Well, wonder no more! I'll warn you right up front that this is gonna be one of my famous long posts. But I think it'll be worth reading.

I've been spending some time away lately due to medical reasons, but I've been reading - not just here at ROF, but I've also haunted some of the other blogs, usually before and after the Cats play the team associated with a particular blogsite.

Sure ROF has some issues. What open blog doesn't? There are issues unique to the Queen City, like the endless (and often nauseating) Duke/UNC rivalry that has people hating on certain players just because of their alma mater. We're also a city in transition. Charlotte is growing rapidly and much of it is because of a steady influx of yankee transplants. On any given night the cheers for the opposing team can equal the cheers for the hometown squad and that's an unsettling experience if you attend a game. Our own bossman moderator type has commented quite a bit of late regarding Charlotte's emergence as a melting pot city and the impact this has had on fan loyalty. We've also our share of posters that never have anything positive to offer. There is nothing the Bobcats (or their front office) can do that will earn praise from these folks. The odd thing is, these individuals consider themselves fans and take great offense when anyone accuses them of being haters. If you'll notice, I'm not naming names here. That's partly because of Cherokee custom, but mostly because I don't want this to be yet another attack party. The trolls live for that sort of thing and I'm not buying into their games, or their baiting.

All that being said, the good at ROF is so very good that it makes the stuff I mentioned above easy to forget.

As I stated, I've been to most of the other SB Nation hoop sites multiple times this season. I never really appreciated Steve, Del and Stephanie and the way they cover the game broadcasts until I started listening to some of the broadcasters for other teams around the league. Likewise, visiting other blogs has shown me just how special what we've all built here at ROF is.

Just as a quick example, my post-game visit to Liberty Ballers, SB Nation's blog for the Sixers was a revelation. Everything over there is focused on losing. While we're all looking at playoff standings and analysing David's latest breakdown of the schedule and the wins we'll need to best position ourselves, the charts and statistics over at Liberty Ballers are all about the chase for the best lottery position. People were actually grateful for the drubbing their team took last night because it helped the team prepare for the draft. They are laying odds on how soon Jordan will be fired and how the shakeup will affect the way the team picks in the lottery. The inmates are in charge of the asylum and any positive comments are quickly drowned.

While there is some hating between bloggers here at ROF, at a lot of the other SBN sites, it's open warfare. On three of the sites I've visited in recent weeks, the gameday threads were consumed with discussions of American Idol and Lost. You would hardly know it was a basketball site.

So here are some reasons why you are involved with one of the best hoop blogsites in the country:

1. David Arnott. No, I'm not kissing butt here. There are plenty of things David says and does here that leave me scratching my head. When you agree to moderate a site like this, getting second-guessed and criticised comes with the territory. But at some of the other sites, the head man (or men) are just going through the motions. Days go by without the moderator even bothering to check in, let alone participate. At ROF, David comes up with discussion topics on the off days - not just the required pre-game articles and post-game recaps. He cooks up contests and scenarios to keep things interesting. Just last night he had us all scrambling for a photo containing a monkey AND a shark in the same shot. Why? Who the hell knows. But it was fun. In short, David (and his cast of "official" family and friends) put more TLC into this joint than almost any other site I've visited.

2. The "MST3K" ingame threads. I'll take a bit of the credit for this because I'm very involved with them. If you haven't taken the time to read them, or log in during the games, you should make it a point to do so. There are people posting pics and photoshop mashups throughout the game that are hysterical. There are people like myself adding captions and comments to the pics to make them even funnier. There are movie references, and hundreds of comments both praising and dissing team performance. There's even an ongoing effort to make Greg Oden's anatomy more famous than Pamela Anderson's cleavage. It's ALL basketball related. Where the other SBN sites are lucky to even have participants in their ingame threads, the number of posts at ROF often exceeds 100 per quarter. Because of health reasons I had to miss a game thread recently and watching the game without the MST3K thread was just plain boring. Next game, log in. Feel free to join in or just lurk. You won't be bored. As far as I can tell this odd group of misfits and madmen are unique to the blogosphere and visiting this site without checking out the game threads is like living in Paris and never looking at the EIffel Tower.

3. The haters. Every site has 'em, but at ROF even the guys that show up trying to pick a fight are educated about the game and the team. They use real debating techniques and aren't afraid to use statistics to bolster their opinions. Sure, half of them are MADE UP stats or have no relevance to the topic under discussion, but so what? The best teachers are the ones that make you think. No matter how big a pain in the butt the ROF troll squad can be, they WILL make you think. If you post something at ROF you had best be ready to back it up or you're gonna get eaten alive. This is a good thing. it forces everyone here to actually be students of the game and elevates the discussion above the stuff you see elsewhere. I've learned more about basketball, trades, collective bargaining, strategy, and a dozen other topics in one season at ROF than I did as a "mere" fan in the previous 40 years. In return, I hope my knowledge of the business side of things has helped a few others increase their NBA smarts as well.

4. Any blogsite lives or dies by its regular participants and the ROF regulars are a great bunch of guys. They want the site to be fun and devote a lot of time to keep it that way. Some work as hard as David at coming up with topics and ideas to keep the discussion alive. They scour the web and try to be the first to "scoop" the site with a fresh piece of team-related info. Because of this I've often learned about a trade or some front office activity here days before it shows up at the "pro" sites like NBA.com and Ball Don't Lie.

The proof is in the pudding and there are fans of other teams that have dropped by to comment when their own team plays the Cats. But unlike the other SBN blogsites, the people that come by ROF to gloat usually wind up staying. Yeah, I know this has become another monster long post of mine, but I felt we needed to take a few minutes and appreciate what David started and the rest of us have built here in our little corner of SB Nation. I've made some good friends here and will be attending a game with one later this month. I don't know how much I'm going to be around in the coming days. On Friday I have back surgery. It's not a major deal - in fact it's just a "trial" surgery - but it's likely to mess me up quite a bit for a while. I'm having wires inserted into my spinal cord that will be attached to an small generator strapped to my torso. The generator will send shocks into my central nervous system. It's a bit like a heart pacemaker, but this will send the jolts on up into my brain. If it works, it will "short circuit" the pain impulses from my back and legs and reduce the amount of pain medication I take every day. If it doesn't, I'm told I can look forward to some real agony. I'll have this for a week. If it doesn't work, it's back to the drugs. If it does, I'll have permanent surgery where all the wiring and the generator will be installed inside my body where it will be attached to the back of my hip for the rest of my life. Since I don't know what's going to happen, I wanted to take a minute and thank everyone for the best season of basketball I've ever enjoyed. Thanks for being here, thanks for reading this hella-long post, and most of all, be thankful we have a joint like this to have some fun with and forget the hassles of the day. We have a good thing going here and I hope I'll be back and doing my part sooner rather than later.