Whataboutbob_cats' 6th Weekly-ish Basketball Related Update: My Basketball Evolution pt 2.

In the previous episode, Whataboutbob_cats and the city of Charlotte had just seen the Bobcats draft their first players, both from the expansion draft and the DRAFT draft. We tune in now as whataboutbob_cats begins his middle school academics.

Regardless, by this point Stephen and I had reunited in middle school and we began hanging out more than the past years. His grandmother, a die hard basketball fan, of course bought season tickets to the Bobcats, and has for every season. I went to a decent number of games. Gerald Wallace was obviously the guy who grabbed our attention, as well as Okafor (for his blocks) and Primoz (for his unintentional hilarity factor). This continued for a few years. Those games were never quite memorably exciting until we went to a Bobcats-Heat game. Stephen's grandmother had opted to let Stephen bring another friend in her stead to see the game. This allowed us to act a little louder and more raucous. Matt Carroll went off in that game. I . . . became a Matt Carroll fan. He was underappreciated and reminded me of myself, and really isn't that why we're fans of certain players? I like Gerald Wallace because of his dunks and blocks, but I LOVE him because of his determination and hard work. I like Durant because he seems approachable and fun. I like Kemp because he honestly had fun in games and he showed it.

Oddly enough, after the Bobcats arrived, my friends and I began to play basketball more than before. We played indoors on a church court with more people, often 3 v 3. My style of play still hadn't changed. I shot bricks and knew I would continue to do so if they gave me the chance so I passed the ball a lot. But I was a defensive mastermind. I had quick reflexes and fast hands so I could steal the ball a lot. But I couldn't even make a layup with much consistency either so I wasn't a great asset.

Then we all moved on to high school. I joined the cross country team and my free time after school plummeted. And although some of my friends joined football, they still had more time than I did. At this point of time, I didn't play basketball except at our cross country camp retreat or during March Madness, when the madness made me want to practice.

After being thoroughly outclassed by even the most unskillful players at our camp I decided to work on my shooting so I could come back the following year and at least be a little better. I looked up videos on Youtube on how to fix my shot. Pistol Pete gave me some good instruction from his video, but I didn't practice anywhere near enough to cement the muscle memory. My shot still sucked, but now it sucked a little less.

My basketball knowledge sucked as well. I thought Bernie Bickerstaff was the worst coach and that Brevin Knight was god-awful as well. Obviously I had no idea what I was talking about. But I was excited about the Bobcats! Then Bickerstaff was fired! And we hired...Sam Vincent? I didn't go to any games that season. Not that I didn't want to, though. My father was not a big basketball fan, especially of a team that wasn't good (the team has to get good before he cares about them; after that, they can get bad and he'll still retain interest. It's odd, really). Stephen had joined the football team, and I had made new friends through cross country. In short, we drifted apart and haven't gone to a Bobcats game together since maybe 2007.

Time passed and we hung out less and less. I began to pal around more with cross country friends. One of those friends was Connor. Although I didn't know it at the time, his father was the owner and founder of a restaurant chain. One day in October, he called me up and asked if I wanted to go to that evening's Bobcats game. I obliged. While taking a shower before leaving for the game, I got an idea (isn't that where everyone gets the best ideas?). In past games, I had noticed the lack of die-hard fan support. It was the hip thing to scoff at the Bobcats and declare, "Charlotte has a basketball team? I didn't know! Haw haw haw!" In retaliation, I decided to make a sign to support Bobcats with some humor, wit, and dorkiness. I hated that the Bobcats were the butt of every sports joke, and yet when they became a mainstay in the Charlotte sports community, everyone would say, "Ah I've been a fan from the start!" Anyway, on one side of the sign, I printed out a picture of Dave Chappelle's Prince with Gerald Wallace's face photoshopped into the picture with the words "Game Blouses" captioning the photo. Due to a lack of time to write anything on the back, I grabbed a handful of markers to draw another sign during halftime on the back of the piece of cardboard. So who was the other player we chose to make a sign for? None other than Matt Carroll! It is long gone (I think we made a sign for someone else over it), but it was a hand-drawn masterpiece of Carroll draining and 3/4 court jumpshot, with the captions: "Carroll is Cool" and "All day!" I don't remember what game it was, but I remember Matt was getting some time late in the game. Considering Connor's father was a business owner, they had outstanding seats: maybe 4 rows up in the corner of the lower bowl. Anyway, being so close allows you to interact with the players. You name 'em, if I've watched 'em play, I've heckled 'em. Back to the story though. Carroll was getting garbage time and he went to the line. While waiting to go to the line, he noticed our sign and gave us thumbs up. Yup, I felt like I was the king of cool.

Pictured: COOLNESS

As the season went on, Connor invited me to lots of games. As the team traded and got better, we made more signs, with even worse puns: "Okafor owns the floor," "Boris Diaw is the Cats Meow." As I said before, there isn't an uncool bone in my body. I started to get more creative though. As DJ Augustin's play escalated, we decided to make a sign for him, as I already had one in mind: "DJ knows how to turn the tables." It was perfect. Using a thick posterboard, I made a working fake turntable with the aforementioned caption. I think I put a strap on it too to make it easy to carry. You can see a picture here. Then came the piece de resistance: the cardboard Gerald Wallace. I had wanted to do something overly fannish and this seemed like the perfect step to do so. In retrospect, I should have made the cut-out life size but for some reason I thought it would be great to make him my height instead. Weeks later, we made cardboard Boris Diaw, but ehhh you know. Perhaps our most famous moment was going to a Suns game in February of 2009. We did not have his family's super low tickets as his father was using them, but we snuck down to the lower bowl using our jedi mind tricks. Walking down to seats that weren't ours, a Charlotte Observer photographer snapped our picture for the newspaper. Then we walked near courtside to watch up close the players warming up. They took notice of the cardboard Bobcats player and eventually started pointing out the sign to others and laughing at the Gerald Wallace Doppelganger. Don't get me wrong, I was happy to see them laughing. Then the game began. Somehow, we sat in the same seats without moving or being caught - in the middle of a sellout game. However, at the half, the seats owners showed up so we decided it would be a good idea to move even lower down (I have no clue what in the world we were thinking). Who did we sit next to, but Jason Richardson's wife and son. Yeah, this was a crazy night. We curb-stomped the Suns which meant people were going to leave early. Our nearby usher then permitted us to go sit courtside for the final minutes. At this point, I would like to declare that sitting courtside at an NBA game is the best spectator experience. It doesn't matter if you're watching the Bobcats take on the Washington Generals. You're part of the game. And if you're as big a basketball fan as me, you're inches away from your idols. Although my dad did not like it the one time in his life that he had the chance (his words were: "just professional athletes playin' pocket pool"), I loved it. I may never sit that close again but if anyone out there gets the chance, take it.

The Bobcats made a run for the playoffs but came up short that season. Nevertheless, I had developed a love for the sport and I had become somewhat learned about basketball players and basketball in general. I knew Dirk had an annoying and killer turn-around fadeaway jump shot, Shaq was useless in Phoenix, and Ray Allen was a cold blooded shooter. However, most of my friends (remember: they were from the cross country team) were not basketball fans and were very crappy at the sport so I still didn't play. I shot around in the parking lot behind my house, but that was about it.

Next time, we'll voyage onward, encountering along the way the Bobcats playoff season and my foray into playing pickup basketball. Will I become better than a 5th grader at the sport? You'll find out soon!

Cardboard Gerald blocks Wally Szczerbiak in a play that can only be described as "the last time Wally Szczerbiak had the confidence to play basketball"