Father and Son

The Panthers have training camp in full swing, and we’re sort of covering it over at PanthersPlanet.com, but training camp doesn’t lead to many stories, other than that whole Jeff Otah deal.  Well the Bobcats have training camp coming up too, which will be less hurried and lockouty this year.  The only interesting thing so far is that Scoop Jardine from Syracuse is going to be invited.

Scoop Jardine isn’t really the story.  The roster is at 13 and the other two spots aren’t likely to be filled by a combo guard coming off a broken foot that was unlikely to be drafted anyway.  Scoop Jardine is likely invited, according to PhillySportsLive.com, because of who he’s friends with.  That’s the issue I have, the blogger is pointing to a photo of Jardine with Michael Jordan’s daughter from Facebook, which might be a stretch but it leads me to a larger problem with the Bobcats:  Nepotism.

I know I’m beating a dead horse here.  I think I’ve hit on this every time an assistant is hired, a front office spot is filled or a low-level roster spot is filled.  It just keeps coming up.  You don’t see the Knicks, Nets, Heat, Thunder or Lakers doing this.  Actually, I doubt the Wizards, Hornets, Clippers or Magic do either.  It’s just so obvious and needless.

On the night of July 19th, Assistant Coach (and son of head coach Bernie Bickerstaff) John Blair Bickerstaff was arrested for DWI, driving with an expired tag and failure to heed a blue light. Maybe its because I’m not rich or in the media spotlight, but for the life of me I don’t understand why people who are rich or in the media spotlight can’t make better decisions.  In JB’s situation in particular he should realize that people are going to give him twice the scrutiny, because he is the youngest assistant coach in the NBA and because he is the coach’s son.  There are people begging for him to mess up just so they can say “I told you so”.  I could go that route and kick him while hes down, but honestly thats too easy. Lets hope that this is an isolated situation from JB and he can use this mistake to learn how to make better decisions in life.

Today the Charlotte Bobcats re-signed one of their bench players Kevin Burleson, This should be your basic non story, but for the life of me, I can’t understand how this guy deserves to make a 12 man NBA roster. Maybe some of you experts out there can help me figure it out. Here are the details, Last season Burleson tore up the NBA at a pace of 1.8 points per game and 1.2 assists per game. He shot a blazing 25% from the field and torched opponents at a clip of 18% from three point range… Thats not a misprint He shot 18% from three point range. Last year over the course of several games, he had a streak where he missed 31 consecutive shots from the field. Also not a misprint, 31 straight shots.
Well, Maybe he really impressed the coaching staff during the summer league games last week. Lets take a look, 28 minutes a game, 7 ppg, 4 apg, 1.4 turnovers per game. He continued his torrid shooting by shooting 32% from the field, and a Ray Allen-like (for him) 33% from three point range.

Maybe his spot on the roster can be explained by this snippet from nba.com

Bickerstaff and Burleson played together during the 2000-01 season, when Bickerstaff was a senior and Burleson a freshman. Burleson and Hargrow were then teammates for two seasons, from 2001-03.
“This has reminded me a little bit of college,” Hargrow said. “Having them here has made my transition a little easier.”
“It’s been good just to have University of Minnesota guys around,” Burleson said. “Maurice feels like a little brother to me, and being here is a great opportunity for him.”
Despite the established camaraderie, Bickerstaff does not give his fellow Golden Gophers any special treatment or reprieves from the strenuous workouts.
“No special treatments at all,” Bickerstaff said. “If you ask them, they will both probably tell you the same thing.”

If theres somebody out there that can convince me that this isn’t a blatent example of the buddy system, I’d love to here your explanation as to why he deserves a roster spot.