Many of you have probably been asking yourselves, “What has Blogcat been doing all summer?”  Many more of you have probably not been asking yourselves that.  Or if you were, you were probably hoping the answer was, “Getting impregnated by a hideous alien and then watching in horror as the writhing monster fetus is extracted from his belly via a futuristic self-surgery chamber.”

And you wouldn’t be far off!  Because speaking of watching things in horror, what I’ve actually been doing is writing an e-book (entitled–what else?–The Breaks of the Wind) on the 2011-12 Bobcats.  Remember them?  Unless you are one of the lucky few whose health care covers lobotomies, of course you do!  Well, you can now purchase my e-book here for the low, low price of $1.99.  And I promise this isn’t some lame rip-off move in which I just compile a bunch of my old entries.  Nope, I’ve added dozens of curse words, recoils, cringes, dry-heaves, and shudders, all of which are befitting for the NBA season equivalent of a gory exorcism.  Enjoy!

Now it’s on to the next one!  I must admit I’m not optimistic about the Cats this year.  In fact, I’ve been putting off thinking about the 2012-13 season for as long as possible, hoping instead for some kind of divine intervention, such as a rogue planet entering our orbit and colliding with Earth, rendering the entire human race extinct, and leaving NBA commissioner David Stern with no choice but to lock out the players again.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like that’s happening, and now I’ve got to accept that there will be a season.  Therefore, it’s time to do some previewing and predictions.

Yeah, we're exasperated too!

The Charlotte Bobcats are churning.  Like, if you’ve ever made a salad all in one bowl, starting with the dressing, churning it up from the bottom, that’s the kind of turning over the Bobcats are currently engaged in.  It makes me, as a fan entrenched in my own obsessions and what I think the team should look like, almost nostalgic for the past.

D.J. Augustin and his weirdo “inside source”  are now gone, from the team and from our message boards.  Corey Maggette, the latest line in a long line of middling “stars,” gone in favor of a much younger Ben Gordon and a draft pick.  Paul Silas, not retained, a new coach that no one had heard of is now the much ballyhooed head coach that every fan hopes will turn things around.

After the season the Charlotte Bobcats had last year there really is only one direction for the team to go—up. Assuming that new head coach Mike Dunlap is able to work with young guys at the pro level like he was in college (since the age range is pretty similar I don’t see why not) the team could very well be on the right path to success.

Now I wasn’t a fan of the Dunlap hire when it was announced, but what’s done is done. Like most of you, I’m just going to hope for the best going forward. Should he be able to mold this collection of raw, young talent into a team the Bobcats will be fun to watch if nothing else next season.

Dunlap can’t do it alone. A coach can cover the X’s and O’s in practice and make adjustments from the sideline, but a team needs a guy that can help make those adjustments on the court rather than waiting for a time out. It needs someone who can be a leader and in the case of the Bobcats a teacher on the court.

The team needs a solid veteran presence.

The one they had was traded away; Corey Maggette for Ben Gordon and a future first round draft pick (solid trade in my opinion). Gordon is a good player, and unlike Maggette not injured a lot, but I don’t know if he has what it takes to lead this young team.

You sure it's me and not Higgins? You know, we're both named Corey, mine with an "E"

Oh Corey, sweet, sorry, injured Corey.  We barely got to know you as a Bobcat, and now, you are gone.  Stephen Jackson and Shaun Livingston to swap picks and bring in Maggette, last year on draft day, worked.  It was worth it to get Bismack Biyombo, or was it Kemba?  This time around, Corey Maggette for Ben Gordon and a protected first round pick, might just be crazy enough to work.

My question is, did Cory Higgins demand the trade because he has to be the only person named Cory or Corey on the team?  How would that conversation go?  ”Dad!  I’m tired of the coach saying “Corey, get in the game!” and then he looks at me and Maggette getting up and tells me to sit down!”

No, that probably wasn’t it.  I wondered aloud if this was a trade for trading’s sake, sort of to kick-start the week of the draft.  That was immediately met with “Nah, Rich Cho just loves him some draft picks.”  Very true.  Rich Cho is all about acquiring assets.  As “assets” go, conditional first round picks seem pretty easy to come by, if you have a guy that is that puzzle piece that a team thinks they need.

It’s interesting to me that Maggette was traded the same week as Kevin Youklis of the Boston Red Sox.  If you have read or seen “Moneyball,” you know that Youklis is the “Greek God of walks.”  Similarly, Corey Maggette is the “Greek Sub-God (if that’s a thing) of going to the free throw line).”  When he came in, a quick glance at his numbers would tell any Bobcats fan that he gets to the line a lot for a guy who doesn’t average as many points as a superstar or has the cache to draw fouls like a superstar.  His attempts jump off the page at you as probably the one thing he did really well.

The good thing about having one of the lottery picks in the coming draft is that it is hard to go wrong with whoever you pick. Every player that will get taken in the early part of the first round is bound to make a difference on whatever team they happen to land on.

That is exactly what the Charlotte Bobcats will be hoping when it becomes their turn to choose from this year’s crop of future stars.

When you have a team that has played as poorly as the Bobcats have this season you’d think that the team could just put a bunch of names on a dart board have His Airness close his eyes and throw. If that dart were to land on Andre Drummond (center, UConn Huskies) would it be a good choice for the ‘Cats?

Drummond was one of the best players in the country coming out of high school in 2011. ESPN and NBADraft.net had him rated as the No 1 player in the country; Rivals.com and Scout.com had him No 2. If the NBA was still drafting kids straight out of high school he would have gone in last year’s draft.

Should the Bobcats take him he could very well be the center that the team needs. He has the size of an NBA center standing 6-foot 11-inches and weighing in at 275 pounds. He could be a tough defensive presence down low, is known for being a solid rebounder and shot blocker, and has a decent (and improving) offensive game.

The man can play; that’s a given, but do the ‘Cats need him? What about Bismack Biyombo?

First of all, I’m so pissed that Michael Pena of Red 94 stole my thunder.  I was all over that line from Houston Rockets color analyst/balding community icon Clyde Drexler about Tyrus Thomas not having “enough sand in his pants.”  The game was well into the third quarter and the Bobcats were already down by a million, so I was counting on the fact that I was one of the few people still watching, and therefore that gem of a line was going to be my reward.  But Michael beat me to the punch!  So instead, I’ll call up another zinger from ol’ Glide a few years ago when he compared some easy task (I forget exactly what it was—perhaps getting Bonzi Wells to overeat at a Cheesecake Factory) to “clubbing baby seals.”  Yikes!  Where was Drexler raised?  A ditch in Antarctica?

Second, I disagree with Rick Bonnell’s post-Rockets game assessment that the Bobcats are “barely going through the motions.”  I think their motions have actually been quite robust; I just think they’re a terrible team.  None of the starting five should actually be a starter, and only Thomas and Corey Maggette are performing noticeably worse than their career averages.  Also, after all of the 30-point blow-outs, why does Bonnell suddenly now think that they’re barely going through the motions?  Against Houston, Charlotte only lost by 20 on the road to a playoff team that just beat OKC—hey, for Bobcats fans, that means it’s Miller Time!  With this level of talent, opposing teams should be crushing Charlotte every night.  As Drexler would say, it’s like beating up a crippled nun.