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.

Two games into the season, we can’t really make too many assumptions about how well we will do. However, what I can tell you is we are fun to watch. Like many in the forum have said this week, these last two games have been 10x more exciting than last years team, especially under the dark days of the Larry Brown era. However, a question that I have thought about since day one of drafting Kemba was finally answered this week. “Who will be on the floor when the game is on the line in the 4^th quarter, DJ or Kemba”?

Since we drafted Kemba, there have been people calling for him to start, and to trade DJ for a 1^st round pick in this year’s draft. Those same people are also going to be very frustrated Kemba didn’t play at the end of the Miami game, as we all know he is a winner. So here is the big debate that I knew would happen at some point, I just didn’t realize it would be so early on in the season. The way I see it, DJ is still the Veteran on this team and Kemba is a rookie, so maybe it’s as simple as that. DJ is the safe option, granted Kemba will make mistakes, but he will learn from them as well. I know many of you are thinking what have we got to lose if Kemba does lose the game due to his inexperience, were not going to make the play offs anyway and potentially losing could help us to get a better pick in this years draft which many people are saying is the key for our long term success.

Although the Bobcats came out on the short end of the stick against the Miami Heat, there really isn’t a whole lot to complain about with tonight’s effort.  The Bobcats rushed out to an early halftime lead behind fantastic play from DJ Augustin and crazy first half numbers from Boris diaw ( 14 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 block at the half ). Boris finished up with a ridiculous 16 points, 16 rebounds and 8 assists. A more skeptical person might think his numbers this season have something to do with it being a contract year for him, but I’m sure it has absolutely, positively nothing to do with… yeah, nothing at all, Really.

After running out to an early 15 point lead, The Bobcats came out sloppy in the second half turning the ball over in three of their first four possessions. After that slow third quarter start, the Heat slowly chipped away at the lead until this finally happened.

Make all the Juwanna Mann jokes that you want to about Chris Bosh, but he brought it hard in the second half and with Wade missing a good chunk of the second half with a sore foot, Bosh was the predominant reason that the Miami Heat snuck out of Charlotte with a win.

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.

That’s right people, The Charlotte Bobcats are a mere 65 wins away from putting together that mythical 66-0 perfect NBA season that the city of Charlotte and the NBA has been buzzing about. Who gives half a crap about that funky little 16-0 that the Green Bay Packers were working on in the NFL this season, when you have a team like our Bobcats on the verge of such a legendary season… Um, yeah.

There were plenty of heroes in tonight’s game versus the Milwaukee Bucks.

• For starters we had our point-center-pseudo-smallforward or whatever the hell he is Boris Diaw playing all over the court and racking up a near triple double. Boris had 9 points, 11 rebounds, 9 assists and 2 blocked shots for good measure (my fantasy team humbly thanks you).

In the last two seasons of NBA basketball we have witnessed an incredible amount of hype and media attention surrounding the league’s superstars, including LeBron, Howard, Nowitzki, Melo and so on. It seems that a championship recipe these days involves two or three superstars and one full roster of washed up veterans for minimum wages, and it’s done. To some extent, it gets you almost all the way. We all saw the Heat fail to win a championship last year with a roster that included Chris Bosh, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, arguably one of the most overpowered big three’s in the history of basketball. At least it should be, and remember, when KG, Allen and Pierce got together, they were past their prime and these guys are just entering theirs. So while all eyes are on Dwight Howard, CP3, and the extremely over-hyped FA pool, I look the other way, knowing I won’t be blinded by this hysteria.