THE CHARLOTTE BLOGCAT

Bobcats Thoughts, 8/12

2008-08-12T10:56:00.003-05:00

Today’s Office Tip will serve you well no matter what profession you choose: Never—under any circumstances—allow Smokey Robinson’s “Cruisin’” to be the last song you listen to before you leave the house. It implants itself like that bug did to Arnold in Total Recall and leaves its victims helplessly signing/humming it all day until co-workers become suicidal. Now that I think about it, that song is evil in two ways. Besides having a secret ingredient that makes you crave it, it’s also responsible for one of the more underrated “yuck” moments in film history (on the list right below Luke tongue-kissing whom he would later find out was his sister in The Empire Strikes Back): Huey Lewis and Gwyneth Paltrow performing that song together as father-and-daughter in Duets. Did they not look at the lyrics beforehand? This is not a tune a father should be singing with his daughter; that's what songs like "Hip to Be Square" are for. Forget about the “this is not a one night stand” line, Smokey/Huey coos for permission to “open up and go inside” and--after his request for access was apparently allowed--then proclaims, “I can just stay there inside you.” Ick. Why didn’t they just follow that up with a karaoke of Lil Wayne’s “Pussy MVP”? Just disgusting.

Anyway, we’ve traded the 38th pick of this year’s draft, G Kyle Weaver, to Oklahoma City for a 2nd round pick in next year’s draft. This transaction signifies either a) nothing of consequence or b) yet another scouting failure; I’m not sure which. Weaver was supposed be a selfless, solid defender—traits that usually transcend a player’s college-to-pro transition. But they didn’t—at least in the Summer League—so we’ve cut Weaver loose. The potential upside of this deal is if OKC continues Seattle’s futility and therefore the eventual pick we get next year will be higher up in the second round than this year's 38 (and the pool of talent is also deeper). I’d rather analyze the trade that way, because the alternative conclusion is that we simply guessed wrong on yet another pick.

One other item on this non-news generating week: in a comment to one of my earlier posts, Nate pointed out that our uniforms are ugly—not just ugly, 1980s Houston Astros ugly. However, unlike just about every other aspect of this team, I’m actually not eager to flog the Bobcats on their uniforms. True, the orange is ghastly. It looks like the old Denver Broncos jersey on crack. And yet, I have to give the look points for uniqueness, especially when those alternate blue jerseys are just so generic; they’re just like the Knicks/Suns/Wizards (that is, when they’re in non-C3PO mode).

But at the same time, I don’t think they’re transcendently ugly. Nate mentions the Astros, but before we leave our sport for comparisons, I’d ask him to look no further than Houston’s basketball team. Those mid-90s Rockets pinstripes were the uniform equivalent of New Coke. Other jerseys that I think are worse than ours (in no particular order):

1. The Philadelphia 76ers. Like the Rockets, their current look is especially unforgivable, because they also had a perfectly decent color scheme that they inexplicably ruined. Throughout the 80s, they had a simple red/blue format with a clean “Sixers” across the chest, and they desecrated it with that Vegas-style font and Viet Cong-black look. Spider-Man did this same switch back in the mid-80s, and the results were so disastrous, the hate mail so abundant (I actually wrote one myself to Marvel Comics at the time and turned it in as a 2nd grade writing assignment—and I got an “A”) that they eventually made the black uniform its own villain, Venom.

2. The Wizards. Need I say more? In fact, they’re the only team to pull off a double-double of sorts by killing both a cool name (Bullets) and a cool color scheme. And come to think of it, Michael Jordan was in the front office for these guys too! At this rate, let’s hope MJ never joins Boston’s front-office, otherwise the Celtics might adopt some sort of teal look.

3. The Bucks. Terrible name, terrible color scheme. I’ve said it before: their emblem is a literal deer-in-the-headlights.

4. The Warriors. I’m one of the few people who doesn’t like those retro outfits with the trolley on them—too “hand-drawn” looking.

5. This deserves special mention here: The 2008 US Men’s Team uniforms. Cluttered imprints, non-matching patterns, white-on-white lettering and background. Really, if you want to desecrate the flag, it’s a lot cheaper to just burn the damned thing. Not since Vanilla Ice’s flag-inspired Zubaz have I seen red-white-and-blue butchered so badly. I can’t believe Mamba blessed off on those digs.

On the flip side, I love just about everything the Nuggets have ever done. Whether it’s the current powder blues, the no-frills orange “Denver” ones, or the incomparably spectacular Alex Englishes with the Atari font and cityscape picture straight out of Missile Command, they simply cannot go wrong in my book.

Bobcats Thoughts, 8/7

2008-08-07T15:31:00.002-05:00

ESPN’s announcement that “Earl Boykins has joined the growing legion of veteran role players unable to resist the lure of European riches” raises a critically important question: how many people does it take to qualify for a “legion”? Depending on how you slice it, Boykins’ legion totals either 9 (anyone who played in the NBA last year who will play in Europe next year) or 3 (previously exclusive NBA players who will play in Europe next year). No wait—that should be eight and two, because one of those legionnaires is Carlos Arroyo, and he’s going to Tel Aviv, which is—technically--not in Europe. I suppose you could also say that Boykins is part of two legions, one more exclusive than the other.

But back to my original question: how many do you need for a legion? According to dictionary.com, you need to have at least 3,000 people to call yourselves a legion. Plus you have to be armed and Roman. Hmm, well Earl is going to play for Italy, but I don’t know what sort of weapons arrangements he’s negotiated into his contract. Never mind.

Oh wait, now I see this is one of those multi-part definitions. Let’s see…well, the other definitions have no specific ethnic or armament requirements, but they do stipulate that you need a “large” or “great” number of people in order to call yourself a legion. And I’m not sure if eight or nine cuts it. Take the “Legion of Super-Heroes,” for instance (that would probably be the best historical example): I seem to remember hundreds of them, to the point that I think the DC comics artists were just making ones up on a bet (The Dog Catcher, Cell Phone Boy, etc.). On the other hand, a legion like WWE’s "Legion of Doom" only consisted of two wrestlers. Even counting their football pads, that was probably a misnomer, though, and they should have just stuck with “Road Warriors.”

Anyway, bye-bye, Earl. I guess it just wasn’t meant to be. He didn’t get here until February, and he only averaged just under 16 minutes of playing time. Never a great assister, his 2.34 A/TO ratio would have placed him 41st in the league if he'd played enough minutes to qualify--or the meat in a munchkin sandwich between Allen Iverson and Kyle Lowry. His defensive level was also Arena Football-caliber—he had just 14 total steals for the year.

Part of me feels like Sam Vincent didn’t allow him enough playing time to ever get comfortable, yet he also never really flashed any potential either. Even Adam Morrison contributed several “Wow” moments during his supposedly disastrous rookie season; Earl’s top games were (take your pick): his 14-point, 4-assist masterpiece in a March loss to Utah; or his 6-point, 8-assist, 1-steal tour-de-force in an April win against Toronto. These were mot exactly the types of games we’re going to be talking about 20 years from now, asking each other where we were when Earl dropped 6 on the Raptors. On the other hand, we paid less than a jumbo mortgage for him; at $350 K, he was a penny stock. So good luck in Europe, Earl: fly high, go hard like geese erection…

In other non(sense)-news, we signed free agent SG Shannon Brown for an undisclosed amount in order to…what? I’m not sure. Is it possible to use players as dummy corporations in order to launder money? That's about the only reason I can fathom for picking up yet another shooting guard. You know how in the movies the cops will say that Such-and-Such Restaurant is merely a “front”? Like the Bada-Bing in The Sopranos? I think that’s what we may have here. Shannon Brown is a “front” for Bob Johnson to hide money, or for stashing MJ’s gambling proceeds or something. That would also explain why the amount of the contract is “undisclosed.”

Bobcats Thoughts, 7/29

2008-07-29T11:14:00.002-05:00

You know how one man’s trash can be another man’s treasure? In their enduring, Through-the-Looking-Glass style, the Bobcats have managed to create a scenario in which one man’s trash is the same man’s treasure. A year ago, Emeka Okafor laughed at a $12 million-per-year deal. This year, he signed basically the same deal (and I’m guessing he did so with gusto). Similarly, the Bobcats entered this off-season convinced their offer was way too high and appeared committed to playing hard-ball with Mek…until the less-accomplished Andrew Bogut and Andris Biedrins signed comparable deals with their teams. All of a sudden, $12 a year to a tweener forward/center with limited range and offensive skills seemed like a bargain to management. Ultimately, both Okafor and the Bobcats pulled the contract out of the toilet and placed it on their mantels.

“You need that big guy to defend the Tim Duncans, the (Shaquille) O’Neals, the (Kevin) Garnetts,’’ GM Rod Higgins told the Observer. “The big guys control the game in the post, and that’s our guy when it comes to doing that.” I agree with Higgins, but I really wished he hadn’t named names, because he left me with no choice but check out those guys’ splits to see how they performed against us last year compared with the rest of the league. Against us, Duncan averaged about 6 more PPG than his season average (Garnett averaged about 3 more, same with O’Neal), and the shooting percentage of all three Bigs was up as well. And with the exception of Shaq, rebounding, blocks, and even assists were better for those guys against us compared to season averages. And unfortunately, once I let the cat out of the bag, you know I just had to keep rummaging: Chris Bosh scored more against us…Dwight Howard scored a lot more against us…Yipes, even Bogut scored more against us. Thank goodness Samuel Dalembert and Eddie Curry underperformed against us relative to their average, otherwise I would have needed to sign my own personal 6-day, 72 milligrams of Xanex contract. Maybe Higgins was just speaking abstractly, or perhaps he implied that without Okafor, things would have been much, much worse. I guess like the contract itself, this is all a matter of interpretation. My own interpretation is that I need a drink.

Beyond the numbers, however, signing Okafor sends a signal from ownership that they at least sort of care. Remember in high school, there was always that one kid who had parents who just didn’t care what he did? We had him, and the great thing about him was every weekend--if nothing else--we could always party in his basement. We didn’t even have to figure out a way to buy booze—his parents would just get it for us! Best of all, whenever I asked my own unsuspecting parents if I could go to this kid’s parties, and they asked me if his folks would be there, I could honestly answer “yes” every time. Bob Johnson is those parents, and the GM’s office has been his kids on a Friday night. Which makes we the fans the, ummm…the neighbors who have to deal with the noise and the garbage? I don’t know, this analogy’s gone off course.

The point is, it’s one thing to not spend money on one player if there’s the perception you’ll spend it more effectively on a younger, better player. It’s another thing entirely to not spend money on one player and just keep it for yacht maintenance, which is the impression Bob Johnson has done a good job cultivating throughout his tenure. In Okafor’s case there really wasn’t anyone else out there who could provide a rebounding/defensive presence, so letting him go would have been the equivalent of a parent shutting the door to the basement after the delivery guy tries wheels a keg of MGD downstairs (See, I brought it back!).

Anyway, whether or not we paid too much for Okafor, at least now we can form a better conception of the team’s capabilities. Until now, it’s been awfully hard to analyze this team without knowing Okafor’s status. Talk about conflicting perceptions; without Okafor under contract, the Bobcats were a Rorschach test that really did just look like a big ink stain. Now that the lead domino has fallen, we can see the pattern of strengths and weaknesses develop. And the ripple effect is that teams with mobile big men are going to continue to give us trouble, and therefore Sean May and Jarred Dudley are going to have to be ready for more responsibility, Nazr Mohammed is going to have to be more circumspect with his fouls, and someone from the Davidson-Hollins-Ajinca hydra is going to have to come forward and contribute 10-15 serviceable minutes a night. Larry Brown should be able to facilitate all of this—at least, better than Sam Vincent did. And Johnson can tell the fans that while he’s never going to be parent of the year, he at least took all the kids’ keys before he let them downstairs.

Bobcats Thoughts, 7/24

2008-07-24T11:59:00.002-05:00

I looked with great relief toward Saturday’s televised Summer League game with the Knicks, mostly because my ears were still ringing from the cacophonous mess or The Dark Knight, which I’d seen the night before. By the way, anti-props go to the Charlotte Observer’s Lawrence Toppman for his review of the film. I suppose it’s technically impossible to have a “wrong” opinion of something, but still, when Toppman writes that director Christopher Nolan “keeps the focus tight: All events take place in Gotham over a couple of months,” I can’t buy anything he says from then on. First of all, the movie didn’t take place completely in Gotham; there was an extremely long sequence in which Batman goes out to freakin’ Hong Kong to bust a bad guy. This wasn’t just a brief interlude, either—there was a lengthy build-up, complete with airline arrangements, a fresh new Bat-suit made especially for the trip, an elaborately-staged yacht-escape sequence, and the whole thing culminated with a (barely comprehensible—along with just about everything else in this movie) fight scene. How did Toppman forget about this?

Maybe because this movie wasn't “tight.” It featured one main bad guy (the Joker), one secondary bad guy (Two-Face), a horde of sub-bad guys (miscellaneous gangsters), a superfluous returning bad guy (that guy with the bag on his head from the first movie), bad guy/good guys (crooked cops), bad-but-harmless guys (fake Batman imposters), bad-but-good-in-the-end guys (convicts who decide not to blow up a boat), mistaken-for-bad guys (terrorists who are actually hostages (I think—this scene really made no sense, and that’s saying something)), and good-but-pretends-to-be-bad-for-reasons-that-didn’t-make-much-sense (Batman himself). Even if you could keep track of all this gibberish, I wouldn’t call it "tight"—heck, look at the paragraph I wrote just to summarize this.

One more problem with this supposedly “tight” movie before I get to the game is the Joker’s total omnipotence/omnipresence. I understand that this is supposed to be a parable for post-9/11 America, with the Joker standing-in for Al Qaeda, and that’s all very clever and deep. But come on, that doesn’t mean the Joker can possibly rig huge boats with explosives without anyone noticing, arrange it so everyone evacuates all hospitals except one person while he slips in unnoticed, commandeer entire buildings to stage elaborate and incomprehensible hostage-situations (see above), get hold major public figures’ DNA to send death threats (at least, I think that’s what he did), etc, etc, etc. Basically, he was totally, inexplicably, unstoppable. Isn't some sort of explanation for how he did all this warranted? I really think there were so many explosions that everyone—the audience, the directors, the editors—got lost in the shuffle. No wait, that can’t be, because this movie was so “tight.”

Anyway, onto Saturday’s game—the final of the Bobcats’ Summer League season. Overall, the game was about as tight as The Dark Knight. Seriously, I’ve seen gas passed better than what these teams were doing with the ball. In all, the teams combined for 24 assists and 35 turnovers, which can basically be explained by the fact that D.J. Augustin didn’t play and the fact that Nate Robinson did.

The most notable participant was Alexis Ajinca, and it was for all the wrong reasons. This was my first look at the Frenchman, and let’s just say that if this game were the Batman franchise, he would be Katie Holmes; his appearance was brief and horrible. In eight minutes of utter goofiness that would have made Primoz Brezec blush, Ajinca committed 3 fouls, a turnover, and topped his Turd Sundae off with a missed 3-pointer (?). He was also so spectacularly out of position all the time that even opposing players were pointing out where he needed to be standing. He was burnt so repeatedly that the uncreative nickname “French Toast” popped into my head about halfway through his stay. Then he injured himself. Holy-moly.

If there was any upside to the debac-ular Ajinca, it’s that he made Jermareo Davidson look like Earl Monroe. In fact, sporting the Sprewell pig-tails, Davidson actually showed some good moves down low. In the second quarter, Davidson executed a stellar head-fake on some guy named Holland en route to a powerful slam. Davidson finished with an efficient 10 points in just 12 minutes, although he still needs to step his rebounding up (just 1 board).

The other two standouts for the Bobcats were forward/center Kyle Visser, a 4-year Wake Forest grad who looks similar to Lem from The Shield (that is, before Shane threw a hand grenade at him), and former Clipper guard Guillermo Diaz. Visser finished with 10 points and 7 boards, while Diaz contributed 14 points and got to the free throw line 5 times. I don’t even really remember when either of these guys did all this, which probably means it happened in the 2nd quarter. I say this because almost the entirety of that period was devoted to an interview with the barely-audible new Knick point guard, Chris Duhon. Like most athletes, Duhon is tragically unable to make eye contact with his interlocutors, with the twist that he’s one of those rare types who elects to look up rather than down while he’s not looking at the commentators. Thus, it was hard to know what was happening on the court while watching Duhon appear to count ceiling lights.

Rounding out the squad, Jared Dudley was superb in a brief cameo, collecting a steal, 3 rebounds, and 4 points in under 7 minutes. Kyle Weaver was also on the scene, but he didn’t do anything other than look ominously like Ricky Davis. Orien Greene (14 pts) and Marcus Slaughter (10 pts) rounded out our double-digit scorers; unfortunately for them, we need more 3-4 swingmen on our team about as much as Batman needs another villain.

Bobcats Thoughts, 7/14

2008-07-14T09:08:00.006-05:00

All right, just like Sean May and Adam Morrison, my car’s back to near-functionality, and I’m ready to talk Bobcats basketball! But one thing before I do: you want to know an interesting conversation to overhear? An insurance company rep haggling with an auto-mechanic. This is what happened after I took my broken-in car to the nearest shop for repairs. The insurance company miraculously agreed to pay for the damages, so I put them on the line with (not kidding) Vinny from Brooklyn Auto-Glass to discuss an estimate. What followed was a Federer/Nadal-like virtuosic dual between two of the most bloodthirsty rivals anywhere. It was spectacular, really: two warriors at the top of their game, just going all-out in an epic showdown. Advantages were gained and lost. Several times when it looked like one of them had broken the other’s will, he would summon everything he had for a stirring comeback. And when Vinny finally hung up the phone (in a tough but fair fight, he was able to secure payment for the broken window, but alas, the insurance company wanted me to take the car somewhere else for a new radio), I nearly stood up and applauded the superhuman efforts of both competitors. It was almost worth the robbery.

Anyway, let’s talk Summer League…and that’s about all we can do, because we certainly can’t watch Summer League. If you haven’t tried to stream the games on NBA.com, don’t bother. Unless you’re writing a thesis for some goofball New Age journalism class about the “Importance of Broadcasters on Sports and Society” or something, it’s pointless (and if you ARE, you’re wasting your money—either drop the class and take physics or do something even more practical: sleep in). For these downloads, the screen is tiny and cannot expand, there’s no audio, and there’s no graphics—save for an illegible little “scoreboard” that hovers over the unrecognizable players like the ghost of a 1983 Speak’N’Spell.

(Side note: Is it me or is the NBA really dropping the ball when it comes to internet/podcast platforms? I don’t even like baseball, and yet I get more baseball podcasts even during their offseason than I do at the height of the NBA playoffs. And the League’s actually regressed in this area—last year you could occasionally download the NBA Fantasy show and random clips of their XM-radio broadcasts; this year there was nothing other than The Basketball Jones, MSR, and Chad Ford talking about a) the draft, or b) Joe Dumars—although to be fair, at least when the playoffs rolled around, Ford switched the subject to…Joe Dumars’ draft picks. And none of this content was NBA-sponsored; it’s totally frustrating…)

So this leaves us relying on second-hand accounts of our team’s progression, especially that of DJ Augustin. This can be problematic, however, given the wildly diverse impressions these games seem to be creating among pundits. Over on ESPN, Maurice Brooks opened his Liveblog by echoing one of the more inexplicable sentiments concerning our pick of Augustin: “I didn't think Charlotte needed another point guard.” We didn’t need another point guard?? We had Raymond Felton and Earl Boykins (who we’re probably not keeping)--that's it!! By my count, that’s only about a point guard-and-a-half. Meanwhile, we’ve got about 8 swingmen and 4 seven-footers who can’t rebound. We needed a point guard like John McCain needs sun-block, and this made me immediately suspicious of any more reports by Brooks.

On the other hand, the Charlotte Observer’s normally even-keeled Rick Bonnell has lately been leaning to the Matt Devlin/cornball-optimistic side, which hasn’t exactly reassured me of his objectivity. From a purely statistical standpoint, I’d say Augustin’s debut has been conservatively decent: 14 points and 2 assists in Game 1 vs. the Clips, 15 points and 2 assists (plus 5 turnovers) in Game 2 vs. the Hornets. Yet he’s “shined” and is “standing tall,” according to Bonnell’s recaps, leading Bonnell to conclude that, hey, “maybe size doesn’t matter.” Maybe not, Rick, but you might want to cut down on all the Pixar movies before you watch these games, especially after your syrupy, coming-of-age piece on Alexis Ajinka in the Sunday column that could’ve doubled as the script to the next American Tail cartoon.

(Side note 2: In that article, Bonnell writes that it wasn’t until Ajinka was 12 years old that a cousin told him he might want to consider taking up basketball. I ask you, how could that be? Presumably, Ajinka was already well over 6 feet at the time and a great athlete, so did he really need a cousin to point out to him that he may have a future in basketball? Had it really never occurred to Ajinka (or at least his parents) sometime before? I don’t mean to single out Ajinka on this either, because it seems like I’ve read this line a lot when it comes to basketball players who were reportedly “late-bloomers,” and I’m always skeptical. Either these guys are disturbingly un-self-aware, or the writers of the articles are embellishing things a tad. I don’t know about you, but we had a kid who was almost 6-feet tall in the second grade, and not a day passed without at least one person (including the teacher) “helpfully” pointing out to him that he should be a pro basketball player someday.)

