Pictured: city supporting Bobcats

Previously, on the Weekly-ish Basketball Related Update, the Bobcats had just finished their most promising season at that time. I also had just finished my last season (read: year) of high school. Upon entering my first year in college, I gradually understood that I would not go to as many Bobcats games, which saddened me. I tried to take solace in the idea that my new school would have a great basketball team to watch anyway. More after the jump.

So which university did I attend? I went to UNC-Chapel Hill. As the semester wore on, I met some new friends that were basketball fans like me, and they also were Charlotteans and Bobcats fans. Pretty effing awesome, right? If only we could watch the games together! Oh wait... The TV service for UNC dorms is terrible if you're a Bobcats fan. There's a foxsports channel but it never showed Bobcats games, usually giving priority to women's college gymnastics or Best Damn Top 50 crappy foxsports shows. So where did we turn to? Those special streaming websites! I won't list them here, but most can be found if you look in past game threads. Every now and then, the stream will have HD quality but that would be very rare, and usually you would watch blob in white jersey brick shots against blobs in grey jerseys. But if you're devoted like us, you'll watch whenever you can. No joke, I think I watched every game last season. Yes, that included pre-Jax trade. I was so excited about our team November onward. And then, college basketball season began.

Yeah, the UNC basketball team sucked, but I was fine with that. I was one of those people who didn't like Carolina sports for all of my life. The team did nothing to endear itself to me, unlike the struggling Bobcats team from the years before. Thus, I did not care about watching them, nor did I pay any attention to them, except when we saw them in the dining hall (one funny situation: upon seeing John Henson wearing cargo shorts, my friend: "If Henson can wear them in public, why can't I?"). Regardless, I had put all of my sports fan-dom behind the Bobcats at this point.

My excitement reached peak levels in mid January. The Cats were beating nearly every team in early January, attributable to a long home stretch. However we weren't just playing cupcakes. Phoenix, San Antonio, Miami, Cleveland and Houston were all taken down. In Hollinger's rankings, the Bobcats had climbed to some absolutely unthinkable position (5th maybe?). They were the hottest team in the NBA and I couldn't be more ready for the playoffs. Of course, they came back down to earth but remained a steady 7th seed team.

Most of my new friends I met in college played basketball as well as followed the NBA. Having not played basketball competitively since elementary school or so, I generally steered clear of opportunities to play basketball with them. Instead, whenever I came home, I practiced in the parking lot behind my house. I managed to reconstruct my shot into something decent and I taught myself ball handling skills. Crossovers that seemed impossible in years past, became easy. You know, if you only look at the ball while you dribble during the game. My rebounding and defense remained the same. For the most part at the pick-up game level, rebounding and defense boil down to how much you want the ball. I have pretty good reflexes and spatial thinking, so I can position myself in a spot where I can get the ball even if I'm not as tall. As for defense, I just bust my ass sticking with a guy. Being so short, if they try to drive inside, I'll get tougher and play more physical defense to discourage them from staying in the paint. But at this point, I was just working on my offense. 

I have no car at UNC so I went to Bobcats games sparingly. Whenever I knew I was going home, I'd buy tickets in advance, keeping a VERY close eye on the prices scalpers were selling for online. Whether it's luck or playing against bad teams, I've always been able to buy tickets cheap on the internet. I planned on going to the Bobcats-Bucks game in April but had stalled on buying tickets. About 4 days before the game I saw someone post two tickets for $5 each (not incl. shipping) in section 116 row B. For those who are unfamiliar with the seating at the arena, that's sitting about 4 rows from the court. I thought the posting was bullcrap so I waited a day to see if it was taken down. It had not been removed the next day so I bought the two tickets and paid for next day shipping to ensure that my tickets got to my house before gameday. When I got home, I found the envelope and the tickets inside along with a note telling me that the seller had mistakenly typed 5 dollars when he meant 85 dollars. But he conceded that his loss was my gain. The lesson here: watch the internet for cheap tickets. It happens and you can be the beneficiary.

A few weeks later, the Bobcats clinched the playoffs and I convinced my dad to buy us tickets (as a gift). No scalping this time; I was not going to risk attending the first playoff game in Bobcats history. For weeks I was excited about the game. I'm sure I pissed off my sports-uninterested roommate as I tried to talk to him about the Bobcats. I knew I had to create an awesome new sign for the game. Influenced by my feelings that a professional sports team should be invested (figuratively or literally) in the community that supports it. Upon returning to Charlotte the evening before the game I saw the top of the Bank of America building had changed it's lights to project the color orange throughout the pitch-black night sky. I decided to incorporate that into the new sign. I also knew that I should include players in the sign that didn't have any signs previously (Felton, Jax). Outside of cardboard people, this sign was my best one ever. As far as I'm concerned, it's perfect. It has cute/funny caricatures, a fantastic Larry Brown telling people to get loud, team supporting imagery, and a simple message.

I love the Boris Diaw. If nothing else, he was a goofy son of a gun!

