Well this is interesting.  According to the Charlotte Observer’s Rick Bonnell, after the atrocity in Cleveland, coach Paul Silas motivated Boris Diaw to a stellar performance against the New York Knicks with an emotional, heart-to-heart discussion. “We had a pow-wow after the game. I told him he just can’t play like that,” said Silas in Bonnell’s piece. “I don’t want to get on him, but he’s got to bring it every night — this is a business.”  However, according to the AP recap of the Knicks game, Silas said nothing at all to Diaw after the Cleveland game. “I didn’t say a word and I knew that he was going to come with it tonight because we’ve gone through that before and the next game he’s played very well,” said the “AP Silas.”   So which is it–did Silas talk to Diaw or not?  Or does coach Silas have an evil twin?

So we all saw that horrible game against Miami, and if you didn’t count yourselves lucky. If you speak to any fan they will say that game was just awful. However, I beg to differ, now I understand if your sitting there thinking what? We equalled our worst ever loss (39 points). But I approach this game like most of the season; I am not that bothered about the basketball we play right now, it means nothing. Silas will have moved on I reckon after this year, and I imagine we will go with a new young coach a la Miami with Spolstra to start a new era. Perhaps Stephan Silas? Matt Rochinksi told me, that Reggie Williams told him (we were obviously playing Chinese Whispers at the time) that Everyone in Golden State was devastated when Stephan Silas left and that all the players really miss him to this day. Apparently they had never liked a coach as much as him. Sorry, I got sidetracked. Back to why I think the game against Miami was successful. Kemba Walker had a good game and set a career high of 17 points, as did Biyombo with by far his best game so far. However, I don’t want to talk about either of these guys for once, did I mention they are the future of this team? Oh ok… well they are. I want to talk about the Bearded One (DJ White) and his role on this team.

So DJ White set his career high in points and went 10-12 from the field against a pretty impressive Miami team and hit his first ever 3. This game has got the debate about our “starting power forward” into full swing. Now I do acknowledge that DJ White was absolutely balling and deserves every minute he gets. The naked mole rat aka Rick Bonnell has written on it, Silas has spoken to the media about it and the forum has been discussing it. Most are saying the same thing, DJ White will start and Tyrus Thomas will come off the bench and is going to have to really step up his game. He has to stop being so inconsistent and win that starting spot back. With the way DJ White has been playing, and I fully understand that point of view.

However I believe this is WRONG.

Back to life, back to reality for the Bobcats.  Charlotte ushered in the new year with a blow-out bloodbath against the Magic that they spectacularly topped two nights later against the Heat.

The Magic loss was a dreary affair, made all the more pitiful with announcer Steve Martin constantly saying things like, “And with that rebound, the Bobcats have a chance to cut the lead down to 13!”  (Martin’s ceaseless cheerful optimism in the face of athletic competition genocide is a thing of beauty—if the United States ever does explode after being attacked by a fleet of all-powerful homicidal aliens, I want him as our President.) There were ominous signs early on in the telecast when they showed Dwight Howard warming up and then cut over to Boris Diaw; my immediate thought was of the old Chris Farley/Patrick Swayze “Chippendales” sketch on Saturday Night Live.  Sure enough, Howard gracefully executed a series of deft moves, rebounds, blocks, and passes while Diaw (and later Gana Diop) flailed hopelessly away—as did the rest of the team.

Even more frustrating was the fait accompli attitude taken by the team afterward, exemplified by coach Paul Silas in this quote: “You either double him (Howard) or let him kill you. We started off that way and he was killing us. Then we came at him and they started hitting threes. There’s not much we could have done tonight.”  The Associated Press wrap-up of the game agreed with Silas and even seemed to take on a sympathetic tone for the Bobcats’ predicament.  Sorry, I’m not letting them off that easy.  Orlando scored 100 points total, of which 20 came from Howard.  Another 36 came from 3-pointers.  That means 44 points (or 44% if you want to sound impressive) came from non-Howard/non-3-pointers.  Also, there was no Jameer Nelson (out with some sort of typical Jameer Nelson-type injury) breaking us down off the dribble.  That means we got served by the likes of Jason Richardson, Glen Davis, Hedo Turkoglu  Ryan Anderson, and the immortal JJ Reddick at close range (all 11 of Reddick’s points were inside the arc, by the way), with the unstoppable force that is Chris Duhon running point.  It wasn’t just Howard and a bunch of 3-pointers; it was a disgraceful defensive effort.

I hate to be the one to say “I told you so”, but here we are 1-3 to start the season as predicted. A heartbreaking loss to the Heat at home started a 3 game losing streak involving the Magic at home, and a blow out loss to the Heat at the American Airlines Arena. We met with 2 really tough teams and I won’t go over the top to start pointing fingers, but to me, there are two ways of playing a losing hand. The first one is to try to bluff it, take the bigger team by surprise and blow by with full throttle. The other hand is to fold while the stakes are low, try to read the opposing hand as much as you can and learn for the next hand. What dazzles me is how the Bobcats have played their hands so far. Especially in this last blow out loss to the heat.

With our young core group as i tried to explain in my last post,our guys need to keep their heads cool and play fundamental basketball. Paul Silas played the home game against the Heat, exactly as he should have. He bluffed from the start. No one expected this team to even compete against the Heat, and in the 1st half, our fundamental unselfish team basketball took the Heat by surprise. Unfortunately the Heat called the bluff in the 3rd quarter, and with three seconds to go in the 4th, down by one, we just didn’t have the high card. Excellent game by the entire Bobcats team, included it’s coaching staff obviously, and just a good tough loss against a superior team. What fans must know about this game, is that even if we almost managed to bluff this one to a W, the Heat took it right back once they called our bluff and they didn’t even break a sweat. We cannot compete with the Heat yet, and I think you all know that especially after tonight.

When the season finally got started a lot of the talk surrounding the Charlotte Bobcats was not all too positive to say the least. For the most part the team is pretty young; there is not a lot of experience on it; there really isn’t a go-to player in the group.

While I understand the logic behind what most people think, I have to say that three games in I have a lot of hope for these guys still. A recent quote by head coach Paul Silas is exactly why:

“This is probably the first team I’ve had where everybody was so on the same page. You don’t have to point your finger at somebody, saying, ‘you’re not getting…”

What this tells me is that the team is doing the best thing it could do without having a marquee, go-to player on the roster. They are actually playing a team game.

It’s a crazy notion; I know. In a day and age when the game has become more and more about one guy being the offensive focal point–like LeBron James during his time with the Cleveland Cavaliers; like Dwight Howard with the Orlando Magic—the concept of playing a team oriented sport like an actual complete team has become foreign.

Of course some super stars have been forced to come to the stark realization that they alone cannot win championships. This has forced them to team up with other so-called superstars in order to create a supposed dream team of sorts, i.e. those guys from South Beach.

If the Miami heat showed us anything last year, they showed us that teamwork does matter (because they had none at the start of last season when they got off to such a slow start) and while talent can take you a long way if you can’t work together—I’m talking all five guys on the court, not just the Big Three—titles will be hard to come by.

Before I begin my first post for Bobcats Planet I just wanted to say that I am thankful for this opportunity and am looking forward to posting on the ‘Cats throughout the season. I’ve followed the team since its initial season and feel that it is finally heading in the right direction after years of poor decisions. I’ll save that rant for another time. Let’s get to tonight’s game against the red hot Miami Heat.