Anyway, as if there weren’t enough angst already surrounding the rookies, Emeka Okafor’s contract/possible departure to the Clippers, Morrison’s and May’s injuries, and Larry Brown’s impact, Bonnell was also busily debunking trade rumors. Gerald Wallace and May for Carlos Boozer is NOT happening, folks, nothing to see here. Phew! Okay, great. Nothing like squashing rumors I didn’t even know existed...We need the regular season to come back soon—if nothing else, it’s easier to follow…

Bobcats Thoughts, 6/27

2008-06-27T09:17:00.005-05:00

Sorry it’s been so long since you’ve heard from me (or in some cases, you’re welcome!), but I’ve been in the process of moving. When the supposedly edgy, punk-y, and cheap East Village is renting studios at $1,800 a month that are smaller than my old Army barracks room, that's when it’s time to move to…Brooklyn! And because I knew very little about the borough other than to avoid any neighborhoods shouted-out in a Jay-Z song, there’s been moderate-to-very-little sleep 'til Brooklyn while we’ve searched for a place, preferably with at least one bedroom.

So we moved last week, and in a touching ceremony that really made my wife and I feel like family, our historic and beautiful old neighborhood promptly welcomed us with an ancient ritual: burglarizing my car. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this traditional native custom, it involves showering the sidewalk with tiny, intricately-cut shards of your car’s passenger-side window, followed by the delicate removal of your radio, and finally the spreading of your glove compartment’s contents to complete the coronation. In certain cases for those with a prized vehicle, the natives will also open your trunk as if it were a flower in bloom and set free whatever is inside; unfortunately, our 2002 Corolla (with manual roll-down windows) didn’t qualify for this treatment, but it was a special event nonetheless.

Anyway, before I make you all jealous, let’s get to this draft. “With the #9 and #20 picks in the 2008 NBA Draft, the Charlotte Bobcats select…a bunch of really angry fans no matter who they pick.” I thought long and hard about this draft, and early yesterday morning I came to the following two conclusions: 1) every one of these picks after the first two (and maybe even the first one) has at least one serious flaw, either in general or with the Bobcats in particular; 2) it’s the 9th and 20th picks, so there’s no real point in fretting about it.

If you concede that our two most pressing needs are a point guard and a rebounding center (and everyone except possibly the team itself has conceded this, considering they were also the same two needs before last year’s draft), then you knew going into this thing that we weren’t going to get a very satisfying pick either way, especially with our higher pick. The options at center were discouraging, as the only lottery-worthy 5 was Brook Lopez, who has a questionable attitude about anything other than Disney characters and—oh yeah, can’t rebound. The other possible center draft candidate was Kevin Love, whose physical fitness seems to fluctuate like Oprah’s and who seems more suited for the 4-spot, where Emeka Okafor is calling home, at least for now.

As for the 1, after Derrick Rose, four of the top five guards (OJ Mayo, Russell Westbrook, Jerryd Bayless, and Eric Gordon) were not even true point guards. This was worrisome, because last year we didn’t even know what to do when we DID have a true point guard: Raymond Felton played virtually the whole year at the 2-spot. The last thing we need is more “trans-guard” ambiguity. Thus, the fifth of the bunch and our eventual pick, DJ Augustin, was a serviceable choice.

Augustin’s size and defense are a concern, but even more alarming were the reports that our incumbent guard, Raymond Felton, is suddenly fighting for his job. Chad Ford even calls Augustin an “upgrade” over Felton!? Really? Size-wise, Augustin is barely an upgrade over David Stern! DJ is one of the few draftees Stern didn’t have to squint up at like he’s reading a billboard advertisement for Gossip Girl and trying to figure out what “OMFG” means. Everyone is asking if the Augustin selection (and some guy named Kyle Weaver with the 38th pick) means we’re now shopping Felton, but what I’m really curious is Earl Boykins. We can’t possibly be retaining Earl with Augustin now, are we? How’s that team practice going to look? For the 5-on-5 scrimmages it’s going to be Arnold Drummond covering Webster.

A clear-cut strategy of “guard-first/big man-second” was illuminated earlier in the day when the Cats obtained the rights to the #20 pick from the Nuggets, meaning they could use it to take from the pool of late-round 7-footers who are generally undeveloped and largely indistinguishable. Except…we STILL managed to throw a curveball-zinger in there by selecting France’s Alexis Ajinca over the more logical choice of Ohio State’s Kosta Koufos. Coach Larry Brown (sort of) explained the rationale behind the pick to the ESPN crew later by saying he “fell in love” with Alexis in a private workout. Besides being unintentionally funny and vaguely homoerotic, I’m not sure if this explanation did much for me. Exactly how bad was Koufos at Ohio State that he warranted a snub from a 5-point scoring Frenchman? Unless points in French convert to American points like Euros to dollars, this move seems a little batty.

And say what you will about Koufos, at least he was guaranteed to show up at training camp. Going that low in the draft puts Ajinca at risk to stay in Europe—let’s hope LB’s love for AA is similar to Andie MacDowell’s love for Gerard Depardieu in Green Card and convinces the Frenchman to come to the States permanently. But even if he does, are we now going to have a bench squad of Ryan Hollins, Jermareo Davidson, and Ajinca? That’s three 7-footers who can’t rebound, and who all shoot/peg the ball exactly like Kevin Garnett’s and-one just before half-time of Game 6, except our guys do it even if they’re wide open (and they miss). Finally, someone better make sure those three, Boykins, and Augustin are distributed evenly along the pine, otherwise we’re going to have a see-saw going.

But for everyone who's agonizing about what we did last night, just remember, all of this muck and angst is mollifiable if you go back to my Conclusion #2, which is, hey, it’s the ninth and twentieth picks. Forget about the 20th for a second, do you know who the last five ninth-overall picks have been? Joakim Noah, Patrick O’Bryant, Ike Diogu, Andre Iguodala, and Mike Sweetney. With the exception of Andre, none of these guys is destined to make much of an impact, so fretting over these picks is like fretting over which Combo Meal to get at McDonald’s: it’s cheap and it’s probably going to be mediocre no matter what you take, so just pick something and let’s go. And who knows, if either Augustin or Ajinca can do anything other than blow out an ACL, think of it as that rare Happy Meal with the cool toy.

Bobcats Thoughts, 6/12

2008-06-12T12:28:00.002-05:00

One of the many tragic elements of prolific author David Halberstam’s death last year is that right now would have been the perfect time for him to write another basketball book. Halberstam’s first take on hoops, the vaunted The Breaks of the Game, profiled the nascent League in the throes of its 1970s growing pains. In 1998’s Playing For Keeps, Halberstam analyzed in deft detail the Jordan-era League that was cresting in popularity yet already wary of the void soon to come with 23’s retirement. This year—an even decade later, with the NBA enjoying its first real post-Jordan renaissance, fueled by a new generation of stars and punctuated by a classic Celtics-Lakers Finals match-up—is screaming for a Halberstamian encapsulation to complete the trilogy. Too bad the legend can no longer provide one for us.

If by chance you haven’t read either of his two NBA books, I cannot recommend them highly enough. The Breaks of the Game is particularly edifying, because the reader has the chance to examine all of the ways the game has and hasn’t changed in 30-odd years. I found it fascinating how obsessed all of the players were with three things back then: their contracts, their race, and their knees. I'm barely exaggerating; regardless of the player, he felt he was signed to a contract that was too long, too cheap, or—on the flip-side—too burdensome. If the player was black, he almost always felt underpaid, unappreciated, and alienated, while if he was white, he was anxious to live down the rumors that he was overpaid or part of a “quota”-conspiracy, plus he was sensitive to stereotypes of being un-athletic. But above all—above the anguish surrounding contractual and racial issues—was the persistent fear of health problems, especially regarding knees. Every player was either suffering from knee injuries, getting over them, or worried about them, and therefore his career was constantly teetering on the brink. As a result of all this anguish, and for the turmoil in the front office over television rights and mounting expenses, 70s basketball was a grim landscape indeed. And we learn this through Halberstam, whose expert reporting of the NBA in its dramatic, Darwinian early stages, makes The Breaks of the Game an enduring classic.

(Side note: this third obsession with knees also revealed a profound shortsightedness of the era. For all of the paranoia, nobody (including Halberstam) seemed able to pinpoint the root cause of the pervasive knee injuries, a cause that is painfully obvious decades later: the feeble sneakers back then, which were woefully inadequate for the high-impact jumping that the game entails. Instead, players attempted to build leg strength through faddish exercises (there seemed to be a lot of “hitting the Nautilus,” which I must admit to not fully understanding—did the “Nautilus” start out as just one type of machine, rather than an entire brand of fitness equipment? If so, what was it—a stationary bike?), tried to ration out the amount of jumping they did, altered their diets, sought out specific surgeons, etc. It was kind of macabre, really—sort of like reading one of those first-person accounts of life in a frontier village in the days before it was understood that mosquitoes spread malaria, wherein the author concludes that all of the premature "fever and ague" deaths were a fact of life and probably attributable to “evil spirits.”)

If he were still here and composing a third book, I wonder whom Halberstam would have chosen as his muse? Each of his books has had a team or player serve as the vehicle for Halberstam to drive his narrative of the League as a whole. The Breaks of the Game used the 1980 Portland Trail Blazers as the conduit, while MJ himself was the apotheosis of 1990s NBA athleticism and commercial success in Playing For Keeps. This year, Halberstam would have had a few options. LeBron James probably best represents the new wave of NBA superstars, not just for his dominance on the court, but also for the influence he has on owners and coaches, and of course his image proliferation globally and in cyberspace (both of which are characteristic of the League as a whole). Kobe Bryant also would have been an excellent choice, for Halberstam could have used him as the symbolic bridge between “old” and “new,” plus The Mamba has the added advantages of being a) in the Finals, and b) one of the most compelling figures in all of sports. A third candidate could have been Commissioner Stern, who—for better or worse—has been the architect of the League’s past and present status, the erudite pilot at the helm of its fits and starts and triumphs and shortcomings for the past 25 or so years. Either way, Halberstam would have had a wealth of options.

Of course, these choices wouldn’t be exclusionary, for Halberstam’s books always thoroughly encompassed the entire landscape of the League. The players, the owners, the agents, the media, the style of play—Halberstam illuminated all of the NBA’s branches and tentacles. Halberstam wasn’t so much a genius as he was a consummate investigator and thoughtful sociologist. I grasped his true greatness about 2/3 of the way through The Breaks of the Game. There was a passage in which Halberstam was reflecting on the delicate balance between individual greatness and team success in the NBA, and how they often subtract from each other, and how this is unique compared to other sports, when it suddenly occurred to me: every single significant thought I’ve ever had about the NBA—its cultural significance, its comparative advantages and disadvantages with other sports—has already been taken by Halberstam. Not only that, he’d done it all some 30 years ago! I found this to be simultaneously humbling, daunting, and amazing. Halberstam’s ability to draw conclusions through research, inquiry, and critical exploration were his unsurpassed gifts.

Random epilogue: Officiating, officiating, officiating! The refs are ruining everything! After Game 2 in Boston, everywhere you turn, people are pissed that the refs are making bad calls, or too many calls, or not enough calls. Then Tim D. poured more gas on the fire. Some people even go so far as to say officials are holding back the sport as a whole.

Whatever.

Just remember all of this hoopla when the NFL season roles around again, and after each week there’s a firestorm about a bad pass interference call, or a QB who should have been ruled “in the grasp,” or an impossible-to-verify ruling about a receiver being pushed out (or not). Wait a second, you don’t even need to wait that long: how about the lack of instant replay in MLB screwing up outs, foul balls, even home runs—home runs! At least our officials can accurately determine when someone scores. And don’t get me started on the strike zone, which has shrunk to the size of Manu Ginobli’s bald spot. The NBA does not “suffer” from “subjective” calls any more than any other sport.

Bobcats Thoughts, 6/5

2008-06-05T13:28:00.002-05:00

Gee, if only Bob Johnson was as loyal to his own basketball team as he seems to be to the Clinton Campaign. According to the Observer, Johnson’s pressuring Congressman Jim Clyburn and the Congressional Black Caucus to back Hillary Clinton to be Barack Obama’s Veep. That’s pretty ballsy considering just a few months ago Johnson was openly lampooning Obama as a worthless drug addict. Now he honestly expects favors from Obama? This is like me asking Tim Duncan for a million bucks. Wait, sorry, Johnson’s not pressuring Clyburn; he’s "urging and encouraging." Whatever, BJ. I wonder if Johnson considers his bladder to be “pressuring” him or “urging and encouraging” him to take a pee after he downs a bottle of Chardonnay?

I don’t know what Billary’s got on old Bob, but I guess we should be happy that—unlike the rest of Hillary’s loony apparatchiks—Johnson’s at least accepting the fact that she lost. I see that she’s sort of (kind of, through third parties, etc.) conceded the election now (how benevolent of her), but Clinton’s refusal to admit defeat immediately after Obama secured the delegates is, is…spectacular, quite frankly. Imagine if sports teams did this? I mean, for all intents and purposes, the delegate count is to a primary election what the scoreboard is to a basketball game—it’s not subjective; whoever has the most, wins. So what if the Spurs—instead of just shaking Kobe & Company’s hands at the end of Game 6 and going quietly into the off-season—decided instead that they'd “think about their options and consult with their fans” and get back to everyone in a few days...And then Greg Popovich and Tony Parker reappeared a few days later, held a press conference, and “acknowledged” that LA did win, but only on the condition that, say, the Spurs get the Lakers’ draft pick next year. This is basically what Hillary did--"I'll only say you won if you consider me for VP and/or and/or a key cabinet member and/or a Supreme Court Justice." Couple this with her brazen claim to have won the “popular vote” (rhetorical fertilizer of the highest grade), AND the fact that practically no one’s calling her on anything, and I’m downright awestruck. At some point, I actually have to admire her.

Anyway, because I can’t bring myself to get too worked up over whoever ends up being our 9th round pick (Brook Lopez! Anthony Randolph! Pinch me!), I’m calling out someone else: The New York Times’ William C. Rhoden. For those of you who might not follow the Times (which, to the ultra-self-important Times, is utterly inconceivable), Rhoden is one of their regular sports columnist who focus primarily on racial issues. You may remember that he wrote a controversial book a few years ago with the subtle, bland title of Forty Million Dollar Slaves. I actually gave it a mixed review and thought that although he illuminates some worthy concerns, a lot of his arguments were questionable and supported by some pretty flimsy evidence (for instance, he had a problem with the way big-time colleges isolate black athletes and strip them of their cultural identity, yet he relied too heavily on a Sports Illustrated article from the late 60s to back up his claims--I'm pretty sure things have improved at least slightly since then).

So remember a few weeks ago when New York Mets manager Willie Randolph made some comments about being judged unfairly because he’s black? This was right in Rhoden's wheelhouse. Anytime something like this happens, you can bet that Rhoden’s going to follow up with a very sober piece on how far we still have to go in America before we’ve completely put racism behind us and truly do value each other as equals. Rhoden’s other recurring tendency, by the way, is to compliment whoever the athlete/coach is who made these inflammatory comments for bravely bringing the problem to light. This can actually be sort of comical at times, because Rhoden tends to do this no matter how non-sensical and/or farfetched the comments are; for instance, he was a huge believer in Larry Johnson’s profanity-laced tirade with the Knicks back in 1999 (in fact, it was the “inspiration” behind the Forty Million Dollar Slaves title). For the most part, I’m actually with Rhoden—I prefer athletes and coaches who speak their minds, and I believe that racism still plays a problematically large role in society.

But here’s where I think Rhoden is dead wrong. In that same follow-up article on Randolph, in which he predictably praised Willie for speaking out on racism and chastised the New York media for their subsequent backlash, he switched gears and began discussing what he believed to be a “quota system” in modern-day sports. Specifically, he referred to the globalization of the NBA over the past few years as a “code word for more white players on rosters.” I’m sorry, but if that’s what Rhoden thinks is the primary motivation behind expanding the League, he’s employing some pretty slanderous reductionism. And I think Ronny Turiaf, Tony Parker, Leandro Barbosa, Luol Deng (sense the pattern here?), and plenty of other foreign stars would agree with me. Whatever you think of David Stern, he’s a bottom-line guy; for better or worse, the color he focuses on more than anything else is green. If anything, “globalization” is code for “2 billion Yao Ming jerseys sold in China.”

I appreciate Rhoden for speaking up on these matters, just as he extends his thanks to the athletes whenever they do so. But Rhoden can be hard to support when he expresses hostility to further integration (he did this repeatedly in his book also)—in sports and in society as a whole. Call me naïve, but for all of its faults and missteps, I still believe in the benefits of integration, the melting pot, and everything else they taught me on Sesame Street. After all, it’s integration that allows me to spend the first two paragraphs ripping the moves of our team’s black owner just as if he were any other white, distant, disinterested, billionaire owner. And on that note, you’re doing great B-Jo, now pick us a winner at #9—Russell Westbrook! DJ Augustin! Kevin Love! I can’t wait!

Bobcats Thoughts, 5/30

2008-05-30T16:27:00.002-05:00

Since we’re in the college acceptance season, let’s do a sentence completion exercise…for fun! Here goes: the Celtics are to the NBA what violence was to The Sopranos. Think about it: when the Celtics are up, everyone’s impression of the NBA is up. And when the Celtics are down, the NBA is seen as having a “down” year. Similarly, anytime there was a particularly bloody stretch on The Sopranos, it was universally regarded as a great show and generated water-cooler talk. But whenever the shooting stopped for long stretches and Tony did mundane, non-violent things (like spend multiple episodes in a coma), loyal viewers grew frustrated and casual fans turned away.

To understand the Celtics’ impact, simply compare this season and last season. Ostensibly, both had several common features: both had heated MVP races culminating in first-time winners (Dirk & Kobe), both had solid if unspectacular Rookies of the Year (Roy and Durant), both had highly competitive Western Conference Playoff races (5 50+ win teams last year, 8 this year), and both had teams blatantly tanking for purposes of draft positioning (Celtics & Bucks last year, Heat & Grizzlies this year).

The differences between 06-07 and 07-08, as far as I can tell, are pretty minor. Definitely this year had more blockbuster trades (and the impact was magnified because two of them involved...Boston!), but last year did see Iverson getting shipped off to Denver. Last year was marred by the Nuggets-Knicks “brawl” (or “minor altercation,” as it was known to us non-ignorant NBA fans) and a sketchy All-Star Game. This year also had the "feel-good story" of the New Orleans Hornets, but I’d argue that Golden State’s finish last year was—if not in the neighborhood—at least a suburb of comparability. In both years, the playoffs were a mixed bag.

But the biggest difference between this year and last year is the Celtics. It’s probably because they bring a large, disproportionately vocal fan base, full of old-time (Bob Ryan) and younger (Bill Simmons) tastemakers alike. Thus, their concerns end up being everyone’s concerns. For instance, when the team tanked last year, all of a sudden the league as a whole had a problem with tanking. This year? Tanking was no big deal, even though it was—if anything—more blatant (two words: "Patrick Riley").

So here’s the interesting part. The final season of The Sopranos drew more fans than ever, and a big part of it had to do with the escalating body count. But the last episode left roughly half the audience alienated, the general complaint being that it lacked an “ending.” I firmly believe that by “ending,” most people meant “some sort of bloody shootout, preferably involving Tony dying in a pinwheeling spray of blood and diner food.” In other words, it was a great last season until the end, when no violence = fan frustration.

Meanwhile, this year’s NBA has seen the Celtics rise to the best record, hence viewership and casual interest have correspondingly escalated, and the season has been universally heralded as one of the best in recent memory. But how will it end? The “dream match-up,” of course, is the Celtics-Lakers, while anything else is going to be like watching Meadow spend 5 minutes parking a car.

Full disclosure: I’m a diehard loyalist of both the NBA and The Sopranos. I’ve never not loved the NBA, even when it’s supposedly going through a “down” year. For example, I was one of a handful of people in the country absolutely mesmerized by the virtuoso shooting prowess of Chris Gatling in 1995. Similarly, I have and will continue to defend every Sopranos episode ever, including the final one (to all those who complained about the last episode, I ask you this: what more did you deranged sickos want? Phil Leotardo got his head run over by a car, for goodness’ sake, was that not enough? And just who precisely was supposed to kill Tony at the end?—he made his peace with everyone, including the Feds. You all are depraved.) So I’ll be happy either way, whether the Celtics make it or not. I enjoy the Spurs, and it’s not like the Pistons and Lakers have no history of their own.

Full disclosure #2: Before I get a bunch of hate-mail about how stupid/pointless this article is, I was on a conference call again. I'm telling you, stay away from those things. Only once the calls are done...that I feel like dying, I feel like dying.

