All right, just like Sean May and Adam Morrison, my car’s back to near-functionality, and I’m ready to talk Bobcats basketball! But one thing before I do: you want to know an interesting conversation to overhear? An insurance company rep haggling with an auto-mechanic. This is what happened after I took my broken-in car to the nearest shop for repairs. The insurance company miraculously agreed to pay for the damages, so I put them on the line with (not kidding) Vinny from Brooklyn Auto-Glass to discuss an estimate. What followed was a Federer/Nadal-like virtuosic dual between two of the most bloodthirsty rivals anywhere. It was spectacular, really: two warriors at the top of their game, just going all-out in an epic showdown. Advantages were gained and lost. Several times when it looked like one of them had broken the other’s will, he would summon everything he had for a stirring comeback. And when Vinny finally hung up the phone (in a tough but fair fight, he was able to secure payment for the broken window, but alas, the insurance company wanted me to take the car somewhere else for a new radio), I nearly stood up and applauded the superhuman efforts of both competitors. It was almost worth the robbery.

Anyway, let’s talk Summer League…and that’s about all we can do, because we certainly can’t watch Summer League. If you haven’t tried to stream the games on NBA.com, don’t bother. Unless you’re writing a thesis for some goofball New Age journalism class about the “Importance of Broadcasters on Sports and Society” or something, it’s pointless (and if you ARE, you’re wasting your money—either drop the class and take physics or do something even more practical: sleep in). For these downloads, the screen is tiny and cannot expand, there’s no audio, and there’s no graphics—save for an illegible little “scoreboard” that hovers over the unrecognizable players like the ghost of a 1983 Speak’N’Spell.

(Side note: Is it me or is the NBA really dropping the ball when it comes to internet/podcast platforms? I don’t even like baseball, and yet I get more baseball podcasts even during their offseason than I do at the height of the NBA playoffs. And the League’s actually regressed in this area—last year you could occasionally download the NBA Fantasy show and random clips of their XM-radio broadcasts; this year there was nothing other than The Basketball Jones, MSR, and Chad Ford talking about a) the draft, or b) Joe Dumars—although to be fair, at least when the playoffs rolled around, Ford switched the subject to…Joe Dumars’ draft picks. And none of this content was NBA-sponsored; it’s totally frustrating…)

So this leaves us relying on second-hand accounts of our team’s progression, especially that of DJ Augustin. This can be problematic, however, given the wildly diverse impressions these games seem to be creating among pundits. Over on ESPN, Maurice Brooks opened his Liveblog by echoing one of the more inexplicable sentiments concerning our pick of Augustin: “I didn’t think Charlotte needed another point guard.” We didn’t need another point guard?? We had Raymond Felton and Earl Boykins (who we’re probably not keeping)–that’s it!! By my count, that’s only about a point guard-and-a-half. Meanwhile, we’ve got about 8 swingmen and 4 seven-footers who can’t rebound. We needed a point guard like John McCain needs sun-block, and this made me immediately suspicious of any more reports by Brooks.

On the other hand, the Charlotte Observer’s normally even-keeled Rick Bonnell has lately been leaning to the Matt Devlin/cornball-optimistic side, which hasn’t exactly reassured me of his objectivity. From a purely statistical standpoint, I’d say Augustin’s debut has been conservatively decent: 14 points and 2 assists in Game 1 vs. the Clips, 15 points and 2 assists (plus 5 turnovers) in Game 2 vs. the Hornets. Yet he’s “shined” and is “standing tall,” according to Bonnell’s recaps, leading Bonnell to conclude that, hey, “maybe size doesn’t matter.” Maybe not, Rick, but you might want to cut down on all the Pixar movies before you watch these games, especially after your syrupy, coming-of-age piece on Alexis Ajinka in the Sunday column that could’ve doubled as the script to the next American Tail cartoon.

