The Wizards are in town and I got my first random bump-in with an opposing player. Lost and confused in the Charlotte EpiCentre was none other than Wiz assistant coach and former FSU guard Sam Cassell and some of his buddies. I helped them get to where they were going and couldn’t muster the courage to ask for a pic. I’ve always wanted a snapshot with an extraterrestrial being though. Too bad. Kitties are 8-point favorites. Need a win.
I know our home record is great and that Chris Paul is not in action tonight at the Time Warner Cable Arena, but the respect the Bobcats are getting from Vegas is new to me. They are favored by 9 points! Those are some lofty expectations for a team that had a Over/Under of 33.5 on total wins for the season.
The Bobcats have home games with New Orleans and Washington before traveling to Minny before the All-Star break. 3 games we will probably be favored in and should win.
That would put us at 3 games above .500 and in great position for the stretch run.
-Ramadan
I fell asleep midway through the second quarter, so my analysis is a little incomplete. From what I gathered, we could’ve tied the game up, but for a second time this year, failed to get the ball in bounds successfully. Nazi was a monster with 23 and 17 boards. Boris was pathetic again. Gerald Wallace didn’t even suit up. We’re still in 6th, but Milwaukee is closing the gap on the 8th spot with some impressive wins.
From the Charlotte Business Journal:
Robert Johnson could complete a sale of the Charlotte Bobcats by the end of the month, according to a report by ESPN The Magazine.
The report cites “multiple league sources” who say a deal will be done within a few weeks, culminating a long-running campaign by Johnson to sell the six-year-old NBA franchise.
Johnson paid $300 million for the expansion Bobcats. Since then, he has lost tens of millions of dollars as the team struggles to win over fans and sponsors.
Former Houston Rockets executive George Postolos is leading a bid group that has made the most recent offer on the team. Michael Jordan, the Bobcats’ managing member of basketball operations and a minority owner, has until the end of this month to match the offer, ESPN reports.
Bobcats team spokesman Michael Thompson says the team “does not comment on rumors.” Postolos declines comment.
Johnson, who made his fortune in the cable TV industry, has become increasingly distanced from the Bobcats. He has always maintained his primary residence in Washington, but his visits and public appearances in Charlotte have dissipated over the past two years. He has also stopped speaking to local media about the franchise.
This season, the Bobcats have turned into a legitimate playoff contender. Charlotte has a 24-23 record and plays the Lakers tonight in Los Angeles. Despite the improved performance on the court, the team remains a tepid box-office draw. The franchise has enjoyed some success landing smaller sponsors in recent months, with 21 added since August. Those deals are unlikely to make much of a dent in financial projections calling for more than $100 million in losses over the next three years. Johnson began looking for a buyer for the Bobcats last year.
Bobcats need to bring their “A’ game to say the least, despite having won six of the last seven games versus the Lakers. In a funny twist, Lakers forward Shannon Brown actually hit the dagger 3-pointer to sink the Lakers in the two teams’ last meeting. This was before he was traded to L.A. obviously. That win I’m referring to was costly for us though. Gerald Wallace recklessly threw himself into Andrew Bynum’s elbow and his lung collapsed. He missed the next couple weeks and the playoff run suffered mightily.
With the Bobcats shooting poorly from the line and seemingly stuck in third gear, they skidded to a 98-79 loss. Even with their star Brandon Roy and others sidelined, folks like Dante Cunningham and Nicholas Batum stepped up and led the charge for Portland. It doesn’t get any easier for the Bobcats, with the Lakers in L.A. on Wednesday. Although the Bobcats have had the Lakers number in years past, Kobe and Co. are coming off a tough loss and they’ll be ready.
Stephen Jackson was recently named Eastern Conference Player of the Week, Gerald Wallace recently made the All Star team (a personal and Bobcats franchise first), and just today Larry Brown has been named Eastern Conference Coach of the Month.
The Bobcats are getting some of their dues, plus we are taking care of business on the court with 3 straight road wins.
We have 2 tough roadies left (Portland and LAL) before coming home Saturday against the Hornets, minus Chris Paul (dammit!).
-Ramadan
By Frank Hughes
You could make the argument that there has not been an All-Star like Charlotte’s Gerald Wallace in the last 20 years. And not because he is the first Bobcats player in franchise history to make the team.
Think about it: In the past two decades, how many players have created a balanced résumé — one solid enough to garner an All-Star nod — out of scrappiness and hustle? By my count: zero.
You could point out similarities, of course. Dennis Rodman, perhaps. But Rodman was there only because he was such a voracious rebounder and aggressive defender. When Rodman was at the height of his game, he almost disdained scoring.
Another possible comparison is Utah’s Andrei Kirilenko, whose game is predicated on defense. But Kirilenko never has posted the type of numbers that Wallace is this year — 19.3 points, 11 rebounds in a league-leading 42.1 minutes a game — that have prompted the Charlotte forward’s first All-Star selection.