Random epilogue: speaking of violence, if you’re ever bored, I’ve got a fun activity for you to try at home: watch a really violent movie with Closed-Captioning on. This past weekend, I DVR’d the utterly degenerate and quasi-fascist film 300, but because my wife was trying to work in the other room, all the screaming and axe-on-flesh noises were distracting her. So I turned the sound down and enabled the Closed-Captioning function, and the results were downright comical. In fact, I couldn’t resist copying down one of the scenes word-for-word. Looking over it, it’s hard to say if this is the dialogue from a movie or the minutes from the President’s latest Cabinet meeting. Check it out:

(All grunting)
(Grunts)
(Distorted grunts and yells)
(Grunting)
(Growling)
(Growling)
(Grunts)
“Father!
(Growling)
(Grunts)
(Breathing heavily)
(Growling)
(Snarls)
(Heavy, thudding footsteps, growling)
(Grunts)
(Roars)
“My king!”
(Growling softly)
(Breathing heavily)
(Sharp tinging)
(Grunts)
(Growling fiercely)
(Growling)
(Thud)
“Arcadians, now!”
“Go Show the Spartans what we can do!”
“Go!”
NARRRATOR: “They shout and curse, stabbing wildly, more brawlers than warriors. They make a wondrous mess of things. Brave amateurs, they do their part.”

Bobcats Thoughts, 5/22

2008-05-22T10:41:00.003-05:00

Okay, today’s topic is, “Tim Duncan Is Stupid—Fact or Fiction?” Ha! Just kidding. By the way, who says Tim Duncan isn’t engaging? My musings last week incited a veritable cyber-riot of outrage. Looking back, my biggest regret is that I didn’t up the level of accusations. Instead of just insinuating he doesn’t care about NBA history, I should have accused him of trying to bomb a bus full of nuns. Maybe I could have alleged he was in the KKK—I could have doctored up some footage to create a 7-foot tall guy in a sheet who was taking a suspiciously long time trying to light a cross on fire, just staring at it forever with his knees pointed inward, fidgeting with the matches while the other Klansmen stood around and wished he’d hurry up and just set the thing on fire already (especially when he’ll probably miss it anyway).

One last comment I wanted to make on that “de-blog-cle” was that the vitriol seemed to equally divide itself into three camps: those outraged that I would dare slander Duncan, those outraged that I would dare praise Kobe Bryant, and those outraged that I would dare mention Adam Morrison, period. The disgust was remarkably symmetric. Oh well, the important thing is, at least everyone could agree on one thing: I’m a goddamned moron—way to come together! Once again, sorry for upsetting everyone; I blame it on that conference call. Stay away from conference calls, kids, they'll make you do terrible things. Try drugs instead.

Moving right along. I don’t know about you, but to me the draft lottery brought almost nothing but good-to-wonderful news. Yeah, I know we technically lost a slot by ending up with the 9th pick rather than the 8th, but look at it this way: this limits the amount of damage Michael Jordan can do. You know how some people say that it’s rare for former great players to become great coaches, because it’s hard for them (the ex-great players) to relate to and teach people who just don’t have the same raw talent? To me, this makes complete sense. I mean, Pablo Picasso could rise from the dead right now and give me 6 months of 12-hours-a-day instruction in cubism, and I still wouldn’t be able to paint a pair of fuzzy dice, let alone Le Guitariste. Moreover, after about ten minutes Pablo would get so frustrated by my ineptitude, he’d start to wish my face looked like one of his portraits for real. So I completely buy this theory.

But what’s harder to understand is why (at least in Jordan’s case) talent can’t seem to SPOT talent. Picking Kwame Brown and Adam Morrison, trading away Rip Hamilton, selecting Sam Vincent as coach…Jordan’s reputation as an appraiser of young talent is littered with terrible judgment calls. Why can’t Jordan recognize young guys who remind him of himself? I know there “will never be another Jordan,” but does that mean he’s got to screw up so spectacularly? Forget about another Jordan, just don’t get another Kwame Brown.

And that’s the beauty of the ninth pick: it’s a protective shelter from the fallout of another Jordan stink-o draft-pick bomb. Plus, Larry Brown will be his co-pilot (more like his designated driver), and that should mitigate his decision-making further. Here’s the other good thing about our slot: we had almost no chance at drawing picks 1 and 2, but imagine if we’d gotten “lucky” and been awarded with the #3? Did you see who Chad Ford’s projecting for the 3rd pick? Brook Lopez! Egad, what if we took him! I kid you not: Jay Bilas was on the radio yesterday, and he said Lopez was a great center, except that he lacks “rebounding and finishing” ability. Umm, what’s the point then? That’s like saying you’ve got a great accountant, except that he can’t add or subtract (note: when it comes to John McCain’s economics advisers, this might actually be the case). Yup, I’ll settle for the 9th pick, get an economically-sound guard or big man, and…

…continue falling out of my chair laughing at the Knicks. As a New Yorker, this brings me to the third delicious outcome of the lottery, and it’s actually a two-parter. The first was the priceless look on Mike D’Antoni’s face when his new team sank to #6 in the lottery, while his potential team scored the #1. D’Antoni did this hilarious, "appear-then-disappear" tight smile of horror that I’ve never seen pulled off by anyone except by Jeopardy! contestants when they screw up the final round. And then, almost by way of an encore, Chad Ford projected that the Knicks will use this pick on some Italian guy named Danilo Gallinari whose dad played with D’Antoni. I swear, Madison Square Garden will collectively defecate itself if this happens—I can’t wait!

Bobcats EMERGENCY Thoughts, 5/14

2008-05-14T19:43:00.002-05:00

Tim Duncan is not stupid! He’s not, he’s not, he’s not! I’m sorry I ever inferred such a thing. I haven’t been this wrong and ashamed since I mistakenly believed the lyrics in Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” were “Excuse me, while I kiss this guy” rather than “the sky” back in middle school. Now even Henry Abbott’s angry at me! What have I done?!

This was an imperfect thought experiment. A highly imperfect experiment, actually—like the “second time they tried to make a Kelly LeBrock model in Weird Science”-level of imperfect. I actually wrote this little doo-dad while on a seemingly endless conference call with one hand over my phone receiver and the other typing (stopping intermittently to perform the important task of picking my nose). It was the speaker’s rambling on the other line that actually made me recall the late Admiral Stockdale, and then I happened to glance over at this slacker dude in an adjoining cubicle, whose hair is shaggy like Adam’s (and is always just barely minimizing his World of Warcraft window in time before the boss walks by), and one thing led to another and…what can I say, I’m sorry I brought it up.

Anyway, all I was suggesting was that Tim Duncan doesn’t seem like the type who spends much time pondering his historical legacy—can we agree on that? And even that could be wrong. For all I know, he’s got a dartboard at home with David Robinson’s face and a picture of George Gervin, from which he removes a strip of clothing every time he breaks one of the Ice Man’s franchise records. I’m just going off his laconic public persona. Meanwhile, Kobe does care about history, and more importantly, his place in it (I don’t think I’m stretching with that assumption). Adam’s somewhere in the middle, and that’s a potentially dangerous thing if he ever wants to go down as one of the greats. (it could also be a moot point if his leg never heals or, even more terrifyingly to us Bobcats fans, he's--um--just not very good)

But for the record, one last time: Duncan is NOT stupid. On the contrary, he’s a thoughtful and considerate young man, apparently beloved by psychology teachers. I also just want to point out that I wrote in the article that Tim Duncan is not stupid. So after all this, if you still truly believe I think he is stupid, then you’re also probably the type who thinks AC/DC’s “Givin’ the Dog a Bone” is about proper pet care.

Bobcats Thoughts, 5/13

2008-05-13T10:15:00.002-05:00

Before John McCain made it cool, Admiral James Stockdale sought office with a resume highlighted by his credentials as a POW hero. Stockdale was Ross Perot’s running mate in 1992, and he is mostly remembered—if he’s remembered at all—for looking discombobulated in televised debates. In fact, along with the growing suspicion that Perot was actually bat-shit crazy, Stockdale’s lack of televised appeal is often cited as one of the primary factors behind Perot’s eventual loss. Voters focused on this crucial aspect far more than on Stockdale’s astonishing military career, his numerous well-received books on philosophy, his Master’s Degree from Stanford, and the fact that his physical impairments—a large part of why he looked bad on television—were the result of 8 years of imprisonment in a Vietnamese torture chamber. In one of the more underrated tasteless acts ever, they even made a Saturday Night Live skit about it.

Anyway, in college I once had to read an essay Stockdale wrote on the dangers of having just a little knowledge. Ostensibly, this topic probably doesn’t seem like it would require a full essay to explain or justify, but Stockdale made it interesting by comparing a low knowledge level with 1) having a high amount of knowledge and 2) having zero knowledge. Curiously, Stockdale argued that having just a little bit of knowledge is not only worse than having lots of knowledge, it’s also worse than having no knowledge whatsoever.

Here’s how he proved it: while locked up in the dungeons with his fellow POWs, Stockdale divided his comrades up into three groups: those who were well-educated in American history, those who were partially-educated in American history, and the completely ignorant ones. Knowledge of American history became crucial, because one of the tactics the Vietnamese captors deployed to subvert the POWs was manipulating their existing opinions of America. To do this, the Vietnamese would “re-teach” the POWs American history by playing up some of our country’s most negative aspects (e.g., the slave trade, imperialism, etc.). If they were successful in this ploy, it was then much easier for the Vietnamese to convince the POWs that their country was abandoning them, and therefore they might as well turn traitor and spill their guts about everything they knew.

Stockdale noticed that the success of this tactic on a given POW depended on the prisoner’s knowledge level. The backwoods hillbillies with almost no education were largely impervious, because they would just respond with “B.S.” to anything the Vietnamese said to them. Meanwhile, those who were highly-educated in American history (as Stockdale was), could resist the Vietnamese by conceding that although America certainly had its flaws, it also had many redeeming features too, and was therefore worth defending. It was that middle group, however—those who knew basic facts but lacked the intellectual depth and breadth to debate various points—who were most often swayed. Hence Stockdale’s conclusion that a little knowledge could be considered worse than no knowledge at all.

This brings us to Adam Morrison.

Morrison is a well-documented autodidact with a preference for social consciousness (e.g., he likes Rage Against the Machine) and a history of free-thinking (e.g., he was Ralph Nader supporter in 2004). He also seems to be a subscriber to the Great Man Theory, the idea that the course of history is usually directed by powerful and charismatic figures, such as Malcolm X, Karl Marx, and Che Guevara (all of whom he’s cited as heroes), rather than by random movements without any particular origin. Clearly, Morrison has exhibited contemplative tendencies.

The question I have is, how deep is Morrison’s grasp of his own place in history (okay, Bobcats history)? Intelligence-levels often seem to impact basketball players much the same way that they did Stockdale’s fellow POWs. For instance, Kobe Bryant is a multilingual, avid reader, consumed with NBA history and his potential legacy within it. Consequently, he’s driven toward totally dominating basketball courts, particularly in “crunch time”; his intellectually-burning desire to be considered the greatest ever is as march a part of his constitution as his athleticism. On the opposite end of the intelligence spectrum is a guy like Tim Duncan. Duncan is by no means stupid, but he seems so completely focused on simply mastering every fundamental task that his coaches put in front of him that he takes no time to consider the deeper ramifications of anything. As a result, he’s completely immune to pressure. As a result, he’s won four championships.

Obviously, Morrison is never going to think like (which is to say, “as little as”) Duncan. Morrison is extremely self-aware and probably spends hours each day reflecting on basketball and his place in it (along with—in no particular order—global warming, the Zapatistas, Hugo Chavez, and the Congressional Democrats’ proposal to shore up the housing crisis). He thus has the potential—a la Bryant—to comprehend and appreciate how close he is to being an historically transcendent talent, and will therefore focus all of his physical and leadership abilities toward achieving that goal. However, the danger for him (or at least, for us Bobcats fans) is if he doesn’t exploit his knowledge level enough and settles for a professionally vulnerable worldview, such as “nothing really matters in this infinitely vast universe upon which my existence is just a fraction of a drop in the cosmic bucket”; and/or “what’s the point of dribbling basketballs unless the U.S. cuts all economic and diplomatic ties with those oppressive, oil-infested regimes in the Middle East?”; and/or “I could be just as happy pocketing my rookie salary and spending the rest of my life sitting outside an organic coffee bar and reading about the success of left-wing farming co-ops in pre-Pinochet Chile.” In that unfortunate event, a little knowledge will spell doom for Morrison and accelerate a slow drift into NBA obscurity. For Bobcats fans, this would be akin to treason.

We’ve heard very little about Morrison since his ACL ruptured. He’s had plenty of time for solitary reflection, and he’s at that age when everything is an influence, either good or bad. Let’s hope that he’s considered all of the possibilities and has nonetheless concluded that his quest for NBA greatness—a vocation he’s dedicated his whole life to so far—is worth defending.

Bobcats Thoughts, 5/2

2008-05-02T08:37:00.003-05:00

Phew! I just got back from a week-long trip to one of my company’s call centers, where we got to sit with service representatives and listen-in on their calls with irate/disinterested customers. It was highly interesting yet disappointing in the sense that I never got one of my most burning questions answered: why is it when I call in to these centers and give all of my account numbers, passwords, mother’s maiden names, and streets I grew up on to the automated voice-response (VR) system—supposedly to save time—the first thing the human does (when I eventually get a hold of him/her) is ask me all of the same crap all over again?? I brought this up with the head of the VR team, and he sounded eerily like Donnie Walsh: long-winded and vague to the point of useless. At one point he actually used the words, “we’re always evaluating the situation and looking to improve all the time.” The only GM-speak he didn’t use was, “we’ll wait until the off-season before we make any decisions.” And now I’m disgusted with myself for just accepting his non-answer and not pushing him further. I basically went into “Chad Ford” mode, ate it, and thanked him.

While on the road, I wasn’t totally off the grid, though. If you go to mysportsradio.com and download episode #189 of the NBA Roundball Roundtable, that’s me calling in with the “Quick Take of the Day.” Listen to the podcast and with about 9 minutes left, you’ll hear me dog one of their hosts for earlier selecting the Utah Jazz as his “x-factor/wild card” of the Utah-Houston series. Yes, you read that right: in a 2-team series, the guy picked one of the teams as his wild card. That was the main point of my call: you can’t pick an entire team as a “wild card.” Yes, technically, the opposing team is a wild card, but it’s not very insightful to point that out; I think even Rick Bonnell would have come up with something more helpful. It’d be like doing a report on D-Day, and instead of listing the weather or the message-decoders as some of the key turning points, you just write that the entire Allied invading force was the x-factor.

On the heels of Rick Bonnell’s recent piss-poor efforts with the Charlotte Observer, this was the second time in a row I’ve had to call on NBA analysts to “step their game up.” And having just listened to the BS Report podcast with Chris Connelly, I might have to go for the three-peat. If you listen to it, about midway through, it amazingly sounds like Bill Simmons is hearing the story of Chris Paul scoring 60+ in a high school game in honor of his grandfather for the first time. I can’t fathom how this could be, considering Mike Tirico launches into this anecdote on just about every third Chris Paul assist.

And screw it, as long as I’m cranky from jet-lag, society in general needs to step their game up. Remember a few weeks ago when it looked like the Mavs had turned their season around in that weekend game against Phoenix? I remember reading in the recap that Jason Kidd “joked” with reporters about “a Jason Terry sighting” (because Terry had played his first good game in a while--get it? Ha-ha). I’m sorry, but that line “having a such-and-such sighting” can’t be considered a joke anymore; it’s a played-out phrase. Same with calling someone “Rain Man,” because he’s got a good memory or is good with numbers (as NBC commentator Brian Williams “joked” about Chris Matthews in a New York Magazine article a couple weeks back).

In fact, no more mediocre movie titles in the lexicon at all. That means no more “it’s like Groundhog Day” and “it was really a Perfect Storm.” See some new movies and come up with something else, America. You don’t see the Brits walking around and saying Luol Deng’s career has been a real “Chariots of Fire-like story” or Spaniards constantly comparing Pau Gasol’s performance to “that scene in Pan’s Labyrinth.” Really, it’s embarrassing how unimaginative and lazily uncreative we’ve gotten. I blame this failure on our public school system, by the way. Not only can’t we compete with foreigners in basic academic skills, but now our humor-levels have really fallen behind too—I wouldn’t be surprised to find that we’re just the 15th-funniest among industrialized nations.

Anyway, the business trip seemed to have happened at the perfect time, as it doesn’t look like the Bobcats did anything noteworthy in the past week, right? Oh wait, yeah they did. I haven’t exactly kept my opinion of Sam Vincent’s coaching prowess to myself, but I was hardly expecting the team to go out and hire Larry Brown(!). That’s like complaining to your boss about the office's sub-par coffee machine, and then he responds by converting a vacant cubicle into a free Starbucks booth. I’m not sure if I can think of a single greater upgrade in coaching…ever, actually. Maybe when Pat Riley took over for John McCleod as coach of the Knicks in 1991? But even McCleod had experience and success with Phoenix before the Knicks. We, on the other hand, went from a rookie coach who was clearly in over his head to Larry freakin’ Brown.

And to think, I’d have just been happy with a coach who realized that Raymond Felton shouldn’t be the shooting guard! In fact, if they’d announced someone like Rick Carlisle as the new coach, I would have practically been fighting back tears of joy. So let’s just say that it’s fortunate I wasn’t listening in on one of the service center calls when I got the news about LB, otherwise my screams of ecstasy might have caused the VR system to declare global thermal-nuclear war.

Bobcats Thoughts, 4/22

2008-04-22T08:59:00.002-05:00

Rick Bonnell needs to step his game up. And apparently I’m not alone in that conclusion: the second posting following Bonnell’s recent player-by-player review leads with the damning words “very soft analysis.” Indeed, I’ve seen more in-depth sports analysis in TV Guide’s NFL Preview issue. If you’re a paid commentator for the city’s largest newspaper, you’ve gotta deliver more than that, RB—especially in the off-season, unless you’re also the Observer’s horticultural expert or something else I don’t know about. And this was on the heels of his spectacularly milquetoast assessment of Charlotte’s off-season agenda, wherein he makes the following non-committal banalities:

1. “Do you cut the cord now or hope Vincent improves? I'd say the odds are 50-50.”
2. “If the Bobcats have the chance to draft Memphis' Derrick Rose in June, it wouldn't be bad to develop an alternative.”
3. “Kansas State's Michael Beasley is more a scorer than a defender, but he'd be a nice upgrade if the Bobcats luck out in the draft lottery.”

“50-50”? What kind of prediction is that? And as for taking Derrick Rose or Michael Beasley in the lottery? Gee, no kidding, Rick—you really think we should pick one of them over, say, Italy’s Danilo Gallinari? Way to put it out on the line like that. Hey, I think I realized what Bonnell’s other job is: advising the President on deadlines for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Anyway, because we clearly can’t rely on Bonnell for anything that would inspire critical thought, let’s keep it in-house by posing this question: who would you say was the Bobcats MVP this year? This is almost certainly a silly question. It’s a little like asking, “What was the best Gerardo song?” But if you had to pick someone, who would it be?

First, I’ll go out on a Bonnell-like limb here and assume it’s either Richardson, Okafor, Felton, or Wallace. Second, I don’t have any sort of set criteria that I’m looking for in an MVP; however, whenever I’m choosing an MVP—whether it’s from the NBA, the NFL, or the cast of Battlestar Galactica (gotta be President Laura Roslin: strong but vulnerable, with the added bonus of looking like a former 80s metal video groupie)—I prefer that the decision be based on some sort of rational analysis. In other words, don’t do what ESPN’s J.A. Adande and Chris Broussard seem to always do, which is make a snap decision based on whatever they just saw two minutes ago. These lead to skewed perceptions, and this country is already overwhelmed with those. They’re why Citigroup posts a $5 billion loss and sees its share price rise while Bank of America’s stock plummets even though it was technically still profitable last quarter; they’re why Barack Obama rises out of a poor, single-parent household only to get branded an “elitist” (and also a “whiner” and “not tough enough” by someone whose most memorable televised moment in the past 6 months was crying after a loss in a primary).

So anyway, let’s take a look at the numbers. As an admitted worshipper at the Temple of Hollinger, my first stop is the PER category, which measures a player’s overall efficiency through the use of complex statistical analyses, calculus, the cosine, pi, and the blood of a freshly slaughtered calf. After mixing it all together, ESPN stat guru/witchdoctor John Hollinger tells us that Richardson led the way with an 18.48 in this category (15 is average), compared to the 17.57, 17.45, and 13.85 scores of Wallace, Okafor, and Felton, respectively.

A quick surf over to 82games.com, which is great for +/- measurements (which are regarded in hockey about as highly as RBI’s are in baseball, yet inexplicably ignored in basketball), and we see that Wallace was the category leader, with a Net48 of -2.3. This means that the Cats were outscored by 2.3 points per 48 minutes of playing time for Wallace. You’re probably saying to yourself that “-2.3” doesn’t seem like a very good score—let alone the best—and you’re right, it isn’t. This is why we were a bad team. But in this case the -2.3 bested Felton’s -3.3, Richardson’s -3.5, and Okafor’s -4.3. (It’s also worth noting that Matt Carroll tied Wallace’s mark of -2.3, and also that anytime Carroll was on the court, he and the rest of his 5-man unit outscored the opposition 51.3% of the time (none of the other “big 4” tops Okafor’s 44.3%). But this is where we get into the murky area of first-unit vs. second unit, which I imagine explains most of this discrepancy.)