(Side note 2: In that article, Bonnell writes that it wasn’t until Ajinka was 12 years old that a cousin told him he might want to consider taking up basketball. I ask you, how could that be? Presumably, Ajinka was already well over 6 feet at the time and a great athlete, so did he really need a cousin to point out to him that he may have a future in basketball? Had it really never occurred to Ajinka (or at least his parents) sometime before? I don’t mean to single out Ajinka on this either, because it seems like I’ve read this line a lot when it comes to basketball players who were reportedly “late-bloomers,” and I’m always skeptical. Either these guys are disturbingly un-self-aware, or the writers of the articles are embellishing things a tad. I don’t know about you, but we had a kid who was almost 6-feet tall in the second grade, and not a day passed without at least one person (including the teacher) “helpfully” pointing out to him that he should be a pro basketball player someday.)

Anyway, as if there weren’t enough angst already surrounding the rookies, Emeka Okafor’s contract/possible departure to the Clippers, Morrison’s and May’s injuries, and Larry Brown’s impact, Bonnell was also busily debunking trade rumors. Gerald Wallace and May for Carlos Boozer is NOT happening, folks, nothing to see here. Phew! Okay, great. Nothing like squashing rumors I didn’t even know existed…We need the regular season to come back soon—if nothing else, it’s easier to follow…

Forgive me, O Spirit of Matt Devlin, for I have sinned: I didn’t watch the Miami-Charlotte game on Saturday.  I have no excuse, either.  It was on, I was home, but I just couldn’t do it.  And to be honest, I don’t know how much I’ll watch of the remainder of the season, given that much of it will take place on the West Coast, and therefore it won’t start until around the same time Cinemax begins airing episodes of The Pleasure Zone and Kinky Kong.  In my defense, I did watch basketball, but it was the Hawks-Magic game, as well as the Nets-Sixers, the Celtics-Hornets, and the Rockets-Suns.  The difference between these games and our match-up with Miami is that in the first group, both teams had a vested interest in winning (although in the case of the Nets, I can’t actually prove this).    
 
This brings us to the unavoidable fact that the meaningful part of the season is over.  Do I believe in miracles?  No, and I don’t believe in Peter Pan, Frankenstein, or Superman.  We’re not making the playoffs, and we’re a bad team worsened further by poor management; this season’s lost.  And thus my other defense for consciously avoiding this game is that it would be difficult to prove that either team was even trying to win.  If you’re a boxing fan, you wouldn’t watch a bout in which one of the fighters was credibly rumored to be throwing the match; how unwatchable would it be if both fighters were trying to take a fall? 
 
And in Miami’s case, it’s more than just a credible rumor.  Half the team didn't dress and the coach was gone.  How can I be blamed for not watching the Heat play when their own coach isn’t watching?  I’m surprised there hasn’t been more made of this.  Remember how much flack the Celtics took last year for tanking the season?  At least Doc Rivers was there (or, more precisely, “physically present”) for the games.  Nevertheless, Boston’s purposeful losing invoked harsh indictments, ethical debates, and endless navel gazing.  Yet in the Heat’s case it’s treated as something of a joke (also, are they making Pat Riley prove that he’s scouting NCAA games?  I haven’t seen him in the crowds.  If I were the Heat owner, you better believe I’d be making Riles show me some receipts).  I’m not sure why there’s this double-standard; maybe it’s something about the cities.  Things from Boston have always been regarded more seriously than those from Miami; look at the difference between St. Elsewhere and Miami Vice.  Both were serious 80s dramas, yet which has been more parodied through the years?         
 
There’s also a more general double-standard when it comes to tanking in basketball and football.  Football teams with no chance throw in the towel just as blatantly as basketball teams, but there’s never any stink over it.  If anything, football teams do it more blatantly, because they don’t even have a lottery; their picks are guaranteed.  But just as with performance-enhancing drugs and bad behavior on the part of athletes, football is Teflon when it comes to criticism.    
 