But let’s face it: The All-Star Game is a pageant. It is for the game’s beautiful players. The elegance of Kobe Bryant, the power of LeBron James, the deftness of Steve Nash, the physique of Dwight Howard.
Generally speaking, coaches who vote for the reserves are not inclined to include the league’s ditch-diggers, though they’d probably all admit to wanting one on their team. It is a testament to a player like Wallace, then, that he has been able to shred his cloak of workingman and rise above the din to be regarded as an elite player.
Watch Wallace on the court and he is a whirling dervish, throwing around his body, flying at the rim, jumping once, twice, three times to continue tipping a ball until there is some sort of resolution to the play.
There is very little grace to his game. There is a reason, after all, he is nicknamed Crash. He doesn’t really have a jump shot or a go-to move. Coach Larry Brown is not lining up plays for him. He just seems to run around the court and pile up statistics because his engine always permits him to be near the ball. It sounds simple. But it is an art form.
“That is why he is an All-Star,” teammate Stephen Jackson said. “His athleticism is crazy. He goes after every rebound. Sometimes he almost gives me a concussion trying to take my rebound. But that is what he does well. I am happy I am his teammate because it is less rebounds I have to go after.”
At only 6-foot-7, Wallace ranks seventh in the NBA in rebounding and third in defensive boards. Of the league’s top 38 rebounders, Wallace is the only one under 6-9. He has the body of a shooting guard, but is averaging double-digit rebounds. The last player to accomplish that at that size was Shawn Marion, who made four All-Star teams. But it’s not an easy thing to sustain for a long duration.
“He has always been a good rebounder,” Brown said. “But we are undersized at some positions, so he has taken it upon himself to be great. And most of his rebounds are defensive, so that is even more incredible to me because we are spread out.”
For the most part, if you are going to be an All-Star, that realization is going to come during the early stage of your career. Carmelo Anthony, LeBron, Allen Iverson, Kevin Durant, Kevin Garnett — all were named early in their careers and became mainstays.
It has taken Wallace nine years to be named an All-Star. (There have been others who followed a similar arc toward recognition, such as Denver’s Chauncey Billups.) From riding on the bench those three years in Sacramento, to being picked as an expansion player by the Bobcats, to working with Bernie Bickerstaff and then Sam Vincent and now Brown, Wallace has toiled and continued to grow his game to the point where he is finally being recognized on a national level for his contributions.
“I feel like I worked for mine,” Wallace said. “It was like a growing period for me so I appreciate it a whole lot more. Not saying I appreciate mine more than those guys appreciate theirs, but it is more special for me knowing what I have been through, my situation going through what I had to go through to get where I am now.
“You always think you can be one of the great players in this league. You always think you can accomplish more things with more time in this league. Here in Charlotte, they have given me the opportunity.”
Because Wallace’s game is designed one way, the Bobcats were not likely to be successful with him as their primary scorer. But when they added Jackson from Golden State — giving up only Vladimir Radmanovic and the injured Raja Bell in the deal — it provided the right combination of players to achieve wins: Jackson and Raymond Felton shoot, while Wallace gets out on the fast break, runs, rebounds and gets putbacks.
Since that deal in November, the Bobcats have gone 21-15 and are in sixth place in the Eastern Conference, validating Jackson’s early contention that the Bobcats are a playoff team, which seemed laughable at the time.
“It took a lot of pressure off me to worry about scoring,” Wallace said. “Defenses have to be focused on more options now with [Jackson] being able to create his own shots. He is a bigger threat and we are able to spread the floor and spread defenses.”
Who knows how far the Bobcats can go? They are one game out of the fifth spot in the East, but they are also a half game from being the eighth seed. They are likely not built to compete against Cleveland and Orlando and possibly Atlanta, but Jackson’s Warriors were not necessarily constructed to defeat the Mavericks in 2007, yet they pulled off that upset.
At the very least, Charlotte’s recent surge of victories and Wallace’s choice by the coaches as an All-Star is the next step in the slow process of franchise-building.
“He is just an incredible kid,” Brown said. “He brings it every night. God gave him great motivation. Every drill we run, every possession we have, every practice we have — it’s always the same. It is like coaching Eric Snow and George Lynch and Tyrone Hill — you know what you are going to get every night. It’s an incredible feeling as a coach.”
Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/frank_hughes/02/01/gerald.wallace/#ixzz0eJtOLjZa
From Yahoo.com rumor mill:
The Charlotte Bobcats are apparently very interested in adding Sacramento Kings forward Jason Thompson(notes), according to the Sacramento bee.
The Kings may want one of the Bobcats’ many centers: 7′1″ Tyson Chandler(notes), 7′ DeSagana Diop(notes), 7′ Alexis Ajinca(notes), and 6′10″ shorty Nazr Mohammed(notes).
Rumor has it that the Bobcats also would be more than happy to trade for the expiring contract of the Kings’ Kenny Thomas(notes), who is getting paid $8.7 million this season. After all, Thomas and Charlotte coach Larry Brown have liked each other since they were together with the Philadelphia 76ers.