Let’s quickly move on from there—because, frankly, the +/- scores are depressing—and look at the more traditional stats. This is where Richardson really achieves some separation. J-Rich led the team in scoring—21.8 to Wallace’s 19.4, and Richardson played in 20 more games. He was efficient about his scoring, too. His adjusted field-goal percentage (all points less FT’s, divided by FGA), .524, trailed only Okafor’s .535. He wasn’t shabby at all on the boards either (5.4 rebounds-per). Plus he was good for 3.1 assists and nearly one-and-a-half steals a game. There’s also that aforementioned durability: J-Rich played in all 82 games (tied with Okafor) and tied Wallace for 38.4 mpg.

Thus my vote Team MVP would be (in order) Richardson, Okafor, Wallace, and Felton (the order of the last two depends on how much stock you put in durability). Congratulations, J-Rich! Your prize is an autographed player review by Rick Bonnell, in which he describes you as “the best move on Michael Jordan’s watch” (Really? Sure it wasn’t the decision to draft Adam Morrison third overall, Rick?).

Bobcats Thoughts, 4/18

2008-04-18T10:01:00.003-05:00

The Bobcats season ended with a whimper on Wednesday—a literal whimper, that is, as owner Bob Johnson complained about a lack of “support” (or in other words, “money”) from Charlotte businesses. As always, Johnson’s timing was perfect…ly bizarre. Just a few days earlier, Johnson had publicly praised the “commitment of the community.” All of a sudden, however, Johnson was “absolutely concerned,” about the local corporations’ lack of “commitment to be a part of the Bobcats.” Jeez, talk about a flip-flop!

Johnson also claims to have lost “significant money” on the team so far. (Note: I’m assuming that at some point in the interview, he eventually expressed disappointment about his team still being lousy after four years and then followed it up with a public pledge to get better on the court, but I didn’t actually see anything about that). There are a staggering number of questions/interpretations that spring from the “significant money” remark. Off the top of my head:

1) What’s a “significant amount” of money for a billionaire?
2) How is losing a significant amount of money possible when your arena was built for free?
3) How is it possible after you’ve raised ticket prices for two straight years?
4) How is it possible when you’re one of just a handful of teams who don’t exceed the salary cap?
5) How is it possible when you compete in a league with built-in cost controls and revenue sharing?
6) How is it possible when you just sold the naming rights to your arena? We don’t know how much money was exchanged in the Time-Warner deal, but the average annual price for naming rights is $3 million.*

But the most interesting question of all is: how would Johnson wish the public to react to these complaints? The way I see it, there are only two choices: sympathetically (which is sort of unrealistic, considering—forgive me if I’m having a little trouble getting past this particular point—he’s a billionaire) or scornfully (as in, “How incompetent can one be to fail in the impossible-to-fail industry of sports-team ownership?”). If you’re Johnson, neither of these reactions seems desirable (I guess he’d rather be viewed sympathetically, but that’s not very manly of him, is it?), so what’s his motive? He’s practically turning himself into a real-life configuration of the pro wrestler-heel, who actively tries to get the crowd to hate him and complains to the refs when they don’t rule in his favor. But unless he’s about to announce he’s wrestling Mark Cuban in a “Loser-Leaves-the-NBA” Cage Match at SummerSlam, none of this makes sense.

Maybe he’s just bitter. You know, you go to some of these small town owners in the NBA, and like a lot of small town owners in other leagues, treating their teams as tax write-offs has been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced it. Instead, the paying fans actually want you to care about the team and make it competitive. So it's not surprising then that these owners get bitter, they cling to fan indifference or lack of corporate sponsorships as a way to explain their frustrations.

Anyway, I’m no billionaire businessman who rules his sports team from afar and is almost never seen in public except to exploit the fan base, but my advice to Johnson would be to get in on the new Foreclosure Prevention Act that’s currently kicking around in Congress and the Senate. True, his problems don’t have much to do with housing foreclosures, but then again neither do GM’s, Ford’s, or the domestic airlines—yet they’re all lined up for some sweet tax breaks and refunds that will be part of the bill. Oh wait, Johnson doesn’t actually have to pay any taxes on his arena. That’s right, not only was it built for him, he pays no property taxes on it. Is it possible to get breaks or refunds on taxes you don’t pay in the first place? I’m not even sure if Halliburton can answer that one.

Hmmm. Where to go when you’ve already received every possible hand-out? There’s got to be some sort of loophole out there—right? Otherwise, the only alternative would be to (shudder) put a better team on the court. I know, I know, that’s some serious outside-the-box thinking. But it’s just crazy enough to actually work.

*Ask.com

Bobcats Thoughts, 4/15

2008-04-15T09:27:00.003-05:00

(Note: This is what I get for posting this late: first, the Pacers go on to get eliminated from the playoffs, rendering the second paragraph moot; second, Bob Johnson publicly vents his frustrations over the taxing life of being a billionaire sports owner, making a bunch of claims that--though I haven't read them thoroughly yet--are undoubtedly a) unintentionally funny, and b) intentionally hypocritical. I promise more analysis later in the week.)

You know how I was making fun of Shawn Marion the other day? Well, it’s worth mentioning that Marion’s antithesis is Joakim Noah. Reading Noah’s comments (he’s got a recurring journal in SLAM this year) after Marion’s is like chasing grapefruit juice with a cherry Slurpee. I’m still slapping my knee over Noah’s recap of a game against the Knicks at the Garden. “They came out for me, my people from 51st Street and 10th Ave. That’s how we do it,” wrote Noah, later adding that his family and friends “look good on him.” Anyone who’s even vaguely familiar with the layout of Manhattan knows how ridiculous this sounds. 51st and 10th Ave?? I live over in the East Village, where it’s not uncommon to see men openly walk around in dresses, and I think I’m even more hood than that. I’m surprised Noah didn’t give a shout-out to his homies in the "Bear Sterns projects" and tell them to keep their heads up. But I’m laughing with Noah, not at him, because he’s a total crackup, is team-first, and probably a joy to be around. Even when he’s understated (like when he described the situation in Iraq as “kind of disappointing”), he’s a treat to experience. And he can rebound—we could have used him this year.

Oddly, we didn’t need Noah on Saturday night against Indiana. "Rebounding was the key," Matt Carroll said of the Bobcats’ 107-103 victory over the Pacers. "There have been a lot of games this year when we were on the opposite end of the rebounding total. It's been our Achilles' heel." Similarly, the Bobcats have been Indiana’s Achilles’ heel, taking 3-of-4 games from them this year. Now the Pacers will play with the sword of Damocles over their heads, because they need to win their remaining two games and have Atlanta lose their two in order to seize the last playoff slot. In short, it’ll take a Herculean effort.

Okay, enough with the Greek allusions. The rebounding disparity in the series finale with Indiana—59-43 in favor of us, including a preposterous 20 offensive boards—was somewhat befuddling, especially when the Pacers had home court and an urgent mandate to win. However, before you ask why we can’t do this more often, just look at Indiana’s center situation: Jeff Foster started, and he can barely make a put-back, let alone a long-range jumper; and Jermaine O’Neal continued playing desultory minutes. The only other big of consequence, Troy Murphy, took just 2 shots (and missed them both). Thus, when the opposition has a front court as limited in their offensive capabilities as our own, we look good by comparison.

All of this makes me wonder what Rod Higgins’ current relationship with Andris Biedrins is like. Because they were together with Golden State, do you think there’s any chance Higgins has enough goodwill to lure Biedrins over here? If I remember correctly, AB wanted something in the neighborhood of $10 mil at the beginning of the season, and the Warriors were having none of it. If both parties are still stalemated, Higgins could be our opening. Biedrins is three years younger than Emeka Okafor and three million cheaper, plus he’s more offensively gifted and a certain double-double if given enough minutes.

Two final thoughts about the Pacers: first, watching our guards chase around Flip Murray was semi-depressing, because I couldn’t help but wonder how this season would have gone if we’d had Flip on our team all along. It’s not like he wasn’t available or overly expensive. Effective backup point guards are so abundant nowadays, I just don’t see how we failed so spectacularly to acquire one. I’ll admit it: Earl Boykins never materialized into what I’d hoped, although I still argue that he was better than Jeff McInnis—at least somebody had to cover Earl. Come draft time, I’m leaning closer and closer to advocating a big guy with rebounding ability and picking up a veteran backup PG second-hand.

The other thought was, what happened to Jermaine O’Neal? He seems a shell of himself. I never hear from him anymore, and frankly, I miss him. He used to have opinions that were refreshingly honest—he was the original Noah. Now he just looks like he needs a good cry, possibly after a psychiatrist tells him repeatedly that it’s not his fault.

Bobcats Thoughts, 4/11

2008-04-11T14:07:00.002-05:00

Bad news, everyone: according to a recent CBS News/New York Times poll, 81 percent of respondents believe that when it comes to the Bobcats, “things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track.” Oh hold on, I read that wrong. Sorry, they were the talking about the country, not the Bobcats. Never mind then, that’s not nearly as important. That’s an odd way of wording that survey, though. “Things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track”? It’s a bit cluttered—makes me wonder what the other options were on the questionnaire. Was it something like:

1. When it comes to the country…
A) Things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track
B) You know, it is what it is, but for the most part it’s, you know, all good
C) Sometimes things happen and you have to kind of make adjustments
D) I thought it was sort of crazy before, but lately, it’s like, WTF?

For what it’s worth, Bob Johnson thinks things are pretty seriously on the right track. In a recent interview, the Bobcats owner told The Gaston Gazette, “We've got a beautiful, downtown state-of-the-art arena. We've got a naming rights partner that's dominant in the media-content business. We've got a dominant carrier in the region in the content and sports promotion business. We've got a team that is building every year, we believe, to be a winner. And we've got a community that's committed, I'm convinced, to supporting the Charlotte Bobcats.”

We’ve also got an owner who’s delusional. I wonder what’s "convincing" him—the 8th worst attendance in the League? The sub-1 television ratings? The fact that 100% of the $265 million it took to build his “beautiful” arena came from the taxpayers’ state-of-the-art wallets? He’s right, the evidence is overwhelming. Mission accomplished. You had me at “no-jerseys-ranked-in-the-top-15-best-sellers.”

It’s also nice to see that Johnson’s the latest mogul to fall in love with saying the word “content” as much as possible. Guys like him LOVE to talk about “content,” especially when they can also talk about people “consuming” content. It really dresses everything up and makes it sound much cooler and more sophisticated, even when 90% of the time the “content” in question is sports, sit-coms, or blogs about celebrity pregnancies—“crap,” in other words. How refreshing would it be if Johnson or Rupert Murdoch called all of it "crap" instead? I guess that wouldn’t present as nice a picture though, especially in the context of “consuming” it or—worse—“streaming” it.

I assume Johnson was somewhat less convinced by the team’s two most recent showings: a narrow win over Minnesota and a sad loss to the Knicks. Coach Sam Vincent inexplicably praised the win over the T-Wolves, even though it came about more from missed Minnesota opportunities than anything else. “It was closer than we wanted, but we are trying to learn how to win close games,” said Vincent. This was funny for two reasons. First, it’s always absurd when coaches refer to “learning how to win close games” as if it’s a skill that can be achieved through lots of practice, like speaking Spanish or playing the guitar. Second, Vincent’s got it all wrong: we never trailed this game and at one point we were up by 18 against a team with just 19 victories—we should be learning how to win blow-outs. And maybe the Bobcats should consider switching majors, because after a 2-point loss to the Knicks on Wednesday, I don’t think we’re ever going to learn enough.

At least I didn’t pay to watch the Knicks game live. Neither did their new President, Donnie Walsh, but he got to attend anyway. In fact, not only did he attend, he was the whole storyline. I'm serious: in the NY Times recap, there actually wasn’t a single mention of the game itself; the entire article was a description of the Yoda-looking Walsh’s seating arrangements. Walsh is being hailed in these parts as a savior, even though the bulk of his credentials—as far as I can tell—are that he was born and raised in New York. Knicks fans certainly can’t point to anything he did with the Pacers in recent years as reasons for optimism. In the Times article, Walsh also had a bunch of quotations, all of which were—you’ll never believe this—spectacularly uninformative. Without getting into it, he assured everyone he’d be evaluating his options but offered no timetables on any major decisions. At least he didn’t use the word “content.” Hmm…Really old, doesn’t want timetables, bases his credibility on events that occurred decades ago…is this the Walsh Presidency or the McCain Presidency?

Bobcats Thoughts 4/7

2008-04-07T10:13:00.002-05:00

In the aftermath of another joyless loss on Saturday that explored new depths of meaninglessness, there’s only one thing that will make me feel better: skewering Shawn Marion. Bashing him is like my blog comfort food, especially without McInnis and Primoz to kick around anymore. But before I get started, did anyone else notice the “repetition”-themed series between Atlanta and Philly? Check it out: they played twice (home-and-home), and the games featured 2 Andre’s, 2 Josh’s, 2 Smith’s, 2 Williams’, and 2 Za’s. I had to bust out Jay’s “22 Two’s” to honor the occasion. If only Atlanta hadn’t traded Anthony Johnson and Sheldon Williams, because then we could have had 2 Johnson’s and 3 Williams’.

Anyway, onto Marion. In the latest SLAM Magazine issue, he has an “op-ed” piece—I guess you’d call it—about leaving Phoenix for Miami. This rambling, nonsensical monologue makes me wish the creators of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 would start a magazine solely for the purpose of satirizing interviews. Here’s my take on it (comments in bold) (note: #’s indicate empty clichés, and check out that last paragraph when he goes on a Houston Rockets-like streak of them—it's a real tour-de-force).

All right, I just want to make it clear and state for the record why I wanted out of Phoenix (he goes onto do neither). Actually let me change that: It wasn’t so much that I wanted to get out of Phoenix, but more so, always hearing my name in trade rumors really started to get to me (rumors that he started by constantly telling reporters how unloved he was—there was even a whole book on it). I love Phoenix. I played there for nine years and the fans were nothing but good to me. Time has really gone by (#1--it tends to do that); it doesn’t even feel like I’ve been in the League for nine years (huh? Okay, there’s your clear explanation).

I’ve been watching (the Suns) play lately and I think they do miss me a little bit. I do stuff on the floor they probably won’t be able to replace, but they have great players and they will be OK. What’s done is done (#2). Sometimes things happen (#3--actually, all the time things happen); God works in mysterious ways (#4—what’s mysterious about pouting until you get traded?). I wish those guys the best of luck. I have nothing but love for them (#5—nothing but good, nothing but love—quit with the “nothing buts”). That’s all I can do (huh? what’s all he can do?). This is a business (#6—just in case that first explanation wasn’t clear enough, I guess he's elaborating). But I really don’t want to talk about that stuff anymore (not that he’s really said anything useful yet), because that’s what everybody keeps talking about (sort of a variation on “nobody goes there anymore; it’s too crowded”—although I doubt that’s what Marion was aiming for). People are saying this and that (#7) and nobody’s getting it right (thank goodness we have his clear explanations). To be honest, it’s nobody’s business (umm, it sort of is when he’s a public figure; he and Chelsea both need to talk to someone about this). The people who need to know, know (translation: this doesn’t include any of you suckers). So I don’t even want to talk about it no more (in conclusion: he was tired of people talking, things happen, and time goes by—any questions?).

My first couple of games with Miami…well, I guess you can say it’s been different from what I’m used to. I’m so used to playing in Phoenix, having on one jersey and coming here putting on a whole new jersey in a new arena, it feels so weird. My emotions are high, my nerves at an all-time high. It’s still the same game, but it feels different, you know (“different,” “weird,” and “different,”—I do know). The atmosphere here (Miami) is unbelievable though. The fans are great, the teammates are great (sure they’re not "nothing but great"?), the coaching staff—what more can you ask for (insert first “Pat Riley abandoning team to scout NCAA games” joke here)? I can see myself in Miami for a long time. I’m trying to build a home here (unclear if this is literal or figurative); I want to grow with Dwyane Wade (ditto, and perhaps this line sounded less creepy than it looks on paper). Why not (why not “grow” with D-Wade? Is that what he's asking?)? Coach Mike D’Antoni has a certain system, and Coach Riley has a certain system. There is a big difference in the tempo of the game (I’m assuming it’s also "weird"). Everybody has their own way of approaching the game, and I was used to doing certain way for a while in Phoenix. Now it’s time to adjust (different, weird, need to adjust, he really paints a picture, doesn’t he, folks? I feel like I'm there). You have to respect Coach Riley’s way of coaching, because he has rings and that speaks for itself (insert second “Pat Riley abandoning team to scout NCAA games” joke here). It’s a learning curve for me, you know, because when you are used to winning and you come to a whole new environment and you start losing games, it’s definitely a challenge. “Extremely hard” is a better way to put it (this last move clearly exhausted him—witness the next two sentences). Nobody wants to lose, but I guess sometimes you have to lose. Everybody can’t win (#8—can’t even comment here, too busy falling out of my chair).

(They come fast and furious now; he really finishes strong) At the end of the day (#9), you live and you learn (#10). All I can do is compete the best way I know how (#11). I have no hard feelings toward any of my teammates past or present (I certainly hope he doesn’t have anything against his present teammates—he just got there!). Things happen (#12—wait, I thought that was only sometimes!). We move on (#13). (Take it home, Shawn) We just gotta do what we gotta do (#14). (If this interview were a concert, Shawn would leave the stage, the fans would beg for an encore, and he’d come out one last time and perform “It is what it is”).

Ahh. Thanks, Shawn. I feel better…Enjoy him, Miami!

Bobcats Thoughts, 4/4

2008-04-04T08:15:00.002-05:00

You know what’s frustrating? The “Coach of the Year” award has no qualifying adjective before it. It’s not “Best Coach of the Year” or “Most Valuable Coach,” just “Coach of the Year.” This is frustrating because it’s hard to parody when you want to nominate your pick for worst coach of the year. I’ve tossed around a couple of ideas, but none really stick: “Roach of the Year,” “Woe-ch of the Year,” “Douche of the Year,” “Faux-ch of the Year.” The “Most Valuable Player” award makes it easy, because if you want to nominate whoever you think is the opposite of MVP, well, then it’s (everybody say it with me): “Least Valuable Player” (followed quickly with “it's a three-way toss-up between Ben Wallace, Stephon Marbury, and Steve Francis”).

Additionally, people always complain that choosing an MVP is problematic because it’s undefined. But at least with MVP we get the words “Most Valuable” to work with; “Coach of the Year” is completely amorphous. Is it “Coach With the Best Team”? “Coach Whose Team Had the Biggest Turnaround”? For sure, they ought to have a “Purple Heart Coach of the Year,” which would go to the guy whose team isn’t any good, but given the circumstances, it’s just a miracle nobody’s dead. The obvious winner this year would be Indiana’s Jim O’Brien (the O’Neal injuries, the Tinsley injuries/shoot-outs, the Murphy/Dunleavy contracts, the Harrison bong-hits, the Donnie Walsh bailouts, the forced reliance on guys like Kareem Rush, the awful yellow alternative jerseys that make the team look like the “Indiana Cliffs Notes”, etc. etc.).

Anyway, you can probably see where I’m going with this. For lack of a better term, the “Anti-Coach of the Year” award should go to our own Sam Vincent. Where to begin? Actually, I know where NOT to begin, which seems to be where Michael Jordan and Bob Johnson ARE beginning: Vincent’s controversial decision to bus, rather than fly, to Milwaukee back in January. So far, this is upper management’s only public complaint, because it apparently almost cost $5 million in fines and Vincent didn’t consult with them first. Whatever. That’s like when the government gets all hot-and-righteous over earmarks, even though they only account for 4% of the deficit. Vincent's method of transportation to one game is a drop in the bucket of his underachievements.

How about playing a shooting guard who can’t shoot, a 2 at the 3, a 3 at the 4, and a legally-declared-comatose man at the 1 virtually all year? How about 8 minutes-a-game given to Jared Dudley in January, when his impact upon entry was almost always instantaneous and significant? What about all the Derek Anderson DNP’s? DA was a great glue guy last year and inexplicably marginalized this year. How about regressing in wins despite fewer injuries and the acquisition of a premier scorer (J-Rich)?

And to top it all off, Vincent began the year with guarantees of the playoffs. Yet now that we’re a smoldering grease-fire, Vincent’s actually indignant about talk of his dismissal. "Give me a break. Was I really supposed to come in in the first year and have 50 wins?" Vincent asked rhetorically of ESPN.com. No, Sam, but you were supposed to match last year’s 33.

I have this recurring fantasy in which Michael Jordan comes into a meeting one morning, sees Vincent sitting there, and spontaneously bursts into that refrain from the White Stripes’ song, “There’s No Home For You Here”: “Waking up for breakfast, burning matches, talking quickly, breaking baubles, throwing garbage, drinking soda, looking happy, taking pictures…So completely stupid, just go away!!” Instead, MJ’s just given the media the usual Donnie Walsh-isms about “evaluating everything at the end of the year.” This always strikes me as an extremely lazy, ridiculous thing to say when there are only 2 weeks left and all of the remaining games are meaningless. What’s going to change between now and then? Why don’t they just start evaluating right now?