I say this all as an unbiased spectator, by the way.  When it comes to tanking, I don’t believe in doing it, but it’s not for any moral reason; it’s mostly because I don’t think it actually works.  Thus my policy on tanking resembles my policy on acupuncture or buying a copy of The Secret.  If teams that tanked were actually guaranteed high draft picks that would significantly improve them immediately, I’d be all for it.  In the Bobcats case, I’d have probably been advocating them to throw games starting in about December for the past four years.  But we’ve seen time and time again that it doesn’t work, so I’d rather go for the win. 
 
Therefore, I’m happy to see that it looks like we actually did go for the win in Miami–especially since they acquired Shawn Marion.  If there’s any joy to be had this season, it’s in the fact that Shawn Marion is now on a lousy team.  I wish him nothing but professional failure the rest of his career, and I don’t feel bad about it.  This is a man who had it all and still complained his way right out of a great situation, all because he felt unappreciated.  Unappreciated?  The man was a first-round draft pick, was paid the most on the team, made the All-Star team four times, and made countless ESPN, Dime, and Slam magazine covers.  Oh, and he was lovingly given the nickname “The Matrix” by the fans.  Who has a nickname but gets no attention?  How could he have possibly felt unappreciated?  It’s like watching your a dude cheat on his perfect wife and then get dumped, and now Marion is stuck with with the Roseanne Barr of sports teams.

As for the game, it looks like Gerald Wallace is getting back to form.  Ever since he returned, the only thing I’ve seen him do with any intensity is chew his mouthpiece.  At last, on the highlight reels for this game, he was going hard to the hoop.  Coach Sam Vincent was happy to see the old Crash as well.  “He's not settling for the jump shot and he's attacking the rim,” Vincent said after the game.  “He is, in big part, the heart and soul of this team.”  Two things: 1) I hope Vincent is letting Gerald know this, and not just us; 2) not sure if one can be the partial "heart and soul" of something—I think it’s got to be an all or nothing deal.  Either way, I'm glad to see our boys were triumphant, even if I didn't see it.    

The Bobcats went 1-for-2 against the West this weekend, as well as 1-for-2 in uniforms.  Saturday night was “NASCAR Night” at Bobcats Arena, a promotion that makes no more sense to me now than it did last year.  It’s pretty hard to come up with a smaller cross-section than “Bobcats/NASCAR” fans—it’d be like Mike Huckabee suddenly trying to appeal to his “Hispanic/Jewish” contingent—yet not only do we hold a NASCAR Night, we even unleash some ridiculous “checkered flag”-style uniforms.  Unbelievable.  I’m assuming NASCAR doesn’t have a “Bobcats 400” race, so I have no idea what’s in this for us.  The ultimate irony is that NASCAR drivers famously dress in nothing but corporate logos, and we’re, like, the ONLY team who can’t sell their arena’s naming rights to any businesses.  Perhaps we could be the “NASCAR Arena”?
 
Regardless, the team ran cold-and-then-hot in the back-to-back games.  New Orleans crushed us on Friday—it seemed like we were out of this from the time the plane touched down.  Other than the plane landing, the second quarter was the turning point, as the Hornets shot 65% and we shot…well, let’s just say it was less than or equal to 65%.  The ending of the half was particularly gory, as we went 1-for-8 to fall behind by 19.  The domination was so thorough that after the game Hornets coach Byron Scott sounded like a Third World dictator who’d just squashed a coup attempt by leftist rebels.  “When you have your foot on their neck,” Scott told reporters, “don't let them up. Smash them down. It might sound kind of cruel but you've got to have that.”  Scott then announced that he was temporarily suspending the Hornets’ team constitution and imposing martial law.   
 
Gee, why can’t our coach sound like that?  Did you hear Coach Vincent after the Pistons’ game with the bogus offensive basket interference?  “I'm sure we're going to contact the league,” Vincent said. “We'd like to do what Miami did and play the last minute over again, also. I believe it would be justified.”  C’mon, coach, get aggressive!  You think Winston Churchill would have “liked” for the Brits to never surrender in WWII?  Was Martin Luther King “pretty sure” he had a dream?  Did Public Enemy “believe it would be justified” to fight the power?  Where’s the rage?! 
 
