pretty sure everyone would grab them if they tumbled to the ‘Cats with the #9 pick.

The players I will discuss, again the other six players listed to go before we pick, are: Enes Canter(98), Brandon Knight (96), Jonas Valanciunas (93), Kemba Walker(95), Kawhi Leonard (93), and Jan Vesely (95). Alec Burks (95) is currently listed, again from the cumulative mock, to us at the number nine pick. Burks was also selected by the majority of those voting in the “who do you take” with the #9 pick poll on Bobcats Planet. NBAdraft.net is one of the few mock draft sites that attaches an evaluation number to prospects. The numbers in parenthesis next to the players is the overall evaluation score NBAdraft.net has assigned that player and is included for comparison.

I admit that I love this time of year. Hope springs eternal for those of us that consider ourselves “draft junkies”. I’ve never considered the term, at least for me, as being one of an “all-knowing” seer but rather as one of an all-knowing hope, as in, I’m hoping we get it right. This will be my first real draft to get a good handle on our GM, Rod Higgins, and the scouting staff now employed by the Bobcats. I’d like to feel, after the draft, that we went in with a plan and accomplished at least part of that plan. So let me share what my plan, if I were the GM, would be for this particular draft.
First I’ll share what I think our team weaknesses are and then how I’d fill them. Bench scoring (we can call it the sixth man) coupled with a lack of shooting guard depth is a major problem for this team. We also have a starting small-forward, Stephen Jackson, that’s 33 years old and has two years left on his contract, so this would be a good time to get a small-forward starter-in-training. Point Guard depth, and some would say the starter, is a problem. Our primary back-up,  Shaun Livingston, has a history of injury issues. The center spot has always been a concern for the ‘Cats but I’ve put it next to last since I see little help for that need in this draft. Big-man depth is a team issue since we only have one center, DeSagana Diop, under contract.