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.

If you look back in NBA history, we can recall many hmmm moments in the NBA Lottery. Remember when Patrick Ewing became the saviour of the Big Apple? I’m also sure you remember Tim Duncan going to San Antonio to be one of the Twin Towers when the Admiral was near the end of his career. How about Lebron James going home to Cleveland, then Derrick Rose going home to Chicago? Then we have the most recent, when Lebron James took his talents to South Beach and the next thing you know, the #1 Pick goes to Cleveland?

Maybe these Cinderella stories are just coincidences, or maybe there is a little more to them than we will ever know. Either way, they happened and there is no turning back now. So let’s just focus on tonight and hope that we get the #1 pick.

If a hmmm moment happens tonight and goes in the Bobcats favor, I can give you 5 reasons why I think it might have happened.

For those that have been paying attention, yes, I have been on a ‘who should they draft’ kick for the last month. With the team doing as poorly as they did, it was getting to be a little too depressing to talk about it. At least in the end the team did one thing right and got rid of Paul Silas.

Going forward (since it is too depressing to look back) it appears that the Charlotte Bobcats are virtually guaranteed at least one talented player. Odds are good they’ll get the No 1 pick and highly likely that they will at least get the No 2 or 3.

What if they the basketball Gods decide to spit on Jordan the Owner since he was so successful as Jordan the Player and the ‘Cats get a later pick in the lottery (all the way down at 4)?

Most of the predictions and mocks that I’ve read all said the same person is expected to go No 6—North Carolina small forward Harrison Barnes. On the off chance that the Bobcats happen to be at the 4th spot or if they trade down a few slots, should they pick him and be happy?

Absolutely not.

I didn’t watch much North Carolina ball last year or the year before (I live in Indiana; I think there’s a law against watching anyone but IU and Butler). To talk about this guy I had to do my research.

Everyone says he has the body of a NBA small forward at 6-foot 8-inches and 210 pounds. Most people call him athletic (there was a couple that said he lacked athleticism). The 7-foot wing span is nice. People said one thing in many ways, but when you cut through the crap all they were saying was he’s a good shooter.

The only good thing about being so bad this season is that the Charlotte Bobcats are virtually guaranteed to get a pretty solid player in the coming NBA draft. That can’t always be said, but the talent pool looks pretty darn good so whether they get the first, second, or third pick (or lower) via the lottery they are going to get someone who can contribute immediately.

That is, unless His Airness does something crazy, but in Jordan we trust right?

As the whole world knows, Mr. Unibrow (aka Anthony Davis) is going to be the No 1 pick in the draft. Should that pick not belong to the Bobcats, who else should they choose?

They can’t go wrong if they opt to go with the sophomore forward from Ohio State Jared Sullinger.

His stats are solid. As a freshman– the year most people expected him to enter the draft—he averaged a double-double with 10.2 boards and 17.2 points a game. That number dipped a tad last season (9.2 boards but 17.5 points a game), but he went up in many other areas.

He went from averaging a block every other game to 1.1 a game. His free throw percentage improved from .704 to .768. As a big man he will not be expected to drain a lot of 3s, but he got better at that too hitting 40 percent (16-40) last season compared to 25 percent as a freshman (3-12). His field goal percentage took a dip (.519 to .541), but with his smaller size he was likely taking more jump shots than he did as a freshman.

Damn, I knew I liked something about those throwback uniforms...

Hello, Friends!  And I do mean friends.  After over a year in exile, I, Andrew Barraclough/BIGCatBobcat/theRobertoGato (the original, accept no imitations), am back home at BobcatsPlanet.com.  Ziggy and I talked through our issues, and believe me, they were many (they weren’t really many) and I’ve agreed to come back.  I had one condition however:  my first post back has to have a picture of the hottest Bobcats dancers, on the front page and as big as I’m allowed to make it.  You’re welcome.

If you actually want the sordid details of my time away from BobcatsPlanet, the first and what should have been the only place I ever posted, we can deal with that on a personal basis.  But I will tell you this, I missed everyone here, especially our hero, the man who runs this site “Ziggy.”

We never had any issues, of course he bid me farewell and wished me the best when I thought a special opportunity arose and didn’t say “I told you so,” when I came to him as a friend when I ran into issues.

Can I tell you the area of the photo to the left that is in the window as I type is fantastic?  Just works out that way and if I keep typing, it might go away…

That’s why they made the scroll wheel, right fellas?  Many of you know, me, many of you might not.  Quite a few of you might not even care, but I’ll tell you this, I’m passionate about the Charlotte Bobcats.  If you’re here, if you post in the forums, you are too.  Judging by the TV numbers and attendance (I’m talking about the people who have season tickets or come to the odd game as a Bobcats fan, not these front runners that cheer Miami, Boston, Chicago, the Lakers or the Clippers) we are a select few.  That’s ok.  We’ll be the guys in 10 years saying “Yep, I was there for 8-58 (that’s right, they’ll win against either Orlando or New York),” or “We were on BobcatsPlanet posting from the beginning, or well, yeah the early days.”  We’ll be the old men in the online version of a rocking chair telling the whipper snappers they don’t know how good they’ve got it, when the Bobcats are perennial playoff contenders and Anthony Davis is in that Tim Duncan, waning part of his career after 2-3 championships.

The draft will be here in no time and as diligent basketball fans that hope our beloved Charlotte Bobcats will climb out of the cellar next season we know the importance of the coming draft. When you get the chance to make what will hopefully be one of the first picks of the draft you should get an immediate impact player, but not everyone fits that bill.

On the chance that we don’t get the No 1 pick and Anthony Davis we have to do our homework on the other available studs—like Thomas Robinson of the Kansas Jayhawks.

What can I say, but that I like this guy. Unlike many of the other projected lottery picks he is not a young, one and done kind of player. He has taken the time in college to hone his craft and improve his game before trying to make the jump to the NBA. I would trust in a guy like him that has spent some time maturing in college being ready to contribute before I would a 19-year old kid.

Now he likely did not make the jump because no one would have taken him after his freshman year or sophomore year. He played a lot his first two years, but other players were the key to the team’s success those years. Once he got his chance to shine as a junior he did just that.

During the 2011-12 season he averaged an impressive double-double, 17.7 points and 11.9 rebounds a game; both big improvements off his sophomore numbers. On the season he recorded 27 double-doubles beating Drew Gooden’s single season record of 25 set back in 2002.