Even at that moment I couldn't predict the fan turnout for the first Charlotte home playoff game. I'm not sure what I expected. I had watched playoff basketball games for years but I never thought our arena could be as loud as fans of teams as good and as popular as the Celtics or Magic. If you think that this sentiment was foolish, understand that I had been to many sellout games at the arena but our fans still weren't that loud. I knew we'd be louder than those games, but I didn't know by how much.

Gameday: my father and I went early to uptown to eat lunch before the game. Catching a ride on the light rail, we went to the Epicentre and got Five Guys. Although I was disappointed at the number of Magic fans I was seeing, I was also encouraged at the number of Bobcats fans I was encountering as well. After demolishing our burgers and fries, we trekked to the Arena. Passing under the light rail tracks, a cameraman from TNT began to film me and cardboard Gerald. The footage never saw the light of day, but it introduced us pretty well to the exciting festivities around the arena. As it got closer to game time, we made it to our seats.

The fan support and noise level was higher than I expected. It was like the last 5 minutes of the 4th quarter in the April Bucks game: continuous loud noise. The fanbase that made it out to the game had everything that a great crowd should have: knowing when to cheer, when to boo, and being unafraid to yell. Even though, we lost the game, I could not have been more proud of the team or the fans. The players had given it their all and despite coming up short, it was an exciting game to attend and for fans, it was an encouraging sign of things to come.

In part due to my ever-increasing interest in basketball, I started playing basketball more than ever. After school got out, I would play every day for hours. Not having a job can do that to a guy. Luckily I found a job and while I didn't (don't) get as many hours as I would like, it did allot me a lot of time to keep playing and practicing basketball. My shot was getting better. However this doesn't mean much when you hadn't played pickup ball since 10th grade. I decided to get my YMCA membership back for the summer. My friend, who I will be rooming with this coming year, balled with me most of the time at the Y. However, I often get up early to practice in the morning by myself before the courts get crowded. In my premier return to pickup ball, I had a decent game. I think I scored only one point, but more importantly, I defended very well. I recorded some steals. Offensively I wasn't much to watch, but I made some nice passes.

In analyzing my weaknesses, my most glaring one was the ability to use my left hand. So I keep working at it, trying to incorporate it more and more into my practice time. In my next pickup game, I was matched up against the point guard defensively. He was a kid, maybe 12 years old. But he had obviously watched way too much And 1 mixtapes. On their first offensive possesion, he crossed me up. Bad. But he didn't try to penetrate for a layup. After his cross, he pulled a step-back jumper. Bricked it. Later on, he drove and laid it in off the glass. I decided to allow myself to be crossed as long as I stopped him from getting to the paint. As I kept letting him get the open space, he continued to brick every jump shot. However, as a posterboy for the And 1 generation, he decided on one possession to talk some smack. 

It's one thing if you're destroying me and scoring at will on me when you decide to talk some smack. It's a different story if you're making Larry Hughes look like Jordan and you decide to talk yourself up. I wasn't having it.

So I decided to talk back. I told him how he hasn't scored a point except on the one drive. I pointed out that I was scoring more than him. The pressure kicked up a notch as I knew I couldn't let him score. Taking a more physical defensive style, I didn't allow him any space and helped force a turnover. My team went on to win easily, and the kid went on to shoot half-court heaves in an phony effort to show that he didn't care about the game anyway. Although I had won this time, I understood that I had to step up my defense because the next time I could be guarding a more experience And 1 disciple.

I played more and more pickup games. I was my usual self in these games: stifling defense, weak offensive game. In one game I broke out of my slump. Sort of. The teams were by no means fair. We were smaller at every position. We should have lost the game 11-nil. But thanks to some good outside shooting we stayed in the game. I was guarding a guy that was taller than me which I was not enthused about. However, he never scored so I considered it a good game by those merits alone. All tied at 13, my teammate forced a turnover and we turned to go on a fastbreak. On a 3 on 2 situation, they guarded the other two guys. I received the ball at the left elbow and put it up immediately. It bounced on the front rim but fell in regardless, 14-13. Our opponents missed a jumper, allowing us the game point since we were playing win by 2. On another fast break, we went up the court. Except this time it was 2 on 3. With one guy guarding our pg who was at the top of the key, one guy on the left block, and the other guy guarding me with man defense, I cut from to the right block. Our pg passed me the ball and I put up the hook shot against the glass over and extended arm from my defender. Game. It was definitely my highlight of my basketball career, haha.

Since then, I've kept up my practice. However last week I sprained my left wrist pretty bad. Being right dominant, I could still shoot but I couldn't dribble left or crossover. So I decided to work on my post moves until it healed up. Nearly fully recovered, I have developed a purely utilitarian post game. Drop-steps, spin moves, and my favorite: hook shots are now a part of my pickup game repertoire. I can't get enough of it; a 5'7" guard posting up.

But more to the point: I can't get enough of the game.

Pictured: Me

I am astounded that I've managed to do this fanpost update for so long. It's been 7 weeks, almost 8 and I couldn't be happier about how it's gone. Thanks to the supporters, especially Andrew for the help and support on this Basketball Evolution mini-series. Next week will be a fun article of different information; stay tuned.