Anyway, the only other thing remotely interesting about this lopsided blowout was former Bobcat Melvin Ely, who was sporting a protective mask straight out of V For Vendetta—either that or he was headed to an Eyes Wide Shut-style orgy party afterward. Otherwise, it was Tyson Chandler and David West making our front court look stupid.  Chandler needs to come up with a nickname for himself, because he’s long and strikes out of nowhere—how about “the Mamba,” or is that already taken?  The same could be said for West, who has no moves to speak of, but just sticks it in the hole (how about the “Inexperienced Male Prostitute” as a nickname then?).  And then there’s Chris Paul, who only needed to play 30 minutes and still finished with 13 assists.  Add that up with Peja Stojakovic going 5-for-7 from long range and it was a 3-quarter game for both teams’ starters.
 
Saturday against Memphis was considerably better.  We shot 81% in the third quarter, which apparently broke the team record…Hmmm, does that mean the existing record was 80%?  When the hell did we ever shoot 80% in a quarter before?  I'd have thought just shooting 61% in a quarter would be an all-time high.  Anyway, Jason Richardson knew when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em, scoring 38 and going 6-for-10 from downtown and grabbing a completely-out-of-character 14 rebounds. 

J-Rich's performance was topped only by Gerald Wallace’s 28 points, 7 rebounds, and 7 steals.  One of the many annoyances of never getting broadcasts called by our announcers is that I always have to listen to other teams’ commentators bringing their viewers up-to-date on the Bobcats.  It’s good that they do that for their audience and all, but considering the season we’ve had, it’s painful to be told most of this stuff again and again as if I’m hearing it for the first time.  For instance, at some point the camera will inevitably show Sean May and Adam Morrison in street clothes, so of course they’ll talk about their “devastating injuries” and how they’re now out for the season.  Or I’ll have to hear about how we recently acquired Nazr Mohammed, who at least one of the commentators usually feels is probably over-priced, etc. etc.  This must be how all of the characters in the movie Memento felt as Leonard told them things he thought he was saying for the first time, only it was like the hundredth time.  But anyway, the one sequence I never mind rehashing is Wallace dunking, stealing the opposing team’s pass, and dunking again, followed by one of the announcers saying, “Wallace is all over the court tonight, (Jim, Dave, Red, Tommy).”
 
Even Coach Vincent had no shortage of praise for Richardson and Wallace.  “I think they've gotten to the point,” he said afterward, “where they're comfortable in their coexistence. They know they're both scorers and they're both going to get shots. I think our nucleus is starting to feel comfortable around them as well."  Actually, Coach Vincent had a surplus of praise.  His comments really make me want to get out the red marker.  Oh, what the heck, I have tomorrow off:
 
"I think they've gotten to the point where t They're comfortable in their coexistence. They know t They're both scorers and they're both going to get shots.  I think o Our nucleus is starting to feels comfortable around them as well."
 
Ah, that felt good!  My thanks to the aforementioned King!

The headline in today’s Charlotte Observer read “2nd-Half Meltdown Gives Familiar Look to 7th Loss in 8 Games.”  Actually, whoever wrote that was not being entirely accurate, unless they meant the “2nd-half of the last half of the fourth quarter.”  We had a 7-point lead with three minutes to go and the ball.  As Mike once strategized in Dazed and Confused, all we had to do was "get one or two shots in there, play defense, and wait."  The Bucks didn’t have Michael Redd, neither of these teams is going anywhere, and I’m sure everyone wanted to get to the locker room to find out what happened with NFL Wild Card games.  This sucker was done! 
 