Owner Bob Johnson’s no help either. He thinks Vincent’s done all right, but this is the same man who can’t sell the naming rights to the arena or get a cable deal worked out, plus spends most of his free time riding on the backs huge animals who’d just as soon trample him to death than jump on command over a silly, flower-covered obstacle. Never trust the opinion of someone who chooses to ride a horse voluntarily. “Did Sam do something that was just obviously so blatant that you said, ‘This guy could never get you there?’” Johnson said in a recent interview with the Charlotte Observer. “I don't see that at all.” Nor will Johnson see that hoof coming full speed at his face one day.

Wait, what am I talking about? How could I forget about Zeke Thomas? For every horrible decision Vincent’s made, Thomas has made it three-fold, plus he was the GM, so he can’t even hide behind the “hey, I’m just playing the guys they hand me” card. Plus Thomas apparently hasn’t been showing up for work lately. Oh yeah, and he started the year off getting slammed with sexual harassment lawsuit. Ha-ha, yeah, picking Vincent for worst coach this year would be like backing Dominique Wilkins over Michael Jordan for MVP in the 1990-91 season. But still, as they with the MVP talk, Vincent’s “definitely in the discussion.” In fact, the only thing really separating us from the Knicks is that we’re too poor to screw up that badly.

Bobcats Thoughts, 4/1

2008-04-01T10:35:00.002-05:00

I watched the Bobcats last night for the first time since the loss to Memphis—not because I really wanted to, but because the slate of games last night was horrific (at least, in the 7 to 9 PM time slots). I felt like I was trying to select dinner off a Jack-in-the-Box menu. The choices were so appalling, that it was either this game or Indiana-Miami, which had only the potential allure of a Britney Spears/VMA-fiasco comeback performance from Jermaine O’Neal. Seeing my beloved team for the first time since the season officially went up in smoke was sort of like those scenes in sci-fi/action movies wherein the humans who escaped the alien attack return home and start sifting through the rubble.

Indeed, I clearly wasn’t the only one who’d given up: the Arena was deserted. As soon as I saw the vast emptiness in the lower bowl, I spontaneously began whistling the theme to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Commentator Steve Martin charitably attributed the vacant seats to a “late-arriving crowd,” but as they failed to fill up, it became obvious that we were dealing with a “non-arriving crowd.” “I thought Rasho (Nesterovic) and Chris (Bosh), I could hear them talking on defense,” Raptors coach Sam Mitchell said after the game. So could the television audience, Sam. It’s not too hard to communicate when you’re practically the only ones in the gym.

Defense was mostly theoretical in this one. Emeka Okafor and Nazr Mohammed continue to be either unwilling or unable to drift outside the post to cover big guys with range—guys like Stoudemire, Garnett, Carlos Boozer, and, oh yeah, Bosh, who lit us up like jack-o-lanterns for 32 points. TJ Ford also had the creative freedom to penetrate in and then drift back for unopposed fade-away jumpers. Jamereo Moon stuck it to us on 6-of-7 FG attempts, Anthony Parker shot 8-of-14…Andrea Bargnani would have done some damage too, except he’s not very good.

The Bobcats also got theirs on offense. If we had just gotten a couple more 3’s to drop (8-of-24 overall)—and believe me, we were open enough—this would have been a different story. In fact, I’m not feeling great if I’m a Raptors fan right now. On the outer bubble of the playoffs and playing a road-weary team with absolutely nothing going for it (certainly not a crowd advantage), they could barely squeak out a 4-point win. Even Earl Boykins was playing some effective keep-away. Steve Martin noted as much when he observed, “Boykins is looking more and more a part of things every day.” Great, but when did we get him? Early February? I would have preferred if Martin had been saying this about a month-and-a-half ago.

Anyway, when Martin began describing the plot of the romantic comedy Pushing Tin to clueless booth partner Henry Williams, that was my cue to flip the game off (for reasons that were never made clear, Williams worried whether or not Quentin Tarantino directed). Before I forget, here’s the Helpful Office Tip of the Day: if you’re ever riding in an elevator and the only other passenger is female, whatever you do, do NOT start humming Aerosmith’s “Love in an Elevator.” It was on the radio that morning so it was in my head, I’m all the way up on the 34th floor, I wasn’t paying attention…I’m just glad that all I got was a funny look and not a lawsuit.

What Okafor Wants, What Okafor Needs

2008-03-28T12:29:00.002-05:00

As the season winds down and limps to a series of meaningless results, I thought I’d take a look at one of our most significant moves (or non-moves) of the upcoming off-season: what to do about Emeka Okafor. The two key numbers floating around the situation are his $5.4 million expiring contract and the $13 million dollar extension he refused at the start of the season. That was 4 months and another terrible-team-performance-in-a-mediocre-conference ago. Assuming the bridges haven’t been burnt between Okafor and management, Charlotte can still match any offers Okafor receives, and they’re free to unilaterally renegotiate with him in July. The question: what should they do?

First of all, I can’t stand visceral responses to questions like these. All they generally indicate is the respondent’s biases, which are usually dominated by what happened in the last five minutes. So let’s try a numerically-based response. I’m going to use John Hollinger’s PER statistic as a benchmark for performance, and I’m going to use, um, US American dollars as a benchmark for money.

Okay, currently, Mek sits 18th among power forwards in the PER rankings with a score of 16.64. Of the 17 guys ranked above him, the average salary is $9.5 million. Bear in mind, this spans the entire spectrum of salaries, from Carl Landry’s $400K to Kevin Garnett's $23.8 million. Due to the wide range of numbers, it might be more instructive to choose the median value, or the middle salary of the 17 incomes. In this case, it’s Carlos Boozer’s $11.6 million (he’s ranked 5th). Either way you look at it, both the average and median incomes of the 17 players ranked above Okafor are LESS than what he rejected. Probably the biggest red flag in there for the Okafor camp is that Rasheed Wallace--ranked 15th on the list and with a far beefier resume than Omeka--only scores $12.5 million in annual income. If I’m Okafor’s agent, I might be a little nervous right about now.

One card Team Okafor might play is Emeka’s durability. This would have been utterly ridiculous before the season began, given that his average games-played coming into '07-08 was just 55. Yet Okafor’s played a surprisingly robust 71 games this year, while the average games-played of the 17 guys ranked above him is just under 62. At first, this might seem like promising leverage for Okafor, given a guy like Chris Bosh, who pocketed $13 million this year while only appearing in 56 games so far. However, the salary-per-games-played average across the top 17 power forwards is $149K, and Okafor’s $13 million-per-games-played average would be $183 K. The median comparison is David West’s $167K-per-game, still far less than the amount Okafor nixed, and West was an All-Star…in the Western Conference. Comparisons in salary-per-MINUTES-played yield similar results. So far, Okafor and/or his agent look completely foolish for turning down $13 million. Likewise, the Bobcats would be foolish to repeat the same offer in any future negotiations.

Other than PER, what do the more traditional stats tell us about Okafor's value? Glad I asked! Okafor’s scoring this year is at a career-low (13.1 per game), as are his blocks (1.6 per game). His rebounds, personal fouls, turnovers, and assists are relatively stagnant. Yes, he’s 6th in the league in rebounds and one of just ten players to average a double-double. The average salary among that elite bunch, though? $11.4 million. And for some extra hot sauce, if I were Charlotte’s GM, I’d add that every one of those double-double guys (with the exception of Shawn Marion) is taking his team to the playoffs (and Marion certainly would have had he not sulked his way out of Phoenix). Further, if Okafor’s agent wanted to get all statistical on me, I’d politely direct him to Okafor’s turnover rate—that is, his percentage of possessions that end in a turnover: 13.2%. This is horrifically bad among power forwards—52nd, in fact, below such legends as Brian Cook and Matt Bonner.

Of course, contract negotiations don’t happen in vacuums. As lots of economists love to point out (it’s practically their version of “it is what it is”), a player’s worth is what the market is willing to pay. So is there a team out there with $13 million that they wouldn’t mind flinging at Okafor? If that’s the case, then none of these statistical comparisons mean squat. A quick glance at the League’s payrolls shows a few teams with some obvious financial flexibility, such as Seattle and Memphis. There are also a handful of teams with some wiggle room pending a) the resolution of their own personnel negotiations, and b) how far over the cap they’re willing to go. Miami, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Orlando fall into this group. And a wild card to be worried about (that is, if you actually worry about losing Okafor)? Those dastardly San Antonio Spurs. They’re currently $11.7 million over the cap, but they’ve got Robert Horry ($3.6 mil), Kurt Thomas ($8 mil), Michael Finley ($3.1 mil), Brent Barry ($5.6 mil) and Jacque Vaughn ($1.2 mil) all coming off the books, should they choose not to re-sign. And the allure of San Antonio might allow the Spurs to get a discount in their offering—which they’d just about have to implement, because there’s no way they’re paying Okafor more than Ginobli ($9 mil) and Parker ($10.5 mil).

As for the Bobcats, we’ll have about $10.5 mil in spending money this summer at a minimum (I’m going out on a limb by assuming we’re not going to retain Othella Harrington and Derek Anderson). $10.5 would be a “fair” price to offer Okafor, because it’s right around those averages I laid out earlier. We’ll have potentially more depending on how we handle Sean May ($1.8 mil), Adam Morrison ($3.9 mil), Earl Boykins ($400 K) and the two-headed Ryan Hollins/Jermareo Davidson-combo of raw mediocrity (keep one but not both, right? That’s another half a mil). The two X-factors are trade options (impossible to predict) and the draft. A circa-8th round pick (which is about where we’ll fall) will run us in the neighborhood of $2.5-3 million bones. So we can’t even offer Emeka that “fair” price of $10.5 millon without making some other moves—unless of course we go over the cap, but does anyone actually see that happening?

So there’s my Frontline: Okafor piece. After all that analysis, I must admit that I still don’t know how both sides are going to play it from here on out. This is like the “sports contract” version of the Iraq War: it’s a total mess that was started by a series of blunders, and nobody’s sure about what to do now. First, the Bobcats did a monumentally stupid thing by offering way too much money--$13 million—to Okafor. And then Okafor somehow one-upped their stupidity by actually rejecting the deal. Then he went out and didn’t live up to that value this season, but it’s also going to be hard for management to redact it. There are going to be hard feelings either way—Okafor’s going to be bitter if he takes less, and management’s going to be bitter if he gets away out of spite or they end up forking $13 million over to him—that is, if they can even figure out how. So we’ll see how this quagmire turns out this summer, as well as how each side manages to put a good face on it…

Bobcats Thoughts, 3/24

2008-03-24T10:08:00.002-05:00

Forgive me, O Spirit of Matt Devlin, for I have sinned: I didn’t watch the Miami-Charlotte game on Saturday. I have no excuse, either. It was on, I was home, but I just couldn’t do it. And to be honest, I don’t know how much I’ll watch of the remainder of the season, given that much of it will take place on the West Coast, and therefore it won’t start until around the same time Cinemax begins airing episodes of The Pleasure Zone and Kinky Kong. In my defense, I did watch basketball, but it was the Hawks-Magic game, as well as the Nets-Sixers, the Celtics-Hornets, and the Rockets-Suns. The difference between these games and our match-up with Miami is that in the first group, both teams had a vested interest in winning (although in the case of the Nets, I can’t actually prove this).

This brings us to the unavoidable fact that the meaningful part of the season is over. Do I believe in miracles? No, and I don’t believe in Peter Pan, Frankenstein, or Superman. We’re not making the playoffs, and we’re a bad team worsened further by poor management; this season’s lost. And thus my other defense for consciously avoiding this game is that it would be difficult to prove that either team was even trying to win. If you’re a boxing fan, you wouldn’t watch a bout in which one of the fighters was credibly rumored to be throwing the match; how unwatchable would it be if both fighters were trying to take a fall?

And in Miami’s case, it’s more than just a credible rumor. Half the team didn't dress and the coach was gone. How can I be blamed for not watching the Heat play when their own coach isn’t watching? I’m surprised there hasn’t been more made of this. Remember how much flack the Celtics took last year for tanking the season? At least Doc Rivers was there (or, more precisely, “physically present”) for the games. Nevertheless, Boston’s purposeful losing invoked harsh indictments, ethical debates, and endless navel gazing. Yet in the Heat’s case it’s treated as something of a joke (also, are they making Pat Riley prove that he’s scouting NCAA games? I haven’t seen him in the crowds. If I were the Heat owner, you better believe I’d be making Riles show me some receipts). I’m not sure why there’s this double-standard; maybe it’s something about the cities. Things from Boston have always been regarded more seriously than those from Miami; look at the difference between St. Elsewhere and Miami Vice. Both were serious 80s dramas, yet which has been more parodied through the years?

There’s also a more general double-standard when it comes to tanking in basketball and football. Football teams with no chance throw in the towel just as blatantly as basketball teams, but there’s never any stink over it. If anything, football teams do it more blatantly, because they don’t even have a lottery; their picks are guaranteed. But just as with performance-enhancing drugs and bad behavior on the part of athletes, football is Teflon when it comes to criticism.

I say this all as an unbiased spectator, by the way. When it comes to tanking, I don’t believe in doing it, but it’s not for any moral reason; it’s mostly because I don’t think it actually works. Thus my policy on tanking resembles my policy on acupuncture or buying a copy of The Secret. If teams that tanked were actually guaranteed high draft picks that would significantly improve them immediately, I’d be all for it. In the Bobcats case, I’d have probably been advocating them to throw games starting in about December for the past four years. But we’ve seen time and time again that it doesn’t work, so I’d rather go for the win.

Therefore, I’m happy to see that it looks like we actually did go for the win in Miami--especially since they acquired Shawn Marion. If there’s any joy to be had this season, it’s in the fact that Shawn Marion is now on a lousy team. I wish him nothing but professional failure the rest of his career, and I don’t feel bad about it. This is a man who had it all and still complained his way right out of a great situation, all because he felt unappreciated. Unappreciated? The man was a first-round draft pick, was paid the most on the team, made the All-Star team four times, and made countless ESPN, Dime, and Slam magazine covers. Oh, and he was lovingly given the nickname “The Matrix” by the fans. Who has a nickname but gets no attention? How could he have possibly felt unappreciated? It’s like watching your a dude cheat on his perfect wife and then get dumped, and now Marion is stuck with with the Roseanne Barr of sports teams.

As for the game, it looks like Gerald Wallace is getting back to form. Ever since he returned, the only thing I’ve seen him do with any intensity is chew his mouthpiece. At last, on the highlight reels for this game, he was going hard to the hoop. Coach Sam Vincent was happy to see the old Crash as well. “He's not settling for the jump shot and he's attacking the rim,” Vincent said after the game. “He is, in big part, the heart and soul of this team.” Two things: 1) I hope Vincent is letting Gerald know this, and not just us; 2) not sure if one can be the partial "heart and soul" of something—I think it’s got to be an all or nothing deal. Either way, I'm glad to see our boys were triumphant, even if I didn't see it.

Bobcats Thoughts, 3/20

2008-03-20T12:00:00.002-05:00

Although we lost decisively to Dallas, Houston, and Cleveland in rapid succession, I was still feeling pretty upbeat on Monday. I was in a chipper, George Bush-ian mood—optimistic and cheerful despite the relentless stream of bad news. In fact, I nearly broke into a little tap-dance routine while waiting for the Memphis game to arrive like it was John McCain. Memphis is terrible after all, and after them, we had Indiana and Miami scheduled, and that’s about as sorry a threesome as Gov. McGreevey’s “Friday Night Specials.” So even though the immediate news wasn’t good (folks), things seemed fundamentally sound.

Side note: although it has nothing to do with basketball, another positive beacon was that they finally, FINALLY replaced the huge billboard ad for The Kingdom on the building adjacent to my apartment. Although the replacement was an ad for the 8 millionth energy drink concoction with some sort of “nuclear”-sounding name, it’s still an improvement. That stupid movie ad had been up there so long (“On September 28th, Trust No One”) that I thought I was doomed to a lifetime of looking at Jennifer Garner dressed ridiculously in Special Forces gear (yet with long, flowing hair).

Anyway, it's 72 hours later, and I’m completely broken. Darkness imprisoning me, all that I see: absolute horror. Who even cares how the Miami game is going to turn out? At this point, the only thing worse than losing would be winning. We have no chance at anything this year, so we might as well go for a draft pick. And yet, the draft doesn’t guarantee any salvation either, because it's not particularly top heavy with talent. I’ve been “playing” ESPN.com’s draft lottery a lot lately (they ought to come up with a cell phone version of this thing, a la Tetris and Solitaire, so I could do it on the subway), and the overwhelming majority of the time we end up with the 8th pick and Brook Lopez is our selection. And guess what the scouting report on him is? “Great big guy who can’t rebound.” Well, we already have two of those, and they’re called “Ryan Hollins” and “Jermareo Davidson.”

As for these last two games, I’m trying to decide where this Memphis-Indiana combo lands if we were to build a Top Ten 2008 Losses list. Before you even build such a list, you have to decide what hurts you more: close losses to good teams that rip your heart out and show it to you before you die (e.g., the Ray Allen Massacre game), blowout losses to good teams that grimly reveal how truly far away you are from relevance (e.g., that Pistons loss where they shot and made a million 3-pointers, that Golden State loss by 500 points, the recent Dallas loss), or blowout losses to bad teams that make you question how a fair and just God could ever allow such evil to befall you.

As you probably guessed, it’s that third sub-genre of losses that is the most dispiriting to me, and off the top of my head I’d throw the first loss to Philly in there (God, did the Sixers outplay us, and this is back when they were on the verge of fire sale-dom); at least two of the three Bulls losses (exacerbated by commentary by Red Kerr); that atrocious Nets loss in which we’d had about a week to prepare and Jason Kidd had just demanded a trade; that loss to the Wizards right after they found out Gilbert was gone for the year and Haywood for the game; that disgusting loss to Milwaukee in which we blew a 7-point lead and had the ball with, like, a minute left; the Knicks loss which I witnessed in-person like a public hanging…And I’m sure I’m repressing the memories of some others.

But these two losses to Memphis and Indiana have got to be 1-2 on the list, because they were not only miserable and humiliating, they also effectively killed the season. Memphis is essentially a scab team at this point, and Indiana ought to change their name to the “Milk Cartons”—anybody seen Jamaal Tinsley or Jermaine O’Neal lately? I was about to say Ike Diogu too(remember when he was the “wild card” of the Dunleavey/Hudson-Jackson/Harrington deal?), but he actually had a cameo last night. Indiana’s also a team bombarded by scandals and off-court drama involving Tinsley, O’Neal, most of the management, Shawne Williams, and David Harrison (who gets my vote for "Best Real-But-Fake-Looking Hair" Award—doesn’t he look like a cast member of Semi-Pro?). Also, their coach looks like the comic strip character Dilbert’s boss—not that that’s really relevant. Add it all up and these losses were truly disgraceful season-enders.

In Memphis we only scored 80 points, or roughly one point for every fan in attendance. I think there were actually fewer people at this game than those who saw that “Secret Game” between Duke and the NC College for Negroes in the 1940s. This was exactly the type of game that Jason Richardson should dominate, and instead he put up 8 points, and then blamed the road-heavy schedule. I’m sorry, but could someone please explain to me what exactly is “tiring” about being on the road? It’s not like Sam Vincent is making the team travel by canoe. If you’re a player, you pretty much have to just sit on a bus, sit on a private airplane, sit on another bus, and sit in your hotel room and order room service. During every one of these activities, you could also be asleep or doing nothing more aerobic than changing your DVD from Season 4 of CSI: Miami to a bootlegged copy of 10,000 B.C. You’re arguably less active on the road than when you’re at home and being pestered by children, baby-mommas, and entourages. I just don’t by the “on-the-road” excuse for a second.

If anything, it might be the cumulative fatigue of not having a reliable bench. How else to explain Raymond Felton failing to keep up with Flip Murray in Indiana? Felton’s logging almost 38 minutes a game this year--up 3 minutes from his career average--and it’s taking his toll (please keep this in mind, Rod Higgins, when it’s our pick in the draft and Russell Westbrook is still available). Meanwhile, Emeka Okafor’s minutes have increased as well, plus he hasn’t missed nearly as many games to injury. I expected him to deliver like Halle Berry in these last two games, and instead he put up a grand total of 10 points and 9 boards.

Getting schooled by the likes of Murray, Juan Carlos Navarro (21 points), Hakim Warrick (19 points), Darko Milicic (double-double), Troy Murphy (double-double), and Shawne Williams (16 points and a posterizing dunk on Jared Dudley) are bad indicators. So are allowing 18 offensive boards to the Grizzlies and nearly 50% shooting to a Pacers team playing without Danny Granger. They’re alarms akin to triple-digit oil prices and $2-a-share Bear-Stearns buyouts. Blaming all this poor performance on long road trips is like blaming the bad economy on tax breaks that might expire in two years. Without a more reliable bench, rebounders, and point guards, we’re not fundamentally sound, nor should we be optimistic about our future.

Bobcats Thoughts, 3/17

2008-03-17T11:26:00.002-05:00

On Friday night the Bobcats entered a festival-like atmosphere in Houston. With the Rockets poised to capture the second-longest winning streak in NBA history, the crowd was ready to party. Even the announcers, Clyde Drexler and whoever does Houston's play-by-play, were more like red carpet fashion reporters. They were full of kind words for the Bobcats too, because—let’s face it—Charlotte had no chance, so why not patronize them?

