Dr E. over at Bobcats Baseline has an excellent writeup showing how Gerald Henderson has progressed since Larry Brown was fired and replaced by Paul Silas.

Here’s a great example from the January 18th win over the Bulls.  Watch the whole highlight package and note how many times Derrick Rose abuses DJ Augustin. With the Bulls down one with a chance to win at the end, Silas inserts Henderson in the game specifically to check Rose.  Watch Henderson hound Rose on the last play, forcing him out into taking a fading, off-balance, 22-footer that he misses.  Aren’t many people can do this to Derrick Rose:

With the trade deadline approaching, Rumors are running wild. Here are a few interesting ones that you can rattle around your head.

• Gerald Wallace to Houston via SBN
• Vince Carter (half man – half washed up) to the Bobcats
• Bobcats are looking to get away from their financial commitments to Boris Diaw and Stephen Jackson via SI.com
• Ron Artest for either Stephen Jackson or Gerald Wallace via LA Times thanks but NO thanks.

With all of the rumors that are bound to be bounced around over the next few days, be sure to stay tuned to our trade discussion board to get up to the second updates on any potential deals that may be happening in Bobcats-Land.

Kobe Bryant, Phil Jackson and the L.A. Lakers shouldn’t get so upset about this, they should really be used to this by now. It’s been happening for years, No matter how phenomenal the Lakers are or how bad the Bobcats have been at the time, one fact has remained true. The Bobcats own the Lakers.

Why do the Cats have this mystical hold over the Lakers? Who the Hell knows, as fans we just have to enjoy it. It brought joy to my heart to see Kobe grinding his teeth and scowling at his teammates. Watching Phil Jackson have a conniption during each timeout was by itself worth the price of admission.

Although this has happened to the Lakers time and time again against the Bobcats, they were still extremely pissed following this loss.  Lets have a listen to what they had to say after being decimated by the Bobcats… Again.

Looney-Tunes Ron Artest was impressed with 3 things following last night’s game: Nazr Mohammed’s conditioning, Kwame brown’s improvement since leaving Los Angeles and third he was impressed with the smell of his Unbreakable cologne. Take a look.

Pathetic. Poor. Unbecoming. Deplorable. Inferior. Feeble. Miserable. Wretched. Those are some words to describe the New Jersey Nets performance tonight. And they won. So what words describe the Bobcats, who never led? There are none, other than “not again.” For a team trying to make the playoffs, games like tonight cannot happen.

Bobcats vs. Pacers:”Slip Sliding Away” – Bobcats Lose 104-103

I’m not going to bore any reader with negative adjectives describing how poorly the Bobcats played the first three quarters of this game. The ‘Cats did not look like the team that upset the Eastern Conference-leading Boston Celtics  just two nights ago, and they certainly did not look like they were playing a team coming into a back-to-back game after losing to Miami. Representative of that poor play was the under-the-basket-point-blank-shot miss by Gerald Henderson at the end of the third quarter.
The Bobcats started the game scoring the first eight points. Then the Bobcats transition defense decided to disappear for the remainder of the first half. This led to a ten point, 58-48, Pacer half-time lead. Both the Pacers and Bobcats share Head Coaching changes this year. Both teams know their fan base hungers for a play-off appearance, and both teams knew they were facing what is probably their main rival for the eighth and final seed in the Eastern Conference.

Paul Silas debating with a referee in the loss to Miami.

The Miami Heat won a close game last night in Orlando, in which their Captain, Dwayne Wade, suffered a back injury when fouled by Dwight Howard. It wasn’t certain if he’d play as close as an hour before game time. So what’d he do? Oh, nothing, just post his first triple double since 2006. Naturally.

If you’ve been to the arena you’ve seen the huge ring at the bottom of the center video screen advertising LifeLock.  LifeLock is a company that provides identity theft protection, which is certainly important, unless of course, you have no identity.  I thought about that a few weeks ago while I was having one of those “Why aren’t the Bobcats a bigger deal?” conversations with a fellow fan.  This was again thrown in my face, or so I thought, when I went to NBA.com to check the box score.  Check out the video.

I’m sensitive ok?  I thought the man said “To the Hornets in Charlotte.”  I went to NBA.com rather than my usual ESPN.com, see if you can see why.   NO ONE HAS CORRECTED IT!  This tweet by AP beat writer covering the ‘Cats Mike Cranston:  Still happens nightly RT @HawksPRGuy: GAME TIME! #Hawks #Hornets.  When Coach Brown, let’s say left the team, I was watching Dan Patrick’s radio show and they literally had a joke call-in segment to have people name 2 Bobcats players.  His point was that by firing Coach Brown, the ‘Cats were removing the one guy that mattered as far as identity.  Very funny, Bob Costas still owns you.

So worse than the confusion of national and out of town media, the Bobcats have little to no identity on the court.  I have this sense that I never know exactly what we’ll see night in night out.  Look at the final scores:  87, 100, 83, 92, 81, 94, 96.  The leading scorer has been somewhat consistent however, who it is would probably surprise casual fans.  DJ Augustin has been outstanding, truly, and I’m not looking for a diamond in the rough, he’s been a good point guard.  You expect the Bobcats’ leading scorer to be either Stephen Jackson or Gerald Wallace, the all-star from last season.