Instead, Okafor made an incredibly stupid foul on the lumbering-but-really-slow Andrew Bogut, who made both the field goal and the foul shot.  Then Gerald Wallace began cranking out turnovers like they were Police Academy movies.  Wallace lost the ball in just thirteen seconds for a breakaway Mo Williams layup, then did it again a minute later, and yet again a minute later.  If only he’d stopped at Turnover 4: Citizens on Patrol, but instead he continued it all the way out to Turnover 8 (Mission to Moscow?)!!  We ended up making only one more field goal in that last three minutes to complete a loss so terrible I really thought one of my apartment neighbors was going to call the cops—so pronounced was my screaming.
 
This latest string of collapses has something of a Wile E. Coyote feel to it.  Remember poor Wile?  He would always come up with some contraption, usually involving some sort of rocket pack.  He’d get on the thing, launch off, and there’d be an adjustment period in which he’d struggle to get control of it.  Then, once he got it down, he’d get a kind of confident look on his face, and then he would always, ALWAYS look right at the camera and sort of smile like, “hey, I think I’m finally on the right track,” and that’s EXACTLY when you knew he was about to smash right into the side of a cliff.  This is how it’s been with us during this streak of blown leads.  Whether it’s the second, third, or fourth quarter, we get off to a shaky start, and then pull even, and then take a nice lead, usually into the double-digits.  And then either us or the opponents call for a timeout, and as the telecast goes to commercial, the last thing you see is one of our guys (Hollins, McInnis, etc.), looking into the camera and sort of smiling…    
 
If there was any consolation to these latest two symphonies of destruction, it’s that the Nets and Bucks announcers were pleasantly vanilla.  The Bucks announcers were also of the ludicrously optimistic sort.  Early on one of them actually said something about this game being crucial for both teams’ playoff chances (ha!), and later on the other said—and this was great—“Some nights, two struggling teams can put on a great show.  This is one of those nights.”  I damned near fell out of my chair laughing at this bit of poetry, because at the time it was midway through the 4th quarter and the score was only 78-74, not to mention the Arena was so empty it was some stray dogs and barbed wire fences away from resembling a Cold War-era, East European ghetto.                 
 
More bittersweetness: after the loss to the Nets on Friday, I flipped over to the Hornets-Warriors game.  In sharp contrast to our finishes, you should have seen Chris Paul close this thing out.  He was Mo Rivera.  With eight minutes to go, the Hornets clinging to a six-point lead, and on the road at the deadly Oracle, CP3 just took control.  Commanding every possession, he hit two runners in a row, assisted Chandler on a FG-and-one, assisted Mo-Pete on two treys in a row, then hit two jumpers in a row, and capped it off by dropping in a layup-and-one.  Even though the Warriors answered on just about every one of their possessions, Paul had stretched the lead out to 18 at that point, with just a minute to play.  11 points, 3 assists, no turnovers, drive home safely.  I go from that to watching Jeff McInnis bringing it up for us in crucial spots last night…Jay's right: when you're used to filet mignon, it's kinda hard going back to Hamburger Helper.          

Whew!  Sorry it’s been so long since I wasted your time with yet another pointless column, but I’ve been busier than Digital Underground rappers in a Burger King bathroom.  First it was entertaining the in-laws, who were visiting the Big Apple for the very first time.  We showed them around all the usual places, and you just can’t imagine how much fun we had.  It was so much fun that I enjoyed those precious few minutes I wasn’t stuck in some mobbed tourist trap by holding a gun to my head and talking myself out of pulling the trigger.  Once we finally got them on a flight back home with “I (heart) New York” merchandise bursting merrily out of their luggage, I then had to prepare my wife for her first day of working for PETA, where she’s about to start a rewarding career bombing fur farms and setting fire to Wilson’s Leather outlets.  All of this yule-tide activity has left me with no time to write and stretched thinner than Johnny Depp’s singing voice in Sweeney Todd.
 
