BREAKING NEWS: Nazr Mohammed is good!  I have proof!  Because we seem to be living in a sort of “postmodern” statistical era, in which all of the traditional stats are deemed completely worthless and it turns out that Wilt Chamberlain was in fact one of the WORST players ever*, I ventured over to the blog site 82games.com to check out what some of their number-crunching has crunched out.  And lo and behold, they show undeniable proof that Nazr Mohammed is actually competent.  Two things jumped out at me.  First, of every guy on the team, Nazr is one of the few with a positive +/- number (+7), meaning we’ve scored 7 more points than we’ve allowed total with him on the floor.  Second, our top 5-man-unit in terms of +/- consists of Felton, Carroll, Richardson, Wallace, and…Melvin Ely.  No, just kidding, it’s Mohammed again!  This crew’s got a net +/- score of +38.  Incidentally, the group with the WORST +/- is…the one that currently starts, McInnis-Felton-Okafor-Wallace-Richardson, coming in at an Antarctican -69.  

Of course, I’m well aware that these stats are skewed because our starters are playing more of their minutes against the OTHER team’s starters, who are almost always better.  But here’s an important analytical point: it is what it is.  Does it mean we should replace Okafor in the starting lineup with Mohammed?  Not necessarily.  Does it mean we should replace McInnis with Carroll?  Yes necessarily!  A thousand times yes!  We should replace McInnis with a Cub Cadet lawnmower, for all I care, because it’s probably faster and can make “cuts” (ha!).  

So anyway, I insist that Nazr’s pretty good, but you know who’s really bad?  Denver.  I haven’t looked at their 5-man units or anything, but I imagine there are only about three combinations of them anyway; the entire team’s beat up.  Denver is exactly why people were skeptical about the Celtics’ off-season deals working out, because even though they have marquee names, and even if they can get their chemistry straight, they still have more problems showing up than Britney to a courthouse.  Against us, none of their starters played fewer than 30 minutes and only three dudes came off the bench.  No Nene, no Najera.  The heavily tattooed JR Smith (dude’s arms look like a pair of Air Jordan 20’s) must be in some serious hot water with George Karl if he can’t get more than 19 minutes of PT.  There’s also some guy named Yakhouba Diawara, who I only know played for “France” prior to the NBA—not sure if that was the University of France or France State.  Meanwhile, watching Anthony Carter covering McInnis is like watching a preview for The Bucket List.  These guys are going to struggle.  

Oh, and Kenyon Martin just doesn’t get the credit he deserves for being a punk.  Really, he’s got to be one of the more underrated punks in the NBA, possibly in all of sports, and it’s time we give him his due.  With that obnoxious throw-down slam and the way he punches and/or kicks the ball afterward, plus his run-ins with management, plus it seems like he’s always got some sort of injury, when are people going to RECOGNIZE?!  I bet he’s jealous of Shawne Merriman.  Granted, if Denver were in the East, they’d be challenging for a division crown, but out in the West, they’re barely holding on—and they’re $27 million over the cap.  That’s one sick team; maybe Ben Bernanke can hook them up with some sort of economic stimulus package (assuming he has no hard feelings over losing the beard-growing contest to Smith and Drew Gooden).      

So we took the win against Denver, but it was sort of unsatisfying, given the way the Nuggets bumbled around in the final six seconds.  This led us to…uh-oh, it’s Magic.  You didn’t have to be Ric Ocasek to know that this game would be a problem.  Beatdowns by the Magic are starting to feel like a weekly-scheduled event. Orlando makes me feel like “Flick” from A Christmas Story: I just want to say “Uncle,” get the loss over quickly, and move on with my life.  

And early on, that’s exactly what it looked like would happen, as Dwight “Scut Farcus” Howard seemed to be turning the game into his own personal Slam-Dunk Contest.  Meanwhile, Hedo Turkoglu unleashed his devastating array of “drive slowly to the left without faking or changing speeds or doing anything really and bank it in off the boards” moves that are apparently unstoppable.  He did this repeatedly—to the tune of 16 points—and the only thing that varied was the amount of hair I pulled out watching.  Also, it turns out Carlos Arroyo is pretty good when you don’t bother to guard him.  He still flings his passes around with the accuracy of those t-shirt-launching guns, but with no one within pissing distance of him, he put up 17 points.  

Fortunately, Gerald Wallace pulled a "Ralphie" and went off.  36 points, 14 boards, 5 assists, 3 steals, 0—zero!!—turnovers!  11-14 from the foul line!!  The Giants win the pennant!  The Giants win the pennant!  Gerald was all over the court.  He was astonishing.  He was captivating.  He was stoned when they took his publicity photo—check out his picture atop ESPN.com’s “Daily Leaders” board.  He still gets a little greedy from the three-point line (sometimes he stands there for almost a couple of seconds, and you can practically see a little “Angel Gerald” on one shoulder telling him to pass or penetrate and a little “Devil Gerald” telling him to shoot), but who cares?  He’s our heart-and-soul.

Kudos also to the reemerging long-range skills of Jason Richardson and Matt Carroll, who went a combined 7-for-12 from downtown.  And Felton is the point guard, whether it’s his assigned position or not.  One of the Orlando television announcers cracked me up when he said, “There seems to be some confusion here in Charlotte, as a lot of people think Felton should be the point guard.”  Actually, there’s no confusion here in Charlotte, except maybe with the head coach. 

