According to Rick Bonnell, Tyrus Thomas didn’t even join the team on the latest West Coast road trip. I find this stunning, considering that coach Dunlap has shown he’ll still play guys who are willfully insubordinate (Ben Gordon) or who are willfully trying to eat their way onto a future season of The Biggest Loser (DeSagana Diop). As I gaze at Thomas’s image on my cubicle calendar, trapped in 2-D purgatory like Zod, Ursa, and Nod in Superman II, his hand held aloft—in all likelihood acknowledging to referees that he was the one who committed the personal foul—is that a twinge of pity I feel for the man?

Perhaps, but more likely it’s the twinge of my hands on my stomach as I try to suppress my own vomit. The road trip the Bobcats just completed was the worst one I’ve ever seen that didn’t involve Tom Green. How on earth the Bobcats found themselves trailing by 41 to the Sacramento Kings—who it should be noted were playing without the use of cyborgs—is a question I’d pose to Zoltar if I had a wish.

Many of you have probably been asking yourselves, “What has Blogcat been doing all summer?”  Many more of you have probably not been asking yourselves that.  Or if you were, you were probably hoping the answer was, “Getting impregnated by a hideous alien and then watching in horror as the writhing monster fetus is extracted from his belly via a futuristic self-surgery chamber.”

And you wouldn’t be far off!  Because speaking of watching things in horror, what I’ve actually been doing is writing an e-book (entitled–what else?–The Breaks of the Wind) on the 2011-12 Bobcats.  Remember them?  Unless you are one of the lucky few whose health care covers lobotomies, of course you do!  Well, you can now purchase my e-book here for the low, low price of $1.99.  And I promise this isn’t some lame rip-off move in which I just compile a bunch of my old entries.  Nope, I’ve added dozens of curse words, recoils, cringes, dry-heaves, and shudders, all of which are befitting for the NBA season equivalent of a gory exorcism.  Enjoy!

Now it’s on to the next one!  I must admit I’m not optimistic about the Cats this year.  In fact, I’ve been putting off thinking about the 2012-13 season for as long as possible, hoping instead for some kind of divine intervention, such as a rogue planet entering our orbit and colliding with Earth, rendering the entire human race extinct, and leaving NBA commissioner David Stern with no choice but to lock out the players again.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like that’s happening, and now I’ve got to accept that there will be a season.  Therefore, it’s time to do some previewing and predictions.

Some of you may have read part 1 of mine and Christian “Bodin” Norway’s Q & A session earlier in the week. However, the response was great the only way we could answer all the question in the detail they deserve was to split the article in two, so here it is. Part 2.

1) Isguros: What’s your opinion about not re-signing Derrick Brown, was it to clear cap space in order to sign a big free agent or do the bobcats think Jeff Taylor will be a better player this season?

James Plowright:  One thing Cho has repeatedly emphasized is he wants is flexibility, this is why he was rescinded rather than going for a big FA signing. I think just having the roster spots open and saving 3 million on CAP space is the reason. Derrick Brown was never going to be the make or break of this franchise, I mean as much as like his pre game dancing and his highlight dunks he is a rotation player. I actually think he made quite a few strides last year, he started rebounding at a better rate and began to hit the midrange jumper. But, you can see the roster changes we have made this offseason, it has been close to a total overhaul and for that to happen you need flexibility. We had not drafted Jeff Taylor (28^th June) when we rescinded Derrick Brown’s QA (18^th June). So it is not like the front office picked Taylor over Brown. However, in answer to your questions, yes I think Jeff Taylor will be a better player this season and throughout his career. Taylor is a much better defensive player, can guard 1-4, is a better shooter and is still pretty athletic.