Listening to them extol the coaching efforts of Sam Vincent (“he’s really done a great job developing this young team”), I thought they may have been laying it on a little thick, considering we’re on a pace to win 3 fewer games than last year, despite the importation of one of the game’s great talents (Jason Richardson) and no extensive injuries (save for Gerald Wallace, and we won 5 straight while that happened). In fact, this team has been spectacularly mismanaged in my opinion. Entering the season, we had two huge and long-standing weaknesses (crippling incompetence at center and backup point guard) that we didn’t address until much too late, and then we bumped everyone up 1 slot out of position to inexplicably make room for a decrepit, prime-less point guard (who—surprise!—hasn’t been picked up since we waived him). But that’s just me.

Then again, these are two announcers who regularly misuse the words “commodity” (a commodity isn’t a “great product,” it’s merely a “product,” like corn and soybeans) and “literally” (I don’t care how great a player is, he doesn’t literally put a team on his back), and the play-by-play guy also can’t pronounce “Omeka” correctly (he says, “O-mee-ka”), which is somewhat insulting, considering Okafor came of age in Houston. So I don’t know, maybe they legitimately believe Vincent has done a good job.

In any case, the announcers kept their cheerfulness up throughout the affair, even though the Rockets’ victory lap temporarily stalled with a scoring drought that lasted nearly 8 full minutes. This was something of an Epic Drought; it was like the Lord of the Rings of scoreless streaks. I’m not even sure if we’ve done something like this (although we probably have). The Rockets were stuck on 18 points with 4:09 to go in the first quarter all the way until the 8:27 mark of the second. During this streak, the Rockets failed to get to the foul line, and they missed 6 three-pointers, 2 jumpers, and a layup. The Bobcats went from trailing by six to leading 29-18. Even after the Rockets scored, they shot just 6-for-16 the rest of the quarter to close out the half down by 7.

In the third quarter, the Rockets righted the ship pretty quickly and the hometown celebration was back on. Assuming their more familiar role of being the offensively impotent ones in any given game, the Bobcats scored merely two points in the first four minutes of the third quarter en route to just 37 total second-half points. They never trailed by more than 14 though, causing the Houston announcers to break a record of their own for most times using the phrase, “And I’ll tell you what, this Charlotte team keeps hanging around!” At least they didn’t say we were literally hanging around.

On Sunday evening the Bobcats found themselves in Cleveland, and poor Matt Carroll found himself guarding LeBron James (just two nights after having to cover Tracy MacGrady—happy St. Patrick’s Day, Matty boy!). Both times Carroll was in colossally over his head, matching up about as well as Jesse “The Body” Ventura did with Predator. The King put up 33 points, 10 dimes, and 7 boards, and then shot a green laser missile that blew out Carroll’s guts in an exploding red mist—no wait, I meant, he also had two blocks on a steal while goading Carroll into 4 fouls. Conversely, Bron-Bron had no trouble guarding Carroll—in fact, I think he had a harder time handling Gisele Bündchen for the Vogue cover shoot. Carroll had a sparse 4 points and...that’s pretty much it, actually.

This was not a fun game to watch or hear. In the second quarter, slimy Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert came over to the announcers’ booth, causing both commentators to switch their “fake suck-up laughs” setting to “fully automatic.” When not chortling over Gilbert’s unfunny remarks, all three spent an exorbitantly long time being outraged by DeShawn Stephenson for recently calling James “overrated.” Sheesh, judging by their level indignation, you’d have thought Stephenson said, “If LeBron James was a white man, he would not be in this position.” Anyway, the sycophancy shock-waves generated by the announce team were so potent they must have knocked out the scoreboard, because it wasn’t visible for most of the third quarter.

Not that I really needed a scoreboard to keep track of this one. I simply needed to count the number of times Zydrunas Ilgauskas drew Nazr Mohammed way, way out of his comfort zone to know we were losing badly. Ilgauskas’ range (he scored 16 points, every one of which seemed to com via an 18-footer) left our interior defense reeling. Unprepared to deal with a big who could actually shoot jumpers, Mohammed and Okafor played in a distracted state (combining to shoot just 8-of-23), while Jared Dudley looked totally demoralized (0 points, 3 fouls, and just 5 boards in 22 minutes). Without any contributions from them or Carroll, we didn’t have enough juice to rally, although two late 3-pointers by Richardson made it look respectable. A still-tentative Gerald Wallace (10 points, 5 assists) insisted afterward that he “take the blame for this one” afterward, so maybe that theory about him costing us the Dallas game was actually his own.

Bobcats Thoughts, 3/14

2008-03-14T14:48:00.002-05:00

On an ESPN podcast, Marc Stein called our blowout loss to Dallas a “glorified practice session,” which actually may have been an insult to the Mavericks’ second-stringers. I’m pretty sure JJ Barea, Malik Allen, Antoine Wright, Juwan Howard, and Jamaal Magloire regularly give the starters more of a workout than we did on Wednesday. In fact, during a timeout in the second quarter in which Dallas outscored us 31-17, Coach Avery Johnson told his team that they were “playing against themselves right now.” He was right, because the Bobcats were pretty much playing with themselves—all game.

And thus the air went out of our little 5-game win-streak balloon. The biggest tragedy of not making it 6 in a row was that it would have set off a completely ridiculous “battle of the unbeatens” angle tonight between the Bobcats and the 20-straight Rockets. But if there’s an upside, maybe Mark Cuban will now feel happy and secure enough to allow bloggers back into his arena—just think of the Bobcats as champions of free speech.

The other upside was getting Gerald Wallace back. I was amused that Rick Bonnell felt compelled to write an article in the Charlotte Observer entitled “Wallace’s Return Didn’t Cause Loss.” Did anyone actually think that? Bonnell opens the article with the line, “This theory among some that Gerald Wallace's return had anything to do with the Charlotte Bobcats' winning streak ending is the silliest example of inductive reasoning I can imagine.” I think he actually DID imagine it. We’ve got some serious dissonance brewing at the Observer when one writer (Tom Sorensen) believes that nobody cares about the Bobcats, and another writer (Bonnell) believes that not only do they care, they care enough to concoct paranoid theories about why we lose games. But thanks, Bonnell, for putting those wild rumors to rest; I don’t know where we’d be without your forthright level-headedness. Your next task is to dispel those vicious rumors I’ve been hearing that Adam Morrison deliberately injured himself at the beginning of the year to try and opt out of his contract.

All that said, Wallace was a little woozy when he bravely stepped back on the floor. Entering the game about 9 minutes in to the first quarter, Wallace got his first shot blocked by Eric Dampier, fouled Dirk Nowitzki, missed a jumper, traveled, and missed another jumper. At this point, I was terrified that his injury was not just an injury, but some sort of disease straight out of a bad movie, in which he was knocked unconscious and woke up thinking he was somebody else—specifically, Primoz Brezec. But Crash finally sank his next jumper, and he finished with 14 points and 5 boards in just 22 minutes.

As for the rest of the practice—I mean, game—well, I did a little stat check on Wednesday afternoon just to see how our 5-game winning “spree” compared with our overall season averages. Not surprisingly, our 5-game stats were better across the board, but the biggest disparities were our points-per-game (up from 96.3 to 109), our 3-point % (37% to 45.4%), our opponents’ offensive rebounds-per-game (down from 11.8 to 8.4), and our rebounding difference vs. opponents (-2.5 to +6.6). And of course, all of this collapsed aganst Dallas faster than Elliot Spitzer’s reputation. The Mavs thumped us on the boards (47 to 32) and checked our scoring (93 points, although we still shot a robust 47.1% from 3-point range). They also shot with the accuracy of Robocop, hitting 53.8% of their field goals, including 10-of-24 3-pointers and complemented by 22-of-26 from the foul line. A lot of their marksmanship can be attributed to late rotations on our part, but a lot of it was also just because they’re good shooters (7th in the league)…and don’t forget Gerald Wallace, who we can all agree has been the weak link this year.

Bobcats Thoughts, 3/10

2008-03-10T15:43:00.003-05:00

Just to show you how I handle success, amidst this miraculous five-game winning streak, the first thing I like addressing is Tom Sorensen’s recent “Nobody Cares” article in the Charlotte Observer. First of all, Tom Sorensen has The Life. To be able to have one of those “In My Opinion” gigs—and I don’t even care what the subject is—and have that be your salaried job, well...I think it's the ultimate dream gig. Sure, there are lots of opinion articles, but generally they have some sort of stipulation attached; the author has got to be funny a la Bill Simmons, for instance, or he or she has to travel to exotic locales and eat bugs and report on the experience—that sort of thing. Judging by his articles, though, Sorensen has to do NONE of that. He definitely doesn’t have to be funny, or even creative, for that matter (unless that line, “I liked Jeff McInnis,” was supposed to be a joke—which it had to be, right? I don’t know how else to process that one, unless he meant he liked Jeff “as a person”). He doesn’t even have to do a stunt wherein he watches tapes of every single Bobcats game this season in a row for four days straight and then describe how crazy it made him. In fact, as he tells us straightaway in the headline, he doesn’t even have to care about the subject at hand, nor offer any documented reason why. I can only imagine the editors who authorized this: “No really Tom, just ‘I don’t really care about this team’ will do.” Man. Amazing work, if you can get it.

That brings me to the second observation: isn’t it odd that someone would take the time to write several paragraphs with the sole purpose of expressing his lack of interest in something? I mean, if a person truly doesn’t care about something, why would it ever occur to him or her to even write about it at all? I can’t imagine sitting down right now and typing an article-length piece about something I have no interest in like, say, stamp collecting. I could come up with something I DISLIKE, mind you, like a $2-trillion dollar war that began under false pretenses, for example, or people who think immigration is a “problem”; but it’s actually hard to even think of something that I have no feelings on at all, positive or negative, let alone write about it. This leads me to believe that Mr. Sorensen actually does care about the Bobcats in the sense that he dislikes them, for whatever the reason.

Think about it: how many times in your life have you talked about something in sports or entertainment of which you’re a fan, and at the first opportunity the person you’re talking to comes back with, “Oh, I don’t care about/watch/listen to that”? And usually the person says it in varying degrees of a snooty tone that suggests that he or she is “above” caring about something like that and wants you to know it. In fact, I would argue that “not caring” about something in popular culture equates to "not liking" it, because to know about it and not consume it means you’re actively ignoring it. And in fact, in the article, after stating that he doesn't care, Sorensen adds, “And you don’t care,” with the clear implication being that we shouldn’t care (unless we’re in a “cult”). So thanks for your 2 cents on the Bobcats, Tom, it was worth every penny. And to the editors of the Charlotte Observer, do you need any other In My Opinion columnists? I probably won’t do any more research than Sorensen, but when I’m passively insulting your readership, I’ll at least throw a joke in there.

The other thing that I need to get off my chest regards this deluge of articles about the success of the Bobcats’ recent lineup stability, specifically how Raymond Felton has settled in at the 1. I’m sorry, I know I talked about this before, but I still can’t read any line like Rick Bonnell’s in the recap of the victory over the Hawks without reacting much the same way I did to David Tyree’s Super Bowl catch: gasping in disbelief. “(T)he constant confusion about roles has been cleared up,” Bonnell reports. “(Jeff) McInnis' departure stabilized Raymond Felton's role as playmaker.” (Gasp). PEOPLE, Raymond Felton was a point guard ALL HIS LIFE, prior to this year. WHY was there EVER confusion on this? It’s like if all of a sudden in the past year, lots of people became confused about Elton John’s sexual orientation, and his publicists had to put out a massive press release confirming that he actually is gay. The confusing thing is that Felton was ever considered to be something OTHER than point guard; that’s what confuses me...ESPECIALLY when Felton’s abysmal career shooting percentage is well-documented (he's long been one of the worst in the league), which you would think would make him a poor a candidate to ever assume the role of, you know, SHOOTING guard.

By the way, in that same article, we also got a priceless quote from Sam Vincent, who describes releasing Jeff McInnis as a “gamble.” Whaaaaa?? This was a “gamble” only if you consider removing your finger from a burning stove to be a “gamble.” I really haven’t heard anything this preposterous since General Norman Schwarzkopf described attacking with all of our tanks, B-52’s, and smart bombs in the First Gulf War as a “hail-mary.” A gamble? What was trading away Primoz Brezec? Hitting on twenty in blackjack? How stupid does Vincent think we are, and is it more or less than Sorensen?

Anyway, I never thought winning 5 in a row could be so…exasperating. I should emphasize that much to Sorensen's chagrin, not only do I care, I’m ticked to death. Especially when it comes to the Washington win! They’ve been pounding us relentlessly all year for reasons that have been as mysterious as they have been frustrating. Antonio Daniels, for instance, seemed to transform from journeyman point guard to unstoppable killer cyborg from the future every time we played them. And Roger Mason would go from “guy whose name sounds like an obscure mid-major college” to “guy who needs to be invited to the next 3-point shooting competition.” But finally, in our last meeting, we turned the tables. In a crazy string of ironies, we ran out to a 19-point lead, we took and made the open 3-pointers, and we sealed the victory with free-throws down the stretch and—most unlikely of all—two HUGE offensive rebounds with a minute to go, one each from Nazr Mohammed and Jason Richardson. Oh, and how I could I have left this out: Felton had 14 points and 12 assists as…get this…the point guard! No, seriously!!

Bobcats Thoughts, 3/6

2008-03-06T17:40:00.002-05:00

Oooh yeah, three in a row! Not since the halcyon days of November 1st to the 19th have we looked this good. Apparently, Jeff McInnis’ way with the Dark Side was more powerful than even I thought. Even without Gerald Wallace, we racked up one W on the road and another over a playoff-hungry Warriors team. Granted, the Minnesota T-Wolves are the NBA equivalent of William Hung: sort of endearing and inspiring, but mostly untalented. Have you seen these guys? They’re all sort of misshapen, almost like they’re defective models off the NBA player assembly line. Craig Smith is kind of rotund and overly sweaty, Corey Brewer is skinny, Marko Jaric is squinty, Randy Foye’s kind of stocky, Bassy Telfair is kind of slow and small and can’t really shoot, Antoine Walker is kind of a salary dump, etc.

Even that “Wolf howl” sound effect blasts over the PA system at inappropriate moments. I swear I heard one after Jason Richardson drilled a 3-pointer. They also have a pair of television announcers who are unmatched in their ability to generate awkward silences after weird, vaguely homoerotic outbursts. After a generic put-back, one of them inexplicably yelled out, “Kirk Snyder is GOOD!!” (ensuing long silence). The best shout-out was, “Emeka Okafor is a MAN!” (ensuing long silence). Not “the man,” mind you, “a man.” I also took offense to one of them asserting that Jason Richardson is “the first go-to guy in Bobcats history.” Excuse me? Obviously, these guys have never heard of the legend that is Jason Hart.

None of this stopped the Wolves from getting indignant over a loss to the likes of us. Head coach Randy Wittman went all Neville Chamberlain afterward. "Tonight we tried to have a nonaggression pact with the other team, from the first play of the game to the last play of the game," Wittman said. "That's disappointing." Wait, did he just compare Sam Vincent to Hitler?

Then came the Warriors. You know how there’s been an endless debate over who are the biggest trade-deadline “winners” and “losers”? Here’s my choice for a winner: Chris Webber. He’s got to be thanking his lucky boosters that this year’s deadline wasn’t as quiet as last year’s, otherwise people would have had nothing better to do than focus on what a terrible acquisition he’s been: 9 games, 14 minutes per, 4 points, 2 assists, 4 reboards (and all these numbers rounded up). Fortunately for him, the plethora of deals has completely taken the spotlight off his disastrous reunion with Golden State.

As for the game itself, the Warrior roared out of the gate with 38 first-quarter points. Sam Vincent had to call two timeouts, and it had the same demoralizing effect as a boxer receiving two standing 8-counts in the first round. Monta Ellis was so fast that at times he seemed to be moving through people; he’s like X-Men’s Kitty Pryde if she also had the ability to draw lots of shooting fouls. Given Ellis’s speed, it’s mystifying why they didn’t just give the rock to him for the last 5-and-a-half minutes when they were ahead 106-105—he seemed a mortal lock to either score or draw the foul every time he had the ball. Instead, Stephen Jackson, Kelenna Azubuike, and Al Harrington all missed two 3-pointers apiece, and we pulled away for the win.

But I’m skipping a whole bunch. Before all this came a stunning turnaround of a 2nd quarter, in which we cut their first quarter scoring by half (just 19 points) and came storming back to take a 2-point lead at the intermission, spearheaded by Earl Boykins’ 9 points in the period. Matt Carroll scrapped for 11 boards and 4 steals, and Okafor got to the foul line 18 times. Our two most positive trends lately—Richardson and Jared Dudley—also continued to blossom. Richardson scored 42 points and Dudley did just about everything else—18 rebounds, 2 blocks, and a steal. He also drew numerous charges and generally played like a muthaf---in’ spiteful, delightful, eyeful.

Winning feels better than anything—even better thinking of Jeff McInnis in the past tense. Over the last two games, we’ve hit 52-of-70 foul shots, committed just 22 total turnovers, had 8 of the 10 starters score in the double-digits, and exhibited crunch-time defense (just 37 total fourth-quarter points allowed)—is this how it feels to cheer for the Spurs every game? Woooowww.

Bobcats Thoughts, 3/3

2008-03-03T18:26:00.002-05:00

Hmmm. In the last two games, we were highly competitive against arguably the best team in the league, and then we flat-out defeated a team that almost always kicks the crap out of us. And these results came despite not having our best player (Gerald Wallace) in the lineup. What happened? I’ll tell you what happened: we got rid of Jeff McInnis! Free at last, free at last, thank Rod Higgins Almighty, we are free at last! I’ll never know why it took the front office so long to do what was painfully obvious in the preseason (direct quote from my 2007-08 preview: “My two biggest dreads this year are Jeff McInnis and Primoz Brezec. I really think they are the primary reasons why the Bobcats have the potential to be bad-to-horrible this year.”), but by waiving McInnis, at least they’ve shown that they do eventually respond to the problem. If their indecisiveness with the whole McInnis/Brezec fiasco is any indication of how they handle the rest of their lives, however, I just hope none of their kids ever gets appendicitis.

All that said...I’m still ecstatic! This wasn’t just addition by subtraction, it was exponential multiplication by subtraction. In their recap of Charlotte’s win over Toronto on Sunday, ESPN.com wrote that the Bobcats “essentially acknowledged they are no longer in the playoff hunt when they waived veteran guard Jeff McInnis on Friday.” I’d argue the exact opposite—if we really wanted to tank games for draft positioning, we would have kept him around. Jeff McInnis is so slow and useless that I was waiting for Charles Barkley to challenge him to a foot race at next year’s All-Star weekend. With him gone, it’s the dawning of a new era.

Earl Boykins, Matt Carroll, it really didn’t matter. ANYONE does more in the 2-slot than McInnis. And why Felton was ever slotted anywhere other than point guard is just as mysterious. I mean, the guy’s 6’1” and has played point guard his whole life—why were we ever shuffling him around? Is anyone on the Miami Dolphins considering drafting Glenn Dorsey first overall and then moving him to free safety? Forget it, I don't care, I'm just glad it's over. I feel like Eminem once he finally got custody of Halie-Jade from Kim. Crazy McInnis is out of our lives now for good, let’s just try to forget the whole thing ever happened. And now that he’s gone, we can enjoy two things:

1. Jared Dudley. I haven’t loved a “Dudley” this much since Arnold Drummond’s best friend on Diff’rent Strokes. Against the C’s on Friday, he had 9 points, 7 boards, and 3 steals in just 27 minutes. These were a handful of forwards he was dealing with, too—Garnett, Posey, and Powe. And on Sunday, he had his greatest game yet: 17 and 10. He’s been deadly efficient all year, almost never taking a bad shot (50% shooting from the field). He’s almost like a “Moneyball” player: not an Adonis-looking guy, he just compiles the stats. If Dudley continues this trajectory, management’s going to have to think real hard about how much more they want to sink into Sean May (and I’m sure they’ll get back to us by, say, December 09).

2. Jason Richardson. I’ve bashed him a lot all year, but I have to admit that not only has he been great for the past two months or so, he’s even been tough. After what happened with Nate Robinson at the Garden, I didn’t expect to see him for a week, except maybe in civvies and sporting a pirate-style eye-patch. But he didn’t miss a single game and has gone for 30 both nights. And really, if you take out November, he’s been averaging over 20 points per game and playing over 37 minutes—in other words, he’s been right in line with his career averages. More importantly, he averages about one really "cool thing" per game—be it a windmill slam, a ridonkulous 3-pointer, etc. So although he hasn’t been the missing link that would connect us to the playoffs, he’s often the only reason to tune in right now.

I really have no idea how we kept things so close with Boston. The Celtics did miss a bunch of lay-ups (“at least 6,” according to the ever-impartial Tommy Heinsohn, and this estimate came roughly midway through the second quarter), but still, we were a Felton-drive away from having that puppy at 96-93 with two minutes left! Too bad. And then against the Raptors, we started out cooler than being cool—that is, “ice-cold”—by going just 3-for-12. To make matters worse, Rasho Nesterovic, who looks like a sort of Frankenstein’s Monster at center, was randomly unstoppable, scoring 13 in the first quarter. Toronto also had the two-headed monster of TJ Ford and Jose Calderon (who NEEDS to quit licking his fingers all the time when he doesn’t know where that ball has been—is that not the grossest habit this side of LeBron’s nail-chewing?) working it. But for whatever reason (aw hell, let’s blame this on McInnis too), we out-rebounded the Raps 50-37 (inc. 18 offensive boards—could that be right??) and hit 24 of 26 free throws. And just 7 total turnovers the whole game? We usually churn that out in a quarter. We really were the Anti-Bobcats in this one.

