“We kind of know that OKC is a test for us, we failed it miserably,” coach Dunlap said after the Bobcats were beaten by a number so huge that it needed to be written in scientific notation.  He’s right about Charlotte failing miserably.  This was their first test against a traditional powerhouse, and it went about as well as the first test of Ed 209 in Robocop.  In a 114-69 obliteration, the Oklahoma City Thunder played the role of Ndamukong Suh and the Bobcats played the role of Matt Schaub’s groin.  Other than OKC fans, the only people happier after this experience have to be the Baha Men, thanks to OKC’s relentless playing of “Who Let the Dogs Out” after every big play by the Thunder.

Of course, going into the game I wasn’t hoping for much; my Low Expectations Oven had been pre-heated to 400°.  I knew Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook were going to be completely overwhelming, but I expected the Cats to be no more than “whelmed” by the rest of the Thunder.  Instead, Thabo Sefolosha dropped bombs on your moms, going 4-8 on 3-pointers.  And there’s no way on earth that the Thunder had only 7 blocks, I don’t care what the stat sheet says.  Serge Ibaka had to have had that many swats alone, and trying to finish off a drive in the Thunder’s paint was like playing a carnival game; it was damned near impossible to finish anything.  Hasheem Thabeet, looking like he’d just gotten out of bed/electrocuted, finished 5-6 and had a double-double.  The Thunder were off and rolling to an easy victory nearly immediately, and not even Haruki Nakamura could have interfered.

Perhaps I was hyping up this solid start to the season for the Bobcats a bit too much. Then again, maybe we can chalk Charlotte’s latest loss up to a poor shooting night and the fact that they were facing one of the top teams in the entire league.

Or maybe we should take Monday night’s 114-69 thrashing by the hands of the Oklahoma City Thunder for what it is: a much better team handling an inferior team.

I’d like to say Charlotte gave a valiant effort and simply came up short on Monday night, but that’s simply not true. The Thunder rocked the Bobcats in every way imaginable. And this wasn’t just a bad shooting night. For a while, it was bad on an epic level. Early on, fans were scraping their jaws off the ground when the Thunder were rocking Charlotte by a score of 82-29. Obviously the game was over before it even began when you start looking at the first quarter, but this wasn’t just a bad game – it was an embarrassment.

Still, the Bobcats are 7-6, and fell to an 11-4 team that was in the NBA Finals last year. Some good can come of this. And overall, we learned quite a few things.

In a whipsaw three-day period, the Bobcats got a taste of arguably the NBA’s best and worst teams.  The results were predictable: against the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Bobcats had fewer answers than a Sarah Palin interview and were blown out in a disaster that left fans drooling and cross-eyed.  Then against the Hornets on Monday, the Bobcats won by failing less than their even more wretched opponents (they also did the impossible by making me pity somebody else’s team).

The Thunder are (is?) the class of the league, in my opinion.  Analyzing why the Bobcats lost to them is like understanding why a meth addict gets burned when he sticks his face in a blowtorch.  The Bobcats were completely overpowered.  In fact, I don’t think a single member of the Bobcats could start for this team, unless MAYBE you take Gerald Henderson over Daequon Cook.  But then again, the only reason Cook starts is so that super-sub James Harden can come in off the bench and do things like score 33 points in 16 shots while your team tries to cover him with everyone from Kemba Walker to DJ Brown to oil slick to smoke screen.  Harden is not only an easy 6^th man of the year, he also tops my list of Players with Names That Sound Like Past Presidents:

1. James Harden
2. Roger Mason
3. Richard Hamilton
4. Stephen Jackson
5. Richard Jefferson

Brent Wojahn/The Oregonian

Here in our Bobcatsplanet Forums we’ve come up with a term for all of the losing that the players and fan base have had to suffer through this season. We have given this painful process the title of  The Cho Objective. Now we didn’t give it this name out of anger or in a ‘Lets run Rich Cho out of town’ mentality, This title is actually named out of respect for what Rich Cho is doing…

Yep, you heard me right. The Bobcats are planted firmly at the bottom of the league’s standings yet we as fans are very happy with what he has done, And this is why. As an organization in a small to mid-sized market in today’s NBA, moving players that will not be a part of your long term plans ( like Gerald Wallace or Stephen Jackson ) for draft picks is the right thing to do. If you look at it from a long term perspective, moving a player that won’t be helping your team 3 to 4 years down the road for additional spots in the draft is like getting Free Picks.

Rich Cho understands all of this perfectly. He realizes that the NBA of today that unless you’re the Knicks, Heat or Lakers then you have to get decidedly worse before you have any chance at all of getting better. Small to mid-sized markets like Charlotte will never get their hands on the type of game changing free agent that can single-handedly turn around a team’s fortunes. It simply will never happen. Rich Cho realizes that having a mediocre team and pinning your hopes on nabbing that free-agent savior to push you to that mystical next level is a fantasy.

That sound that you are hearing is our playoff hopes slowly slipping away. Last night’s loss to the OKC Thunder combined with an Indiana Pacers win against the Chicago Bulls drops the Cats to 9th in the Eastern conference, 1.5 games behind the Pacers. To make matters even worse the Pacers also hold the tiebreaker against us and if you’re the type of person to look in your rear-view mirror the Milwaukee Bucks also won last night which allowed them to creep to 1 game behind us.

Who is with me on this?

Sure Boris can have that one game each month that makes you realize that if he consistently put his mind to it he could easily be an all-star caliber power forward. Unfortunately the rest of the month is normally a painful series of frustrating passed up open shots, lackadaisical motivation,lack of physicality and general indifference.

Enter DJ White. Up until last week, DJ’s NBA career has been one long DNP-CD with a spectacular view from the Thunder’s bench. Fortunately for him he was moved to the Bobcats in a deadline day trade. In his short time with the ‘Cats, he has shown that he can rebound, defend, he doesn’t pass up open shots and he is willing to give a hard foul when a hard foul is needed. He fits the Silas/Oakley vision of a power forward far more than Boris. The legitimacy of the Gerald Wallace to Portland trade may be up for debate, but so far the Nazr for DJ White deal has been a pure win.

The return of  Tyrus Thomas to the lineup gives Paul Silas 2 legitimate PFs to work with that are willing and able to play his style of ball. Now that Diaw has legit competition, his minutes and role with the team are almost certainly in for a gigantic hit… And with the way that he has been playing, that is perfectly fine by me.

If there is anyone here that thinks Boris still deserves to get the bulk of the power forward minutes over Thomas and White, then I would love for you to comment and explain your rationale to me.