Why wait 15 or 20 years for a natural rival to create itself? If we wait until then, we'll be forced to get hyped up over the shleprocks of the league like the Atlanta Hawks or the New York Knicks.

So today, I propose that we skip over the tedious process of "naturally" creating a hated rival and name one today.

My suggestion is The Orlando Magic. The Magic and the Bobcats are both young and in the same division, so they'll likely be butting heads for many years to come, but there are a couple of things that make them especially hateable from a Bobcats perspective.

They have J.J. Redick. He was easily the most hated player to enter the NBA since Christian Laettner. His Halo2 buddy and Bobcats first round pick Adam Morrison were shown ad nausem in the media last season as being great friends who rooted for each other, supported each other blah blah blah. So what could be more fun that watching that great friendship detoriate into hatred after Adam drops 30 on JJ's head one night.

The Magic have Dwight Howard. In the 2004, The Orlando Magic went back and forth all the way up to the day of the draft trying to decide if they wanted to use the first pick on Dwight Howard or Emeka Okafor. Emeka went on to win the Rookie of the Year award, and Dwight Howard used that as motivation. While Emeka's second season was a complete loss because of ankle injuries and adding too much mass, Dwight Howard used his second season to develop into a basketball beast. Now its Okafor's turn to play catch up. I know what you're thinking, and my response is that as a Bobcats fan, there isn't any jealousy over the fact that the Magic got Howard, while we got Okafor… No jealousy.. Absolutely none… Zero jealousy. Stop laughing!

Now, off to print up those Orlando Magic Suck T-Shirts

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