And Primoz…ah, Primoz. 11 minutes, 4 points, 4 fouls. Seems like only yesterday…

Bobcats Thoughts, 2/29

2008-02-29T15:32:00.003-05:00

Riding the subway over to MSG on Wednesday night, I was suddenly seized with panic. It occurred to me that by seeing the game live, I’d be missing out on the inane television commentary, which tends to account for 50% of my jokes (bizarre and/or unintentionally hilarious post-game comments and Jeff McInnis comprise the other 30% and 20%, respectively). Fortunately, former Bobcat/Piston Primoz Brezec came to the rescue by giving a Toronto paper a candid yet insanely distorted view of his legacy in Charlotte. Brezec’s account of his time here is almost 100% inaccurate; you could say it’s "exactly inexact." From the opening observation that Sam Vincent wants to be more “run-in-gun” (by playing Jeff McInnis for 30+ minutes?) to just two sentences later, when he claims he can “run for 3 days” (this guy missed practically half the season last year from “exhaustion”), Primoz delivers the most remarkably false piece of commentary I think I’ve ever heard. Anyway, thanks, Primoz! I hope you find success with the Raps, and that you get more than just garbage time. Because that’s not you, man. That is not you.

As for the Knicks game, I shelled out 120 bones for the affair, which in NYC translates to “nosebleeds.” I was pretty disappointed with the quality of the seating, to say the least. For $120, I expect to be close enough to get splashed when Zach Randolph throws a water bottle at one of his teammates. Instead, I was so high up that the only object visible was Jamal Crawford’s shoulder bandage. Funniest of all was when Earl Boykins matched up with Nate Robinson—it just looked like a ball dribbling by itself.

Too bad I wasn’t alone in not seeing Nate Robinson—Jason Richardson failed to see him just before getting his eyes gouged out by him. Things went south almost immediately, as the Knicks rattled off 15 straight points to close out the half. I’d love to get worked up with outrage and spew forth vitriol over this latest embarrassment. And sure, at one point we trailed by 30 to the Knicks, but I’m a firm believer that if you’re going to go on a rampage, you need to have a target. And who am I going to blame for this? Jermareo Davidson for not getting a triple-double? Jared Dudley for not going for 20-and-10? Matt Carroll for not willing the team to victory like Kevin Garnett? I mean, look who we were playing out there.

The Knicks weren’t exactly spellbinding either. In fact, as I looked around at the faces on the crowd, everyone seemed slightly uncomfortable and embarrassed to be there, watching this dreck. It looked like 15,000 people who’d simultaneously been watching porn flicks just had their mothers barge in. David Lee hustled beautifully but only scored 4 points (I finally figured out what Lee looks like, by the way: he looks like what would happen if you combined BOTH guys from the movie Superbad into one person). Quentin Richardson had 17 and 6, but continues to play like the sole representative of an unnamed third team on the court (emphasized by his decision to wear jet black headbands, sleeves, and pads, which match nothing on his uniform). In general, it wasn’t just a bad game, but a sad game.

Saddest of all is that we could have used a win before going to Boston tonight, because I’d bet a front-row seat at MSG that we’re not winning this one. If you’ll recall, not only did we win against them last time, but Raymond Felton made the ill-advised decision of getting in Kevin Garnett’s face at the end. Garnett’s already bloodthirsty on a normal day, so ticking him off is kind of like ticking off Hannibal Lecter. We don’t want this kind of heat...

Bobcats Thoughts, 2/25

2008-02-25T19:51:00.003-05:00

Call it the “Dime Magazine Cover Jinx.” The very night I got the latest issue of Dime, which promised an in-depth article about Gerald Wallace on the cover, Crash got clocked by a Mikki Moore elbow and knocked more unconscious than Trent Green. Opening the magazine, I became uncomfortable straight away when the article began with a quote from Arthur Ashe. These comically earnest attempts to hold up athletes as transcendent, Christ-like figures are never a good idea, and unless the subject is Mohammed Ali, authors should avoid it (especially if they’re later going to write that their subjects also like NASCAR and enjoy sandwiches from Chik-Fil-A). Yep, bad karma was everywhere, and I probably didn’t help things by dissing Moore the last time we played Sacramento. Sure enough, early in the third quarter, Mikki landed a shot to Gerald’s jaw that was better than anything in the entire Klitschko-Ibragimov bout.

Now Crash will be out for two weeks with a 3rd degree concussion (apparently, they’re measured like burns), and the hole he leaves in the lineup looms larger than Hillary Clinton’s Dunkin’ Donuts bill. Against the Kings, the Bobcats rallied to send the game to OT—thanks largely to a gonzo-ridiculous 3-poitner by Jason Richardson with 20 seconds left—but faltered pitifully in the extra frame, because we lacked Wallace’s scoring ingenuity. We had a 114-112 lead with 2:40 to go, and—I feel like I’ve written this before—POSSESSION OF THE BALL, and we proceeded to commit--in rapid succession--a shot-clock violation, two missed free throws, a missed layup, and a-(sigh)-nother missed free-throw. And yet we STILL had a chance with 3 seconds left and trailing by 1. But Raymond Felton missed a baseline jumper for the win, and Sack-Town (the Bay Area, and Back Down), went back to California, a state where they allegedly know how to party.

Anyway, apart from the Wallace injury, which was just plain tragic, there were some quirky aspects to this one. The strangest of all was Kevin Martin’s stat line of 15 points on 1-of-8 shooting from the field (and 13-of-15 from the foul line). There was also Francisco Garcia’s extraordinary 6-of-8 three-point shooting. Meanwhile, Ron Artest—who wouldn’t recognize ordinary if it threw a cup of beer on him—finished with 20 points, 9 boards, 4 steals, and 2 blocks. Finally, replacing Mike Bibby (although let’s face it, there’s no such thing as “replacing” a guy like Bibby), was Beno Udrih, with 17 points, 6 boards, 8 assists, a block (?), and, um, 6 personal fouls—weird…

One of the Sacramento announcers called Udrih the “Tasmanian Slovenian,” although I’m not sure if that actually works as a nickname. If you wanted to label him as a sort of whirling-dervish type, wouldn’t he have to be called the “Slovenian Devil”? After all, it’s the “Devil”-part of “Tasmanian Devil” that lets you know someone’s crazy and out-of-control; otherwise, the person is merely from Tasmania and not necessarily crazy (unless you’re prejudiced against Tasmanians). A “Tasmanian-Slovenian” would technically just be a guy who lives in Slovenia and has Tasmanian ethnicity, similar to an African-American here in the U.S.

Whatever. These are the things I try to concentrate on amidst the rubble that is the 07-08 season. The next night brought no respite from this barrage of hopelessness either, as we lost even more decisively to Washington. These were the same Wizards, mind you, that were coming off a loss to a Cavaliers team that essentially started LeBron James and 4 D-Leaguers. And Damon Jones, who ended up as the second-highest scorer of the game with 27 points. Actually, this was probably the worst thing that could have happened to us, because it meant Antawn Jamison would be pissed. Indeed, Jamison went for 22 points, 9 rebounds (almost every one of which seemed to be a Felton layup that rimmed out), 5 assists, and 2 steals. The Wizards were brutally efficient, finishing with just 7 turnovers and a staggering 22 offensive boards, good for 28 second-chance points.

Jesus, did Jeff McInnis play for Washington too? I thought I heard one of the Wizards announcers say it…Yep, he sure did: in 1998-99 he was with them. Huh. Traded for the immortal Isaac Austin (how could I have forgotten that blockbuster?). Having McInnis on your team is the equivalent of dating an older slutty girl, because you have to listen to all these other TV announcers talking about when they “had” him, no doubt smirking at the fact that he’s now your problem. Anyway, McInnis put in another 31 minutes, while Earl Boykins continues to play in the mid-teens. And speaking of PT, I know his 25 points were great and all, but why did J-Rich only play 39 minutes? Without Wallace, shouldn’t Richardson be on the court for basically the whole game?

In honor of the Razzies, my nominee for this game would have to be Nazr Mohammed. Besides owning a large share of responsibility for the appalling difference in rebounds, Mohammed went 1-of-9 from the field for 5 points and 2 turnovers. The worst supporting actor would be Ryan Hollins, who played 3 minutes and got a technical foul for taunting. It was just a bad, bad game. If this game were a hip-hop song, it would fall somewhere between “Ice, Ice Baby” and one of those Smash Williams “raps” at Dillon pep rallies.

I don’t know how much more I can stand of this. Like Axl Rose, I ain’t got time for the pain. Screw it, I’m done with basketball. I think I’m going to get back into comic books—cancel my subscription to Dime and replace it with Wizard Magazine or something. At least comic book characters never die or get seriously injured. Wonder what Captain America’s up to these days…This sports stuff is just too…real for me. My wife accuses me of being spacey and antisocial, but I think I actually need to withdraw further from reality—maybe I’ll play some World of Warcraft or D&D online and get into random arguments with strangers over who has more hit points and whatnot.

But it’ll have to be after Wednesday, because next up is the Knicks, and I’ll actually be in person for this one at the Garden. Oh yeah, Knicks-Bobcats, baby—I can hardly wait. If anyone’s going to be at MSG, let me know and maybe we can try and meet up. I’m guessing we shouldn’t have much trouble finding each other…

Bobcats Thoughts, 2/20

2008-02-20T10:49:00.002-05:00

"I thought we had a whole lot of All-Star (break) rust," Coach Sam Vincent said after the Bobcats managed to pull off the rare feat of holding the opposition to 85 points and still getting blown out. I really don’t know how one can chalk this up to “All-Star rust,” considering we had no involvement with the All-Star game whatsoever. We didn’t even have any Rookie-Sophomore Game participants this year. So we ought to just call it “Sitting-Around-On-The-Couch-And-Playing-Lots-of-Halo-3-Break Rust,” because Emeka Okafor, Jason Richardson, and Gerald Wallace combined to shoot 5-of-29 in a loss to San Antonio that was more rambling and incoherent than Michael Jordan’s latest ESPN: The Magazine interview. Based on our collective 28% shooting, we’re also not going to be a threat to send anyone to the All-Star H-O-R-S-E competition either, if the NBA ever creates one.

Tim Duncan, against whom Okafor normally plays fairly decently, shot just 2-of-12 himself, but he was a key component anyway in the Spurs win. “(Duncan’s) defense at the rim and that sort of thing is always important to us,” Coach Gregg Popovich noted (5 blocks, 5 assists, 15 boards, and a steal was presumably the “sort of thing” Popovich was talking about). Duncan also held former teammate Nazr Mohammed to a paltry 5-of-13 shooting and a measly 6 boards. Mohammed was our biggest bench contributor, but possibly I only mean that literally and not figuratively, because Vincent somehow thought it was a good idea to give Jeff McInnis 33 minutes of “run.”

Tell me we’re showcasing McInnis for a trade, Coach, please? Just do that and all my pain will go away! Apparently, Memphis’s Kyle Lowry is on the trading block. You know Lowry only makes about a mil? We could give the Grizzlies McInnis (or, more accurately, McInnis’s expiring contract) plus either Jermareo Davidson or Ryan Hollins and it’d be nearly even. And here’s a really scary thought: we trade them Othella Harrington ('s expiring contract) for Lowry and they’d actually owe US a million. Welcome to the wacky world of bad contracts! I know these are stupid and—with any other team—borderline insulting trade proposals, but considering the shrewd deals Grizzlies have been pulling lately, I thought it was worth mentioning. Boy oh boy. 33 minutes...Four points...No assists. This guy should be the 5th PG option for the Sacramento Kings, behind Beno Udrih, Anthony Johnson, Tyronn Lue, and Quincy Douby. Instead, he gets 33 minutes for us.

Anyway, besides the decision to play Jeff McInnis for 33 minutes, the Spurs relied heavily on Manu Ginobli (18 points, including 9-of-11 FT shooting), and they also got random contributions from Michael Finley (14 points) and Ime Udoka (12 points). Because of his first name, I’m sort of hoping that Udoka someday develops a reputation as a selfish prima donna and gets traded to the Knicks—the headline writers for The Daily News and The New York Post would have a field day with that one. The Spurs also defended their way through a memorably muddled first half for everyone involved, and they leveraged our cold stretch before halftime to take the lead for good.

“Cold stretch”—like we were ever hot. Gerald Wallace was a total ghost, as was Jason Richardson. Raymond Felton attacked the hoop with his usual gusto, but he frequently failed to finish on the Spurs’ bigs. 21 Spurs turnovers (the first 11 on steals) and their own poor shooting were the only reasons the game was ever competitive. Their 54 rebounds to our 33—sorry, 38 (I can’t seem to get that number out of my head)—was one of the many reasons it eventually wasn’t…

Bobcats Thoughts, 2/14

2008-02-14T15:09:00.002-05:00

Here’s a crazy headline for you, pulled from today’s Charlotte Observer: “FT Shooting Leads to Win.” Before last night, I’d have lumped that with “UN Solves Crisis” as two headlines I’d be least likely to see in my lifetime. But it’s true; we hit 22-of-28 foul shots to break a losing streak I’ve long since lost count of. And in fact, ESPN.com posted a similarly impossible-to-believe headline of its own from last night’s OT-win over Atlanta: “McInnis Hits Hook as Cats Rally.” Superb foul shooting? A game-winning shot from Jeff McInnis? I feel like I’m writing science-fiction; I ought to put this column on pulp paper and entitle it “Weird Tales” or something in wavy font.

“I went in and made my little floater,” McInnis modestly explained afterward. Actually, McInnis has been making little floaters all year—the kind you find in toilets, so it was good to see him make a positive contribution for once. McInnis is still about as useful as tonsils when it comes to defense, as Atlanta’s PGs proved by combining for 55 points and just 5 assists in a dribble-penetration free-for-all; and I have no idea why Earl Boykins played just 5 minutes, but hey, let McInnis have his floater. We didn’t have Gerald Wallace, we twice came back from 14 points down, and we were trailing by 10 with just 9 minutes left, so I’m not complaining.

I’m also happy for Raymond Felton, who followed up a 29-point, 8-assist game against LA with a 22-point, 7-assist performance last night—in 52 minutes. The guy is obviously in “kitchen-sink” mode right now trying to produce wins. And without Wallace to distract opponents, not to mention Jason Richardson scoring just 10 and 19 over the last two games, Raymond is getting covered more than Beatles songs. It’s not like he’s feeding off of the crowd, either. Against LA, the crowd was pro-Kobe; against Atlanta, the crowd was pro-staying home. Bobcats Arena was so dead last night that I could have studied for mid-terms in there. Felton has been getting some creative assistance from Nazr Mohammed (22 and 11 vs. LA) and Emeka Okafor (20 and 21 vs. Atlanta), but that’s about it.

Perhaps the Lakers game on Monday was a turning point. Though we lost—and pretty handily—we at least showed some spunk against a team that’s got everything going for it, getting to within 3 with about 6 minutes to play. I also can’t be too critical when it comes to losing to LA because—and I’m shamed to admit this—I have NO IDEA what the Triangle Offense is. Seriously, I really don’t know. Why do I have such a problem understanding it? After all, it’s not like a triangle is a particularly complex shape—heck, it’s only got three sides. But you might as well call it the “Bermuda Triangle Offense," because it’s totally mysterious to me. Pao Gasol appears to have it down, though. He must have been studying it during those times when most people are normally shaving and combing their hair. His 26 boards, 6 points, and 6 assists—to go with Kobe’s 31—made us look like the Flint Tropics.

Remember that old line from the 40s or 50s about the Yankees: “rooting for them is like rooting for US Steel”? Rooting for the Bobcats is the exact opposite. It’s like rooting for Charlie Brown or Ziggy. We already dropped two to lowly Atlanta this year, for crying out loud, and they weren’t even close. The first two times were earlier in the season, when I was naïve enough to be disappointed. This time I fully expected a trouncing, because—as the Atlanta announcers duly noted—physically, every one of our starting 5 is on the wrong end of a complete mismatch with their starters. But Josh Smith got into foul trouble early (eventually fouling out), as did Al Horford and Marvin Williams, to negate the size advantage. This facilitated Okafor’s 20-20, as well as illuminated one of his more underrated skills: staying out of foul trouble while maintaining his high-caliber defense. Next thing you know, we’d stolen an OT-win and get to go to All-Star Break on a high note. McInnis hit his floater, we stopped their last-gasp effort, and the crowd went…back home.

Bobcats Thoughts, 2/11

2008-02-11T11:08:00.000-05:00

“Unspeakable” is one of those dramatic “movie words” that characters in films and TV shows toss around with frequency, but it’s something that you rarely encounter in real life (by the way, “amnesia” is a “movie disease” for the same reason). Wizards, for instance, will warn heroic warriors and their dwarf sidekicks of “unspeakable danger”; fictionalized secret agents will remind their photogenic blond partners that the terrorists have committed acts of “unspeakable evil” and therefore must be stopped. But when was the last time you heard an employee complain of “unspeakably bad” coffee or an “unspeakably bland” PowerPoint presentation? Thus, I’m describing the Bobcats’ weekend performance as “unspeakably crappy” to really emphasize my disgust.

Start with Friday against the Nets. Coming off of several days’ rest and playing a slothful team languishing under the girth of their own bloated contracts, I wanted and expected victory. But as much as I relished the thought of obliterating NJ, I was also gritting my teeth at the thought of this game, because Nets games are like dentist appointments: even if they go well, they’re still painful and uncomfortable. The Nets tend to have a contagious ugliness with their bogged down, turnover-prone style. In fact, I actually refused to watch Pao Gasol’s debut with the Lakers earlier in the week—even though I wanted to—because it was against New Jersey.

What I expected in our game was what I got—except the lack of hustle and nonchalance was entirely on OUR part. The Nets led practically wire-to-wire, assisted each other all over the place, out-rebounded us, and—here’s a new “out-“ one for you—out-hearted us en route to an easy and embarrassing victory. Jason Kidd demanded a double-team like he demands trades, racking up a triple-double, completely controlling the game, and enabling his teammates to pile up the offense. Down low, Sean Williams gave us more fits than his old Boston College guidance counselors. The stats don’t completely reflect it, because he only played 20 minutes, but he (and Josh Boone) was more disruptive than a loud fart in a business meeting, holding Emeka Okafor and Nazr Mohammed to just 15 points on the strength of 3 blocks and shutdown defense. The Nets were intense and efficient in a way you don’t expect from them--or anything else from New Jersey for that matter.

For reasons that later became clear, Gerald Wallace looked uncharacteristically tentative. He still put up some good numbers overall, but he shot a low percentage (6-17) because he wasn’t driving. Apparently his interviewing skills are still injured too, because he said afterward, “We have the rope around our necks. Can we leave ourselves hanging?” Hmm. That’s either really deep or really nonsensical. Coach Sam Vincent was a little bit easier to follow, saying he “was not happy with the effort” and that for a team desperately trying to make the playoffs, we in no way resembled a group “dying of thirst.” Actually, if Sam meant that in the literal sense, we DID resemble a group dying of thirst. It was just a terrible, terrible game.

As unspeakable as things were on Friday, they were downright mute on Sunday against Detroit. At the start of the game, I was actually relieved slightly to hear that Gerald Wallace was injured. If you recall the last time we played Detroit, we didn’t have Raymond Felton and almost won. So when I didn’t see Wallace on the court for the tip-off, I was worried for a second that Coach Vincent was trying some sort of misguided strategy of holding out a key player to rally the guys. Turns out Crash is going to rest for a week. And that was the last bit of good news for the evening, because the Pistons proceeded to completely overwhelm us.

I’ve come up with a new term for these sorts of blowouts: “straight-to-video” games. You know how that’s industry code-speak for a terrible movie? It works here too. Not that I ever rent them, but I imagine most people only get movies that went straight-to-video so they can fast-forward them right to the sex and/or violent scenes. That’s similar to what I did with this game, which was tailor-made for DVR-ing. And by the way, god bless the DVR! Last year at this time, when I was too cheap (read: “broke”) to pay for a DVR, I’d actually have to watch a burning building like this game in agonizing real time. Now I can sit in my chair, watch the Pistons drill 3-pointer after 3-pointer for the first several minutes (at the start of the game, it almost looked like Detroit had a bet going, in which they’d try to win by shooting nothing but 3-pointers), get every possible rebound, force us into 7 turnovers in about 7 minutes, build up an absurd 27-7 lead, bring in their scrubs just about as fast as I’ve ever seen any team do it, and I can then fast-forward ahead to see if we ever make it close and/or start a brawl.

To our credit, we actually did cut the deficit to around 15 points or so on numerous occasions. I suppose this brings me to my second bit of good news: at least our starters weren’t routed by Detroit’s second unit—that would’ve been really demoralizing. After the terrible start, Coach Vincent called in the cavalry, which unfortunately consists of Othella Harrington, Matt Carroll, and Earl Boykins. But in their second iteration, our starters began narrowing the gap, after which the Pistons starters—clearly annoyed about having to come back in—dropped the hammer for good.

