I find the start to this season to be not just surprising but unfathomable.  Last month if you had told me that the Bobcats would start the season 4-3 with a three-game winning streak, I would have assumed it was a sick joke.  Incidentally, this also would have been my response if you’d told me they were remaking Red Dawn.  But both events are now happening, and given their improbability, I’m worried that it’s more than a coincidence.  What if our world and that of Red Dawn are now fusing?  I half expect to look out my office window and see parachuting Russian, Cuban, and Nicaraguan soldiers in vaguely racist dark skin paint hit the ground and gun down my boss while he’s giving me a lesson on Genghis Khan.  Fortunately, if this happens, I’ll know just what to do: load up my car full of Coke, get used to the taste of deer blood, and put the fate of the free world in the hands of Charlie Sheen.

On the other hand, I certainly don’t expect this to last, because circumstances have been hugely favorable to the Bobcats lately.  Starting with injuries: the Mavericks were without Dirk Nowitzki and Shawn Marion, the Wizards were without John Wall and Nene, and the Timberwolves…well, there have been healthier teams emerging from plane crashes.  Beyond the fortunate injury rashes, other strange stuff has been happening.  For the season, Charlotte is ranked 24^th in opponent 3-Pt %, but for the last 3 games they’ve been 4^th.  And I am here to tell you it is NOT because they’ve done a better job closing out the other teams’ shooters.  Troy Murphy and his mid-80s feathered haircut were so wide open that he could have built a time machine and transported himself back to the set of Bryan Adams’s video for “Run to You.”  Most Washington players, meanwhile, would rather pass a kidney stone than the ball, resulting in a 5-for-31 three-point chuck-fest.  As for Minnesota, I think all lines of any kind in that game were simply contaminated.  Both teams shot a combined 9-35 on 3’s and 29-51 on free throws.

  The only one who could play any defense on Shannon Brown on Wednesday night was Charlotte Observer beat reporter Rick Bonnell.  Bonnell limited the Suns’ Brown to just 4 3-pointers in his write-up of the Bobcats’ loss to Phoenix.  The only problem is that in reality, Brown actually scored six 3-pointers, all of them in the 4^th quarter (but close enough, Rick).  Each of those 3’s was a testicle-puncturing dagger in the scrotum of Charlotte’s comeback attempt, leaving Bobcats fans to wonder why Brown never did anything like that when he was on our team.  Hell, Lakers fans are probably wondering where that kind of production was when Brown was on their team.  In fact, Albuquerque Thunderbirds fans are probably wondering why he couldn’t have done that when he was on their team.  This is a guy who historically only averages about two 3-point attempts per game, so how he suddenly developed Reggie Miller changeling powers is anyone’s guess.

Brown’s explosion didn’t bring about the torture of watching this game, it merely altered it.  Prior to his barrage, the Bobcats had dug themselves a 14-point grave, due to some truly wretched defense down low.  The first half featured a parade of Luis Scola and Gorin Dragic making more back door runs than Richard Gere in American Gigolo.  Byron Mullens summed it up beautifully: “They got a lot of easy baskets on us. Gortat and Luis Scola just cut down the middle in front of my face.”  Actually, Mullens summed it up terribly, because I’m not sure if that line makes any sense.  But I know what he meant, because the slide help was just horrendous.

Tyrus Thomas left in the second half of the Dallas Mavericks game because he became ill.  So did most Bobcats fans.  A fairly competitive back-and-forth first half turned rancid with a 36-point Dallas 3^rd quarter.  As the defense folded like origami in the second half, Charlotte fans were treated to all sorts of indignities—Mark Cuban trash-talk, OJ Mayo taunts, and most humiliating of all, Vince Carter revitalization.  The latter actually started in the first quarter, when Bismack Biyombo became the first player to get posterized on a thunderous dunk by Vinsanity since Fred Hoiberg.  Then in the second quarter, the game actually came to a standstill when Carter blocked—blocked!—a Kemba Walker jumper; the crowd was so overwhelmed with shock and affection that for a half-second I honestly thought Vince was going to retire on the spot.

But the game really belonged to PG Darren Collison (8-12 with 10 assists).  The Bobcats had no answer for him.  Well, they did, but unfortunately the answer was, “Do whatever you want, because we’re powerless to stop you.”  Because of Collison’s mastery, Chris Kaman (8-9 FG), Carter (4-8 3-pointers) and especially Mayo (7-10 3-pointers) had more open looks than the shower scene in Porky’s.   Brendan Haywood incorrectly diagnosed the Bobcats’ handling of the transition as their fatal flaw.  But the Bobcats only had 10 turnovers, only allowed 16 fast break points, and only gave up 50 points in the paint.  Nobody’s going to write a sonnet about that kind of performance for sure, but Haywood was undervaluing Collison’s level of craftsmanship.

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.

I’ll give you three guesses, but if you need more than one then you must not follow the NBA or watch FOX on Sundays (or any other day thanks to syndication; love them reruns). What’s the answer? Easy—

Low expectations.

Whether you are the optimistic or pessimistic type it is kind of hard not to agree with that. Coming into this season it was pretty easy to see that this season was likely going to be a rough one for the guys. While all the young talent is something to be excited and encouraged about, the team has no definitive leader or focal point.

The good thing is that in time a leader can develop. The problem is going to be in figuring out whom it will be and how long will it take for him to step up. Hence the theme of the post—low expectations (go ahead comedians let me have it).

I would not want to do this often, and I’m glad it is happening in a strike shortened season, but I don’t mind having a year like this. It may sound crazy, but hear me out a little.

Well, that’s 14 straight. 14 consecutive beatdowns that we’ve suffered against the Dallas Mavericks, 14 straight L’s against this squad. What is it about the Mavs that completely baffles the Bobcats? Is it Dirk? Admittedly Dirk is a great player and a fairly awesome name. Who wouldn’t want to name their son Dirk?

Maybe it’s Jason Kidd. He is after all one of the greatest point guards in the history of the game and on top of that he has the the genetics that can produce an 8 year old son that is capable of growing a moustache… Someone like that is certainly a man to be feared.