  
*I made that up.  It was actually Oscar Robertson.

To quote Johnny Drama, these last two games were a “bloodbath,” starting at home against Phoenix.  You know how economists say that gas prices aren’t that high when you adjust for inflation?  NBA teams also use a similar technique for rationalizing blowout losses to Phoenix.  “It’s okay if they shot 50% on us, it’s Phoenix,” the supposed logic goes.  Well, I don’t care who we'ere playing, 37% shooting and 24 turnovers are horrible stats, not to mention being out-assisted 31 to 11.  And normally when we lose to Phoenix, the consolation prize is that we at least beef up our own offensive output.  Instead, we got just 83 points, and our top scorer a) had just 16 points, and b) was Jared Dudley.      
 
Thank god no one’s got footage of Mike D’Antoni spying on assistant coaches, or else Phoenix might have REALLY run the score up.  On the other hand, watching Sean Marks log 16 minutes of garbage time for 13 points was in many ways MORE humiliating than letting Steve Nash rack up, say, 30 assists.  Phoenix executed its run-and-gun offense to perfection, hitting half their shots, 9-24 of their 3-pointers, and turning the ball over just 10 times.  Our defense, meanwhile, looked more lost than the President in a stem cell research laboratory.  We couldn’t get back fast enough in transition, nor could we rotate properly to cover the open man; Emeka Okafor was often left hilariously trying to guard Nash.  Mek also had just 7 rebounds and a block.  He also didn’t score…not didn’t score much, mind you, he didn’t score, PERIOD.
 
If there was any bright spot, it was Dudley.  Having barely played at all in the first two games, starting one's career against the Suns is less a trial by fire and more a trial by explosion.  Dudley showed some toughness and surprising speed, getting to the line 12 times.  Jermareo Davidson also played 18 minutes, scored 6 points, and showed some range, but he also shot way too many times (10).  But this game was The Empire Strikes Back, because there were far more highlights for the Dark Side.  Beside the god-awful team play, Raymond Felton left in the third quarter after badly bruising his knee, and Gerald Wallace was an atrocity, getting just 12 points in 12 FG attempts and committing 5 turnovers.  He’s suddenly pulling the Vince-Carter-settling-for-outside-shots-card, too. 
 
Last night in Philly, things somehow managed to get worse.  Amidst a listed crowd of 9,000 at a Wachovia Center that was about as raucous as a mall at 10 AM, the Bobcats turned in an all-time crappy performance.  At least Phoenix is a good team; after Andre Igiodala, the Sixers’ second-most famous player is probably Reggie Evans, who’s best known for grabbing another man’s testicles.  We actually looked like we were still trying to defend against Phoenix too, with the added twist of repeatedly leaving the lane WIDE OPEN—our interior defense has gone the way of Matt Carroll’s hair: it’s vanished.
 
I’m not sure how this game could have been any more depressing, unless maybe the halftime show featured a public hanging.  How could we have played so uninspired?  Perpetually sunny commentators Steve Martin and Henry Williams kept invoking the old back-to-back-games-exhaustion excuse, but I don’t buy it when a) it’s only the fourth game of the year, and b) Coach Vincent pulled most of the starters the night before once it got ugly (i.e., just after the opening tip-off).  And before I forget, although I’m an unabashed Matt Devlin supporter, I’m already falling in love with Steve Martin.  As we entered the 4th quarter with just 47 points, Martin enthusiastically chirped, “The Bobcats are ATTACKING some franchise lows.”  Now THAT is putting a positive spin on it (FYI: we did end up scoring 63, one point better than the franchise’s lowest single-game total).
 
Unfortunately, none of our other “attacks” failed.  Going through our stat line is like reading Citigroup’s latest earnings report.  30…percent…shooting.  ZERO threes.  And are you ready for this one: 26 turnovers.  These are some serious write-offs.  Jason Richardson gave what I can only hope will be his worst performance of the season: 4 points on 2-15 shooting in 34 minutes.  Raymond Felton didn’t play at all and probably still had a better game than Jeff McInnis (2 points, 2 assists, 5 turnovers).  I’ve pretty much said my piece on Jeff over the last few days—no wait, have I mentioned what a horrible defender he is?  4 fouls last night.  And they’re not even hard fouls, either.  Okay, that’s it from me on McInnis, I’m going to cease-fire on that one.  We didn’t get a suitable backup PG, and now we’re paying the piper.    
 
For the second straight game, Coach Vincent limited a completely demoralized-looking Primoz Brezec to just single-digit minutes, opting to go small instead.  Usually, this implies going small AND fast, but right now we’re just small and turnover-prone. 

Trying to pick anything good out of these last two games is like trying to pick the best Friday the 13th movie—it’s all sucked.  The young’uns—Dudley, Davidson, and Hollins—got plenty of burn, but didn’t really do anything other than try really, really hard.  Felton’s injury doesn’t look serious.  And…um…Coach Vincent reminds me of Mack from the movie Predator.  Those are about all of the compliments I can muster at this time.