Or maybe I should say “thinner than the Bobcats’ bench.”  My oh my, since the Knicks victory, we’ve gone one-and-five, and once promising guys like Jared Dudley and Ryan Hollins are now distant memories, like the movie Lions for Lambs.  The only notable sub recently has been Matt Carroll, and only in the sense that he’s been terrible.  Even the Nazr Mohammed parade has been thoroughly peed on.  In their “Are You For Real?” column on ESPN.com, Guy Lake and Brian McKitish both took turns bashing him—it was like the final scene in Death Proof.  Darn it, I’d been so pleased with Nazr too.  I mean, no one’s going to confuse him with Hakeem Olajuwon, but no one’s going to confuse him Primoz Brezec either—and that was the whole point.  Apparently, though, Mohammed has a history of starting fast with new teams before regressing severely, at least according to Lake and McKitish.  And all I can do on that one is tip my cap to them, because quite honestly I haven’t followed Nazr’s career that closely.  And if they’re right, I appreciate the warning.
 
If there’s been any bright spot, it’s Jason Richardson, who’s finally been playing up to his contract.  In the last 5 games, he’s put up 28.8 points on 51% shooting.  But even with him it’s not all rosy and cheerful little Juno-style acoustic songs: the dude’s only hitting 66% of his free-throws this year.  And worse: his career free-throw percentage is just 69%.  You know what?  I somehow feel personally responsible for this, because I had no idea the dude couldn’t shoot foul shots.  When I learned we were getting J-Rich, I knew that the guy was a gunner, and so I just naturally assumed he could both get to and score from the foul line.  It didn’t even occur to me to look.  I wish I had, because I would have said something.  Now I feel like I bought some used car that I thought was good until I realized that it had no heater or air conditioning.  Oh well, like Kanye said, everything he’s not makes him everything he is, right?  And that would be an $11 million scorer who can’t shoot free throws.  He’s basically the basketball equivalent of Pedro Cerrano. 
 
Similarly, Ryan Hollins…oy vey.  Do you realize the guy’s 7 feet tall and can’t rebound?  How did this one slip through the cracks?  Once again, this one's on me, because I didn’t notice it myself until the Hornets game, when I saw everyone from David West to Chris Paul jumping over, around, and through him to clean the boards.  Often the ball would bounce directly to him and he STILL couldn’t come down with it.  Even Primoz would at least get a hand on it and lose it out of bounds, but with Hollins it’s like his arms disappear entirely.  Puzzled, I looked at the stats, and there it was: 2 rebounds per.  And then I looked at John Hollinger’s profile of him, and sure enough: “non-factor on the boards.”  Wasn’t there some highly scientific study done last year about how the one skill that transfers the most consistently from college to the NBA is rebounding?  I’d pull up Hollins’ UCLA stats, but to tell you the truth, I’m too afraid.  But the point is, did anyone on the staff bother to check this before we drafted him?     
 
Add all this to Raymond Felton’s 5.5 assists-per-game and 39% shooting for the month of December, and you’re going to get exactly what we got: depressing beat downs by the likes of the Bucks, Magic, Hornets, etc.  In the Magic game, I actually spent most of the game debating whether the correct phrase is "steamrolled" or "steamrolled over," as in, "Orlando steamrolled (over) us."  I'm still not sure.  But anyway, all of it’s made even more dreary when you consider these losses are mostly at home and with no significant injuries to our roster.  Opponents are shooting 46.5% on us, fourth-worst in the league.  And when they miss, they’re averaging 12 offensive boards a game—tied for 7th worst in the league.  Forget playing us like a violin, they’re playing us like Guitar Legend by getting open shots and getting second chances.    
 
At least we ended on a bright note by beating the Pacers…except it wasn’t on League Pass, which makes us 4-0 on games not televised in the NYC-area.  Yay.  I’m so bummed out I’m practically jealous of the Knicks right now: at least lots of people CARE that they suck.  We’re like Kenya to their Pakistan.  How could I feel any worse right now?  Wait—honey, the in-laws are back home, right?    

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