Hey there folks,

As someone who would never consider himself a Bobcats fan, but grew up in NC cheering for the Hornets since childhood I have been having a passing interest in this group of players. After living in Charlotte and attending a few Cats home games I've come to the conclusion that something about this team NEEDS to change come the trade deadline. Charlotte definitely has some interesting young pieces going forward, but they're all canceled out by the dead weight on the roster too.

So I come to you fine people on Rufus on Fire asking if my potential 3 way trade between the Portland Trailblazers and Sacramento Kings is both realistic and could actually help the Cats?

http://espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine/?tradeId=b2hnbut

Charlotte gets: (C) J.J Hickson, (PF) Jason Thompson, (SF) John Salmons, and (PF) Joel Freeland. Along with Sacramento's (Seattle's) 1st round pick

Portland gets: (C/PF) Byron "Don't Call me BJ" Mullins, (PF) Hakim Warrick, and Charlotte's pick that belonged to the Pistons.

Sacramento gets: (SG) Gerald Henderson, (PF) Tyrus Thomas, Charlotte's 1st round draft pick.

In this scenario, Charlotte pretty much guts their front court, since everyone and their mothers know that they are awful at rebounding and generally scoring in the inside. I feel like with the acquisitions of Hickson and Thompson, you get 2 bigs that love hanging in the post and are young but still have NBA experience. J.J Hickson I think would be a perfect fit for this team and the fan base will readily embrace him since he attended NC State not too long ago.

The only thing I'm not too sure about is the Kings taking the bait and taking Tyrus Thomas off of the Cats hands, but I do think adding Salmons and having him come off the bench as a veteran leader could work out long term, he's practically a less athletic version of Henderson anyway.

So what do you guys think? I think the trade would still most certainly keep Charlotte as a lottery team, but as a lot of experts have said, this is a weak class of prospects. With Sacramento's lottery pick the Cats can still keep thier eye on grabbing Shabazz Muhammed and start as a real rejuvenated franchise next year... As the Charlotte Hornets.