Licking Wounds After A Galling Defeat

We lost one game to a championship contender. Did anyone really expect us to beat Boston and Cleveland in a week? Yeah, without Wallace, out team is terrible. We saw that last year when he got elbowed by Bynum and was out for what seemed like forever. Most other teams are terrible when they lose their best player too. Obvious Examples: Cleveland and New Orleans. I feel like if Boston lost Paul peirce, theyd be screwed also. You and the pessimists rely too heavily on your stats and facts. When this team does make the playoffs, you are gonna be blind-sided. Anyone who watches basketball and understands basketball can see that the Bobcats are on the verge of being a good team. Not a great team but definitely a playoff team. I am calling it. THE CATS WILL MAKE THE PLAYOFFS THIS YEAR.

You and the pessimists rely too heavily on your stats and facts.

Yeah, what idiot bases their argument on facts? That’s just silly. :)

The pessimist sees the hole.
I’m a realist. I just eat the thing and look for something to drink.

At the beginning of the season I evaluated the presence of Chandler and the absence of Okafor and cringed. I think most of us did. I read all the NBA previews and felt that they were unduly critical of the Cats chances, but not by much. The most honest assessment I read (and I wish I could recall where it was, maybe ESPN the Magazine) said that the Bobcats had improved in the off-season but the rest of their division had improved even more. I agreed with that evaluation and expected a 25 win season barring roster changes or Gerald Henderson breaking out as a rook sensation.

I also knew LB’s history and sat back expecting there to be a lot of shuffling and dealing in the first half of the season.

Where I differ from most of you is that I’ve been rooting for Bob Johnson since day one. I accepted that this was a completely new world for him and that he’d make some mistakes. When Jordan bought his way into the team I worried about what he’d done with the Wizards and felt he was, like Kevin McHale, a master at knowing what to do when wearing a uniform who had delusions of grandeur about skills that required wearing a three-piece-suit. Jordan seems to have learned a few things and he’s a better general manager than he used to be. It wasn’t like the bar was set very high in order to achieve that though.

One of the axioms of good management is that you cannot succeed unless you surround yourself with solid advisors AND listen to what they tell you. It’s that last part where most managers falter. Ego tends to get in the way and ego has been Jordan’s Achilles heel for well over a decade now.

I believe he’s learned his lesson to an extent however. In came Larry Brown and both Johnson and Jordan have heeded his advice with increasing regularity. This latest trade with Golden State was brilliant. Fact interpretation is subjective. Many view this great trade as a fluke. (Like the old saw says, even a broken watch gets it right twice a day.)
I think it represents improvement in the decision making skills of the Front Office.

I don’t think this team is finished with the wheeling and dealing yet. We’ll know if the savvy of the suits has indeed improved when we see how the next couple of moves pan out.

I don’t believe the Bobcats are destined for the Conference Finals this year – as I said, I am a realist. But in evaluating what we have right now I do believe we have a playoff team with the potential to jump a little bit higher than the 8 seed. At present, our biggest problem is with Chandler. He is tying up the most money while providing the least overall production. Looking at the numbers from before the deal, wise heads knew this would be the result. I am of the opinion that the Bobcats FO were smart enough to know what they were getting into and viewed it as a step in a larger plan. Unfortunately, I am also of the opinion that the FO was NOT smart enough to execute the next stage of that plan.

This team isn’t going to improve until the Chandler situation is changed. Even assuming he bucks his career trends and stays healthy while improving his stats by 10% (a reasonable possibility) he isn’t going to be enough to drive the team to new heights. We’re stuck unless we work out a way to get him off the team. He is not now, nor will he ever be, a premier baller. I’m thrilled to death that he’s improved of late and I’ve said so in this forum. The problem is that you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. (yeesh, I’ve come down with cliche-itis!)

The Cats WILL make the playoffs this year barring injury. The current roster can pull that much off. But that’s ALL they’ll do. Procton hit the nail on the head when he said that all that will do is cost us our draft pick next season and I hit it squarely as well when I said a quick trip to the playoffs wouldn’t be enough to be considered a success. As I see it, the Cats have no choice. They HAVE to find some trades. They will either free up money and kill our chances for this season, or they will improve the team to the point that we’ll advance further into the playoffs and become a legitimate threat in the league for a brief season or two before starting the rebuild all over again. I don’t think the direction in either case will be accidental. The powers that be will either pull a Nicks/Nets maneuver and tank the season in the hope of opening up future success, or they’ll build us into a “close but no cigar” team like the Pacers have been so frequently. But either way, I believe they’ll do it on purpose, not because of luck or incompetency.

Right now we have a very good coach and a fair basketball team. At the very least they hold our attention wondering what’s going to happen next. I enjoy that quite a bit. I’m a Bobcats fan and that isn’t going to change.

Only difference of opinion I might have on this— and this is purely a matter of personal preference rather than sage basketball wisdom— is that I would consider any trip to the playoffs a success. True, if such an outcome has ramifications that end up constraining our ability to do anything beyond that in the future— and it may well do that as both you and Procton have suggested— it might not be in the long-term interests of the front-office or the more patient fans amongst us to let it play out this way. However, I’m ok with a quick hit of joy at the end of this season if we can somehow beg. borrow, or steal our way into it. Just appearing in the playoffs, even if they get killed, would be a joyous occasion in my household. Next year can take care of itself and probably will, one way or another.

Considering that they seem to have embarked upon the free-wheeling trade-trade-trade approach to building a roster, and that thus far it’s improved the team at least marginally (and perhaps significantly moreso if a few breaks go our way,) perhaps they can deal back into a decent pick as part of a package at some point in the season. Chances are they aren’t going to get anybody great at #15/16 anyhow. I just posted a hostile rant directed at that obnoxious Celtics fan over in the other thread, a premise of which was Ainge’s undeserved instant good fortune in fleecing his complicit buddy McHale, an implication of which might be that in the NBA all that may really be necessary to suddenly turn things around overnight is that one big lopsided score in the trade mart, and because of the distortions/contortions the cap produces for teams’ front offices, there’s never a shortage of willing trade suckers (excuse me… partners) to help out a friend in need. And perhaps this may end up being Larry Brown’s most valuable attribute to the organization— he’s got plenty of of friends and disciples who will do him a favor when he needs it… so maybe let’s let the chips fall where they may in regard to that draft pick next year. They’re surely not going to tank intentionally; they’re not nearly bad enough at this stage to get away with that. So they might as well go for it. And keep trading up. What the hell? It’s not like they’d be risking a meaningful legacy if it doesn’t work…