I’m giving credit to the Bobcats for their loss to the Heat on Wednesday night. I had no expectations for that game, only fears. Playing Miami with these Bobcats is like locking a bunch of 8-year-olds in a room and forcing them to watch The Shining; all I could hope for was that nobody wet their pants and got traumatized for life. And indeed, Miami still shredded Charlotte like a classified document, but we worked a 19-point deficit down to 2 and would have potentially taken the lead if Bismack Biyombo could ever figure out how to finish a dunk.

It’s really amazing, actually—somebody should supercut this. Biyombo went 3-for-8 last night and you could sum up the total distance of his misses and not equal the range of a tick fart. He has the 8^th highest turnover rate among power forwards (those with at least 10 MPG), according to hoopdata.com, and a TS% that was last seen touring Brandon Bass country. He’s probably cost Kemba Walker, Ramon Sessions, and Gerald Henderson dozens of assists; although on the flip side, he’s probably given Michael Kidd-Gilchrist dozens of offensive rebounds. He’s at least able to throw some D on that—he’s 9^th in the league in total blocks/steals/charges per game and he’s holding opponents to a non-execrable 17-18 PER. But my word, you give him the ball from zero feet out and the results are more fruitless than a cheesesteak.

My original plan was to turn from previewing the forwards in the first column to the centers in this column.  But then I saw Gana Diop’s gargantuan landmass body and Louisiana Purchase-sized contract and realized I needed to turn away.  I’m sorry, but I just can’t talk about him yet; there are still too many demons.  Plus I just got through the Tyrus Thomas/Bismack Biyombo combo we’ve got going on at the 4-spot, and to go from there to the Brendon Haywood/Gana Diop platoon at center would be like having to review back-to-back screenings of Battleship and Sparkle.  So instead I’m going to pace myself by hitting the guards next.  I should have a hold of myself in time to talk to the centers later in the week.

As for the guards, to the extent that the Bobcats have a best unit, this is it.  I was thrilled that Charlotte didn’t re-sign DJ Augustin, who had regressed last year and started suffering chronic injuries.  For better or for worse, Rich Cho has shown that he’s not going to overpay anyone.  In the case of letting Augustin walk (or limp out on his cracked feet) and signing Ramon Sessions to a stunningly reasonable 2-year, $10M deal, it’s all for the better.  As the bigger player, Sessions is much more effective at getting to the rim than Augustin was and a more able rebounder and defender.  If you want to be as conservative as possible, you can just consider his time with Cleveland last year and ignore his time with the Lakers, in which all of his stats got turbo-boosted (and, needless to say, Cleveland’s team is a far better comparison to Charlotte than the Lakers).  With the Cavs, Sessions’ eFG% and passing rating were basically on par with Augustin’s, but he took more than twice as many foul shots and held opponents to a PER of 16.5—compared to Augustin’s 19.8.  These might seem like small potatoes, but consider that the Bobcats would have had to make a qualifying offer of $4.4M to Augustin to retain him, and for just $600K more they got a better all-around player who has also played in over 95% of his games since 2008.  The fact that I have had to justify this move more in accounting terms than in basketball terms is admittedly not very inspiring, but just remember all of this when we see Augustin sitting on the Indiana bench for a third of the season, nursing his cracked feet and tendinitis.

Look at it this way, Bobcats fans: at least “.106 winning percentage” doesn’t make for a very catchy derisive chant.  Not only is Charlotte officially the worst team ever, with 23 losses to close out the season (23—the Irony-Meter’s on 10), one month-old Bobcats fans everywhere are wondering if the Bobcats will ever win a game in their lifetime.  At least Scott Fowler should be happy.  The Charlotte Observer columnist wrote an idiotic article on Saturday hoping that the Bobcats would lose out in order to achieve a sort of “worst-ever” celebrity status.  “Make this season one for the record books,” Fowler wrote, “and then rebuild.”  Call me crazy, but I see no upside in being associated with the worst-ever team.

Actually, Fred Carter would call me crazy.  The unofficial spokesman for the 1972-73 76ers, the NBA’s now-former worst-ever team, really did seem to revel in the notoriety.  Back in 2010, when the Nets were threatening to displace the 76ers as the worst-ever team, Carter told the New York Times that he hoped it wouldn’t happen. “Immortality only comes in so many different ways,” Carter reasoned, sounding disturbingly like how I imagine Charles Manson looks back on the Tate-Labianca murders.  Then again, Carter also claims credit for being the person who invented the fist-bump, so he might be a few beers short of a six-pack.  I’m even slightly worried that Carter might take out a lawsuit against the Bobcats for a combination of defamation and copyright infringement.

The Bobcats visit to San Antonio on Friday was the least successful one since Ozzy Osbourne peed on the Alamo.  And at least Ozzy presumably hit what he was aiming for. “I just think as a group we’re not shooting the ball well,” said Corey Maggette afterward, in a spectacular understatement.  The Bobcats couldn’t shoot heroin at this point, and Friday’s 37% effort was entirely representative of the team’s dead-last TS%.  For the season, the only two guys averaging more than 50% from the field are DJ White and Derrick Brown, who also happen to rank just 8^th and 10^th in shots taken.  And how about Eduardo Najera going 0-for-3 last night, with all three of his shots being 3-pointers?       Basically, the Bobcats are not only physically inferior, they’re also stupid with the ball.  Cheering for this team is like watching the “Run, Forrest, run!” scene in Forrest Gump, only if he’d tripped and the bullies caught up with him, and then proceeded to beat him until he went cross-eyed.

It’s tough to pick a turning point in this game; it’s like picking a turning point in the Tyson-Spinks fight.  But believe it or not, the Bobcats actually had a 16-12 lead after 5 minutes.  However, this is also about the time when it became apparent that Gana Diop—subbing for the injured Bismack Biyombo—was not going to be able to travel up and down the court for much longer without the assistance of a tractor.  Sure enough, with 3:41 to go he essentially expired at half-court, and with his dying breath he handed the ball over to Tony Parker for an unobstructed layup.  This was part of an 11-0 run by the Spurs that put them ahead for good.  This is also probably a bad time to mention that Diop outscored DJ Augustin 4-to-2.

In the obligatory “hype-up-any-newcomer-who-shows-signs-of-competence” article following Tuesday’s preseason game, the Charlotte Observer’s Tom Sorensen wrote, “Every time (Kemba) Walker had the ball you sat up a little straighter and stopped talking with the people next to you, because you knew something was going to happen and it probably was going to be good.”  Judging by the turnout, I’m surprised Sorensen had anyone sitting next to him.

In front of dozens of fans at Time Warner Arena, a mix of Bobcats and random strangers dressed as Bobcats defeated the Atlanta Hawks, 79-77.  The game and its implications were very much like those of the movie Eraserhead: low-budget, nightmarish, and probably meaningless.  For me, the four most most “wow” moments of the night were as follows: