All I can say is, thank god for the Raptors and Thunder.  After the Wizards started out the season 0-8, I checked to see when they were scheduled to play the Bobcats and circled it on the calendar—more like “skull-and-crossboned it.”  As most of us probably remember, the Bobcats popped the Nets’ losing streak cherry back in the 2009-10 season after New Jersey started out 0-18.  It’s not an embarrassment I was particularly interested in revisiting, especially when I have a group of co-workers who know I like the Bobcats, and who think of the NBA in general as a bunch of lazy thugs, who—when they are not brawling with fans—are busy choking their coaches.  I only hear from these guys when the Bobcats and/or the NBA does something stupid (thus I hear from them more often than I’d like), and I’d frankly rather have my prostate examined while renewing my driver’s license at the DMV.  Fortunately, the Wizards had already gotten their first win out of the way, so Wednesday night’s game was nothing more than an insignificant, humiliating meltdown.

What a relief, because those remaining Bobcats fans who hadn’t committed suicide by intermission might have noticed that Coach Paul Silas opted not to go with a center to start the second half.  Considering our backcourt consisted of Kemba Walker and Matt Carroll, this was a strategy that was just crazy enough to…fail spectacularly.  The lowlight had to have been Boris Diaw’s inexcusable failure to box out Rashard Lewis on Andray Blatche’s missed 32-foot hail-mary attempt to beat the shot clock.  I’m totally befuddled why Gana Diop didn’t play more than 11 minutes—I know he’s out of shape, but has anyone taken a look at Blatche lately?  Blatche keeps in game shape about as well as he solicits prostitutes, so I’m unclear why Silas decided to double-down on a tiny lineup.

During a solid 2009-10 season for the Bobcats, we had our first All-Star in Gerald Wallace, we had our first winning record, and we had our first playoffs birth.  With all of that momentum, great things were expected for the future.  Then things fell apart.

Before the 2010-11 season even began, Raymond Felton left in free agency and Tyson Chandler was traded for dust and bad contracts.  Then Larry Brown finally weaseled his way out of town after a poor start.  Gerald Henderson, Tyrus Thomas, and Gana Diop were hobbled with injuries, and fan favorite Gerald Wallace was traded to Portland.  The season ended with a 34-48 record and no discernible direction as a franchise.

And just like that, we began our rebuild.

While my colleague James has been writing about interesting free agents (read his post!) I am going to discuss the future of this team as the Bobcats management obviously has started a rebuilding (again) of the franchise. Now in my eyes there are only a few things that can be done at this point thinking ahead. Let me explain. The rebuilding started by trading our only All-star in franchise history to the blazers (Gerald Wallace), and next the only good scorer on our team (Stephen Jackson) to the Bucks to move up in the draft, where we drafted Bismack Biyombo (7^th), and Kemba Walker (9^th). Our roster now contains two top 10 draft picks, including young talented guards D.J. Augustin and Gerald Henderson, young talented forwards Tyrus Thomas, Dante Cunningham (if resigned which seems to be in the plans) and D.J. White, together with veteran forwards Corey Maggette and Boris Diaw and a Center named Kwame Brown (unless someone steals him). There are more players on the roster yes, but not worth mentioning.  So let’s look at our options.

The Road to the 1^st Round.

How:

While I was watching the playoffs this weekend, I found it fascinating how many former Charlotte Bobcats that there were playing a significant role in this year’s playoffs. Since our squad isn’t going to play another relevant game until November-ish, I thought that it would be fun to follow along with some of our former Bobcats brethren in their journey through the playoffs.

First up G-G-G-G-Gerald Wallace ( that brought back memories didn’t it ). In the last few weeks of the regular season Gerald Wallace had been absolutely killing it, even managing a 40 point outburst against the OKC Thunder. Unfortunately for Crash, those good times didn’t carry over into Saturday’s game against the Dallas Mavericks. In that game Crash played 38 minutes but only produced 8 points, 5 rebounds, 3 steals. On the bad side of the ledger he had 3 turnovers and had his shot blocked 4 times.

The culprit of a few of those blocks was another former Cat, Tyson Chandler. I’m sure that most of you remember that there are two things that Tyson does well and that’s rebounding and playing defense…. When he isn’t in a walking boot. Saturday versus the Blazers he had a typical Chandleresque stat line. 4 points, 9 rebounds and 2 blocked shots.

BobcatsPlanet Radio #204

Steven and TJ discuss all the latest happenings since the last show, including the dismissal of Larry Brown and subsequent hiring of Paul Silas, the trade of Gerald Wallace, and the playoff push. Taped 3/13/11.

Apparently getting embarrassed in Orlando, Denver and Los Angeles wasn’t enough. The Charlotte Bobcats, missing captain Stephen Jackson, made it a perfect 4-for-4 of disgrace on their road trip, being trampled by the Portland Trail Blazers 93-69. Gerald Henderson led the Bobcats with 16 points, and that’s all you need to say to know it was a bad night.