Christian “Norway” Bodin: I’m not sure I like it really. He is showed a lot of promise last year and could be a valuable rotation player this season, especially if injury strikes either MKG (which is likely with his slim body at this point) or Jeff Taylor. I personally think Jeff Taylor could come in and do as well a job, if not better than Derrick Brown, but Brown is bigger and better inside, where he could play some 4 when going small. I thought we would keep him to play the scrap minutes at the three. As far as clearing cap-space, he would still be in his rookie contract if he resigned. It was a qualifying option, and it doesn’t seem like a lot of teams are willing to pay a significant amount of money on him. It might have been that they were trying to negotiate for someone, but failed to get it through, and maybe they will invite him to training camp and give him a new contract, who knows. Either way, I think giving him a final year would benefit us so I didn’t really get it.

No, I don't want the next Bobcats Coach to wear a "?" mask all the time

With apologies to former Boston Celtics coach, Rick Pitino:  ”Bernie Bickerstaff is not coming through that door!  Larry Brown is not going to be walking through that door!  And Sam Vincent isn’t walking through that door!”  Sam can’t walk through that door because he can’t figure out how the handle works, or if it’s a push or a pull.  Actually, the only guy welcome to walk through any door at 333. East Trade is Paul Silas, and that’s because he’s actually still a member of the franchise, in some undefined role.

Paul Silas won’t be coaching the team again next season.  As discussed at length, you can’t keep the CEO of Lehmann Brothers around after the great collapse of 2008 and you can’t keep the head coach of a team that went 7-59 around for another year.  I appreciate what all those names above did for the team in their time.  All, except of course, for Sam “Ham Biscuit” Vincent.  Bernie got things rolling as head coach and general manager and actually never let the team finish in last place.  He was integral to the roots of development that the franchise started out with.  He was around for 4 years, but coached for 3 seasons.  He wasn’t Michael Jordan’s guy, so his contract wasn’t renewed.  He was sent on his way, given a very awkward “retirement” party after the final game of the ’06-’07 season.  Awkward, because he didn’t retire.  He went on to be an assistant coach with both Chicago under Vinny Del Negro and Portland under Nate McMillan and whoever the hell replaced Nate when he got the axe.  

"What the hell man? Can't have the worst win % and come back?"

I thought it was strange, early in the year, when there was a meeting that apparently absolved Paul Silas and his coaching staff of all responsibility of the misery heaped upon the franchise through epic losses.  I thought Silas might see the Bobcats through whatever was coming after this horrible season, but I was further confused when I heard Marv Albert and Mike Fratello on the TNT broadcast basically sealing Silas’s fate as Bobcats’ coach.

They said, basically, that Silas could come back to the team, in some aspect, but likely not as the head coach.  This was confirmed today, by Rick Bonnell of the Observer.  For all we know, this could be Paul’s decision.  He has had health issues, some serious and he’s no spring chicken.  If you ask me, however, this was simply a case of not rewarding a guy who led the worst team in NBA history.

I don’t actually have anything to say about Jeremy Lin; I’m just trying to drive traffic to our website.[1]  In fact, as an NYC resident, I mostly can’t even watch Lin play, due to James Dolan’s dispute with Time Warner.[2]  I’ve written about this at length, and the bottom line is that Knicks games aren’t available to Time Warner customers.[3]  This is especially problematic because Time Warner is the only cable provider in town.[4]  There is no “good guy” in this dispute that fans can back, by the way—both entities are loathsome; it’s like trying to cheer for Alien vs. Predator.  So while the rest of the world has been enjoying Lin’s exploits, I’m stuck watching the Bobcats, who unfortunately are heavily sponsored by Time Warner and therefore can’t be in a dispute that knocks them off Time Warner.[5]

At least the Bobcats played their latest two opponents (the Sixers and the Timberwolves) close—well, closer.  In fact, I think we could have beaten the Timberwolves if we’d played them two weeks ago when Kevin Love was suspended…Well, maybe not, because two weeks ago we wouldn’t have had Corey Maggette or DJ Augustin in the lineup.  But if the Bobcats of last night had played the Timberwolves of two weeks ago, then I think we would have won…Well, maybe not, because I think we would also need Gerald Henderson, too, and he’s probably not going to be back for two more weeks.  So put it this way: if the Bobcats of two weeks into the future had played the Timberwolves of two weeks ago last night, I think the Bobcats would have won.  But only if the game was also at home.