The Pistons, who average 16 3-point attempts a game, knocked down 12 of 24 against us. After nearly every make, the camera would cut to Primoz Brezec holding up 3 fingers on each hand in an eerily Nixonian pose. I’m happy for Primoz, who seems to have found a role on Detroit similar to Christian Laettner’s on the ’92 Dream Team. I was less happy with the 11 steals and 16 turnovers, and I was decidedly unhappy with all of the open shots we gave up. Even the Pistons broadcasters were starting to get annoyed with how poorly we played defensively—I kept waiting for Greg Kelser to slam down his headset and scream that Sam Vinecnt was a disgrace to MSU Spartans everywhere.

Next up is the Lakers—and to think I didn’t want to see a game between them and the Nets…

Bobcats Thoughts, 2/8

2008-02-08T10:11:00.000-05:00

Well, well, well. Now it suddenly makes a lot more sense why Marcus Banks entered the game in the first quarter on Monday night against us. In between plugs for his numerous local restaurants, even FSN Arizona color commentator Dan Majerle expressed surprise at how early in the game Banks appeared. Majerle concluded that Coach D’Antoni must be trying to get Banks more involved with the Suns offense…survey says? (obnoxious “buzzer” noise). Turns out Banks was being showcased for a potential trade. And after 11 minutes, 0-for-5 shooting and 3 personal fouls, Heat Coach Pat Riley apparently had seen enough—sold! Off Banks went to the Heat on Wednesday, thereby ending his terrible stint in Phoenix. I don’t know who the Suns got in return, but I’ll bet they didn’t get saddled with anything worse than Banks’ $4 million-a-year contract, ha-ha! Whew!

None of this meant anything to us, of course, as we suffered another ho-hum beat-down at the hands of the Suns. Forget about having never beaten Phoenix in 8 games, I don’t even think we’ve taken 8 total quarters from them. At least we’ve earned their respect, though. Did you hear Coach D’Antoni afterwards? “It was not bad. It was just one of those games,” he said, clearly moved by the experience of playing us. “We got it over with,” he went on, sounding embarrassingly similar to my high school prom date, “and we have a great game coming up Wednesday.”

And no wonder he was so breathless with exhilaration, as this one stayed in doubt until there were only 42 minutes left. Leandro Barbosa had his own personal Brazilian Carnival on us, hitting 11-of-17 for 30 points. Meanwhile, Raja Bell drained 7 three-pointers. What is it with defensive stoppers who are also ace 3-point shooters? Don’t the ability to effectively guard an opponent and being a highly accurate long-distance shooter seem like totally random skills to have at the same time? And yet there are so many of them! Bell, Bruce Bowen, Shane Battier, Anthony Parker…It’d be like if there was a thriving industry of mimes who were also certified accountants. “Those guys can shoot, man,” said our own Raymond Felton. “Barbosa and Raja, those guys were putting that thing up in the air.”

The “thing” Felton was referring to was an orange spheroid object called a “basketball.” And even more impressive than their ability to place it “up in the air” was their deft manipulation of its trajectory such that its return to the earth via gravitational attraction resulted in its bisection of a circular area created by an aluminum cylinder attached to which nylon netting dangles. They also had 7 blocks.

Thus came to an end our first West Coast trip, and it went pretty much how we would expect, which is to say “poorly.” But cheer up, everyone, because the Nets are next, and unless they’re suddenly galvanized by the charisma and magnetism of Stromile Swift, we’ve got a chance in this one.

Bobcats Thoughts, 2/4

2008-02-04T15:55:00.000-05:00

I love it when the Bobcats wait until precisely 5 minutes after I submit an article to make a figuratively (if not literally) “big” personnel move, thereby rendering all of my observations instantly obsolete. Earl Boykins had been healthy and unemployed for several months, during which time I repeatedly listed him by name and wondered why we hadn’t made a play for him. Then out of the blue we sign him to the league minimum, and he plays that night (Earl must have been as desperate as us, considering it’s been days since Pau Gasol went to the Lakers and he still hasn’t played for them). Except for the fact that I’m not a) a slutty sister, or b) a flamboyantly gay best friend, I feel like the knowing sidekick in a romantic comedy in which the boy and girl are obviously right for each other but are the last to realize it.

So I think it’s a great move, although I have no idea what took so long and what suddenly made management realize that we needed a backup point guard. It’s not like Jeff McInnis’ production has been steadily declining. In fact, he’s been a remarkably consistent non-presence all year. Check it out:

Nov: 23.4 mpg, 4.2 ppg, 4.1 apg, 1.5 turnovers pg
Dec: 23.5 mpg, 3.3 ppg, 4.1 apg, 1.7 turnovers pg
Jan: 29.4 mpg, 4.9 ppg, 4.3 apg, 1.1 turnovers pg

Talk about flat. Plot those lines, color them red and green, and you’ve got Freddy Krueger’s shirt pattern. Maybe it was the fact that Raymond Felton now has more sprains than he has ankles that got management moving, but at least they eventually did the right thing.

At least I think they did. Maybe Boykins felt bad about joining the team after I could react, because he sure didn’t do much. In his debut against Golden State on Friday, his very first act was to get blocked by Matt Barnes. He then proceeded to miss a jumper and make a bad pass, all en route to a 2-for-11, 5-point, 3-assist night. Perhaps he doesn’t want to show Jeff up right away.

Speaking of “showing up,” that’s about all we did on Friday night. Our performance against the Warriors was so bad, we actually got blown out twice: once on a 49-29 run to end the half, and then on a 26-6 assault spanning the 3rd and 4th quarters. In the ultimate insult, Golden State brought in Brandon Wright--whose draft rights we traded to them--and he jammed home a thunderous left-handed dunk to finish off the game. In fact, Wright (6 points and 3 boards in 12 minutes) arguably outperformed the superstar we got for him, Jason Richardson (10 points and no boards in 28 minutes). The Warriors scored 37 fast-break points, hit 25-of-30 free throws, stole the ball 9 times, and almost out-rebounded us (43 to 45, and probably the only reason they didn’t beat us there was because they shot 55%). Then Felton and Gerald Wallace both went down with ankle injuries, with Wallace apparently now gone for a week. The only way this could have been worse was if the commercials were nothing but previews for Over Her Dead Body.

Next came Denver. Without Wallace in the lineup, you knew the loss was going to come in either one of two flavors: Yummy Blowout Surprise or Letdown that Melts in your Mouth. It turned out to be the latter. “We knew they were going to make a run here at home, but we thought we were going to answer back,” said Richardson about the late Denver comeback. Actually, they Answered back: AI finished with 24 points, 12 assists, and 5 steals. We also got burnt by the unstoppable Linas Kleiza. In fact, with us leading by 10 points as late as eleven minutes into the 3rd quarter, Kleiza alone nearly matched us point-for-point the rest of the way, 21-20. This is the same Linas Kleiza, ladies and gentlemen, who can’t even confidently declare that he’s confident: “I don’t think I lack confidence right now,” Kleiza said afterward.

The Wile E. Coyote moment? Had to be when Ryan Hollins clearly shouted, “Get that $#!@ outta here!” while blocking shot. Not a good idea. And even though it happened in the first half, I knew it’d just be a matter of time. “Tough game in Golden State last night, late-night travel, high altitude, but we don't want to make excuses,” concluded Sam Vincent, who just came up with three pretty good ones nonetheless.

Bobcats Thoughts, 1/31

2008-01-31T11:05:00.000-05:00

Apparently, the Bobcats can no longer beat anyone unless the opponent is missing at least two of its best players. We dealt with Chicago (Gordon, Deng out) and the Clippers (Kaman, Maggette, Brand out), but alas, Philly and Sacramento had the nerve to play all their guys—no fair! I forget whether ESPN.com’s John Hollinger’s Playoff Predictor system accounts for injuries or not (it either does, it pisses everyone off, and he has to spend a week afterward explaining/apologizing; or it doesn’t, it pisses everyone off, and he has to spend a week explaining/apologizing—I forget which), but I’m imagining our postseason outlook isn’t good regardless. In fact, after last night’s somnambulant effort in Sac-Town, I don’t even want to look at the odds; I keep picturing one of those “######” thingies you get in an Excel spreadsheet when the cell isn’t big enough for the number.

And really, why should they be under triple-digits at this point? The Bobcats needed a (frankly) miraculous 2-minute sequence in the third quarter against the Clips in which Wallace, Richardson, and Felton—twice in a row!—hit three-pointers just to get us a seven-point win. They also needed the Clippers to go 0-for-8 from long-range themselves. Jeez, no Kaman or Maggette, all those 3’s for us and none for them, Al Thornton fouling out in just 19 minutes…I’d say we racked up quite a tab with the basketball gods in this one. I half-expected to see Coach Sam Vincent genuflecting on his knees during the game. Instead, he…just sat there with his index finger on his temple and stared blankly, like always.

Against the Kings last night, it was time to pay the bill. On paper, the Kings actually have a pretty decent roster, as long as they’re not asking to be traded (Mike Bibby), not pretending they’re Peja Stojakovic (Brad Miller), not pouting with dubious injuries (Bibby again), and not totally insane (Ron Artest). They’ve even got lots of depth on the bench with Udrih, Salmons, and Garcia. And then there’s Kevin Martin, easily the unlikeliest-looking superstar since…ever, possibly. This would make for a great online poll, actually. Has anyone ever looked more out of place as a premier NBA athlete? Even Damon Wayans in Celtic Pride was more believable. I’m trying to come up with a comparison. Imagine if Clay Aiken was a Hollywood action-movie star. Actually, I know it’s awhile ago now, but at the time it was really weird to hear the news that Michael Keaton was going to be playing Batman in the blockbuster 1989 remake—anyone old enough to remember that one will recall a national collective head-scratching. There’s your Kevin Martin-as-playmaking-god analogy, feel free to toss it out to your friends at work (Martin and Keaton even have the same natural jheri-curl going).

So anyway, the awe-inspiring majesty of the Kings marquee roster aside, other than Gerald Wallace, we had nothing going in this one. Maybe the news that California had failed to pass health care coverage legislation bummed us out. Perhaps we were expecting the Fed to cut 75 basis-points off the overnight interest rate instead of a mere half-percent. I don’t know, but the 41% FG shooting was awful, and unless Gerald Wallace finds out he’s one of the Cylon models and starts bringing duplicates of himself to games, we’re in for a rough second half.

The Charlotte Observer charitably wrote that the Kings needed a “late run” for the win, but we were never within 6-points during the second-half and were frequently trailing by double-digits. And even the first-half had all the characteristics of a stock market bubble about to burst, considering we shot 58% and were still trailing by 3 at the break. And of course, there were the second-chances—13 offensive boards allowed to a team that’s 25th in the league in that category—that have become the calling card of our suckage. At least Sam Vincent picked up a tech, thereby showing some signs of life. I wouldn’t be surprised if Nash has got more technicals at this point.

We also have a new villain, ladies and gentlemen: Mikki Moore. Not only did he grab 3 of those O-boards, he also decided to play his one decent game of the year. That’s not why we should hate him, though. We should hate him because Sacramento stupidly forked over $5.35 mil for him. At 32, Moore should have been preparing for a second-career as a kung-fu movie villain (he’s got the hair and the flops down; I’m picturing something in which he leads a group of evil Manu Ginobli clones that attack one-at-a-time and bounce and dive off Jackie Chan or whoever). Instead, he’s Exhibit A in Emeka Okafor’s case for a huge raise.

Bobcats Thoughts, 1/28

2008-01-28T16:55:00.000-05:00

The Bobcats turned in two stomach-churning performances over the weekend, thereby splitting a pair of games that were both highly winnable. The disappointments in both games were varied in type, size, and scope, but their common let-down has been a sickening fixture all season. Against the Bulls and—more detrimentally—the Sixers, Charlotte ceded a deplorable 14 and 17 offensive boards, respectively. If the Bobcats, currently 25th in the league in offensive rebounds allowed per game, don’t start denying teams second chance points ASAP, do you realize what will happen? I’ll tell you what: announcers are going to take their abuse of the prefix "out-" to unsustainable levels. It started innocently enough with “out-hustled,” but now we’ve got “out-physicaled” and “out-quicked,” the latter I’ve seen not just spoken but WRITTEN (good stuff, Rick B!). Folks, this has got to stop. We’re about one solid Chris Kaman game away from hearing “out-swifted,” “out-speeded,” and “out-efforted.”

The Bulls game was a win, but that’s about it. You know how I wrote awhile back about moral victories? This was like the opposite—it was either a moral loss or an immoral victory, I’m not sure which. The Bulls, playing without Luol Deng and Ben Gordon, fielded a starting lineup that was utterly ridiculous: Nocioni, Smith, Wallace, Sefolosha, and Hinrich. You know what, though? Given a choice, I think I would’ve preferred Gordon or Deng healthy if it meant I could have had announcer Red Kerr too injured to make the game. Anyway, ESPN.com wrote in the recap that “Charlotte held the Bulls to 37 percent shooting.” That’s actually erroneous. The sentence should have read: “The Bulls held the Bulls to 37 percent shooting.” They had plenty of open shots, particularly for Nocioni (9-of-23 from the field, 3-of-9 on 3-pointers) and Hinrich (6-of-16, 0-of-4), but they make couldn’t enough of them. Their accuracy woes were equal opportunity: 30-of-81 from the field, 4-of-18 on 3’s, and 13-of-22 on free-throws. "I think it's a culmination of frustration,” Hinrich said after the game. He then added that his first inclination was to become a monk and leave the situation.

Still, the Bulls were in this for most of the game, because they “out-worked,” “out-scrambled,” “out-strengthed,” and “out-energied” us. Had Jason Richardson given even a middling performance, this one would have been over pretty early, and we could have rested for the back-to-back. Instead, he “out-sourced” his performance to Gerald Wallace, who put in his typical, full-bodied 21-5-5 night. Emeka Okafor was also stalwart down low with 21 points, 16 boards, and 4 blocks. Mek finished with 5 fouls, but he didn’t get his first until well into the second-half (and then he must have realized he was running behind schedule). Thanks to Nazr Mohammed and Matt Carroll, I guess we also “out-benched” the Bulls.

We didn’t out-anything Philadelphia the next night, except maybe “out-controversied.” Philadelphia’s starting lineup of Iguodala, Green, Dalembert, Young, and Miller, was as ridiculous as Chicago’s, except in this case there were no injuries—these five really are the Sixers’ best players. The main takeaway from this game was how much we suffer without Raymond Felton, who didn’t play due to an ankle injury. Not that we needed Felton to miss the game to prove this, because I’ve been muttering it to myself like a crazy person ever since we released Brevin Knight: we need a true backup point-guard, because Jeff McInnis is totally useless.

Coach Vincent actually put it on blast ever the game. “They (Philadelphia) were really sagging off Jeff (McInnis). That makes it hard, because then (the Sixers are guarding) five on four.” OUCH. Coaches tend to talk about players a lot like performance reports describe employees in regular jobs: everyone’s either “good,” “excellent,” or “outstanding.” Unless they fail a drug test or kill someone while drunk-driving, hardly anyone’s ever rated “poor.” Even if they squander billions of dollars in bad investments, they merely “need improvement.” The net effect is that all the performance reviews are inflated. But unless you know this, you’ll think “good” really means “good,” when in fact it means “sub-par” or even “do not promote this clown.” It’s like that with Coaches when they talk about players—usually the worst thing a player does is “try to do too much.” Listening to them, you tend to have to read-between-the-lines and locate the criticism beneath the subterfuge.

And that’s precisely why it’s so jarring to hear such naked condemnation coming from a coach. “Five-on-four?” Wow. I’m trying to think of something more damning than telling a player you’d be no worse off if you were short-handed, and I can’t. I must admit, I’ve got mixed feelings. On the one hand, I couldn’t agree more with Vincent (in fact, I’ve actually written pretty much the same thing he said…repeatedly). On the other hand, this kind of sentiment should be kept in-house. But on the third hand (I happen to be a mutant cyborg from the future with three arms), maybe a public spat like this will facilitate McInnis’ and possibly Vincent’s departures, which would be good. We’ll see how it goes.

This fact remains: without Felton, Philadelphia was less afraid of penetration than Jenna Jameson. They were free to blanket the perimeter, daring us to try to beat them on jump shots and/or getting the rock to Okafor; no one had to worry much about sliding or rotating. It didn’t help that Gerald Wallace took the bait completely, going 4-for-17 (mostly on mid- to long-range jumpers) and 0-for-5 on 3’s. Of course, anytime Crash tried to take it the hole, it usually worked or at least got him to the foul line. Richardson, meanwhile, hoisted up 24 shots, but as usual, he was even more reluctant to drive to the hoop than Wallace. The end result was a humiliating loss, and with those hideous all-black outfits, they even looked like a prison team mugging a bunch of pretty-boys.

And to top it all off, as if he hadn’t caused enough controversy by openly denigrating McInnis, Vincent questioned the team’s collective heart. “I stand over there and scream and yell the whole time, motivate guys to play,” Vincent said after the game. “I need to see that from the guys on the floor.” First of all, I don’t think our team’s short on effort. Talent, yes; effort, no. Second, what’s Vincent talking about with the screaming and yelling? The guy’s the most passive-looking coach I’ve seen since Art Shell. Vincent’s rarely even standing, let alone screaming and yelling. The only coach who sits less than Vincent is Phil Jackson, and Jackson technically has no hips. Put a Darth Vader helmet on Vincent and he’d be LaDanian Tomlinson. How long is Michael Jordan and/or Bob Johnson going to let this go on before they straighten this circus out? If management doesn't step in soon, the we're going to be "out-Knicksing" the other teams.

Bobcats Thoughts, 1/24

2008-01-24T12:14:00.000-05:00

Don’t call it a comeback!! Umm, because it wasn’t one. Neither of them was, actually. Charlotte hosted two-thirds of the Texas Triangle this week, and although we threatened to win at times in both games, our efforts slowly deteriorated—much like Tom Coughlin’s face in the NFC Championship Game. That we didn’t win either game is kind of sad, but hardly surprising—like hearing Ike Turner’s cause of death was a cocaine overdose. There are some reasons to be optimistic, though.

First, Gerald Wallace—our 6’7” can of Red Bull—doesn’t appear to be injured (at least, anymore than he usually is) after he pulled up lame against Memphis and San Antonio. As an added bonus, Crash also seems to have ditched that ill-fated attempt at cornrows and gone back to his traditional, mid-sized econo-'fro.

Second, neither announcer in either game used the silly, superfluous phrase, “He can do that.” I’ve started to hate that phrase, and I’m sorry to say that I first noticed it coming from the mouth of one of our own: the late, great Matt Devlin. Yes, yes, I know he’s a legend, but Matt had the unfortunate tendency to say, “He can do that” a lot. And then a lot of announcers began invoking the “he can do that” tendency. What’s the problem with “he can do that?” Well, it’s right uttered after the player did, in fact, do that. It doesn’t matter what the “that” was—in Matt’s case, for example, the “that” was often Brevin Knight pulling up and hitting a 15-foot jumper, followed inevitably by Matt saying, “He can do that.” This in turn would cause me, sitting at home, to say aloud, “Yes, Matt, obviously he can do that, because we all just watched it.” And now it’s everywhere; it had a bizarre viral spread to all the announcers. Now it seems everyone loves to note unnecessarily that a player "can do that"...except in these last two games, and for that I’m optimistic. Speaking of Brevin, I’m happy to see he’s been suiting up for most of the season with the Clips. Be wary, though, Clippers fans, this tends to be the time of year when his groin goes on a 2-month sabbatical.

Third—and I’ll admit this one’s connection to actual basketball is even less significant than the first two—my office building survived the attack from the Cloverfield monster. I didn’t see the movie, but check out that poster that shows a decapitated Statue of Liberty and most of the entire south end of Manhattan in flames. See that building on the far left, the one with the dome? That’s us—still standing, baby!

As for the games, let’s start with the Spurs. For whatever reason, we always tend to play them hard—we’re like the Devil Rays to their Yankees. Early on, we led by as many as 8, and we stayed within 4 points late in the third. But then San Antonio clamped down on defense (they can do that), blocking a total of 10 shots, notching 11 steals, holding us to only 39 second-half points, and limiting us to just 4 fast-break points. We also made an abysmal two total 3-pointers, while Michael Finley—who resembles a younger Greg Oden (ha!)—went 3-for-3 from downtown by himself.

Speaking of 3-pointers, we’re going through a sort of 3-point stagflation right now. On the heels of 2-for-14 long-range shooting against San Antonio, we went 3-for-18 in the next game against Dallas. Let's see...we’re currently 14th in the league in 3-point percentage and 16th in attempts. So basically, we take an average amount and make an average amount…And that kills everything I was planning to say, because I was hoping to discover something profound like we’re dead last in 3-point shooting but take the most shots—dammit, so much for that hypothesis. Still, here’s how we closed out the last 2:30 of the 3rd quarter against the Mavs: Richardson missed a 3, Felton missed a 3, Wallace missed a 3, Carroll missed a 3. Too bad Nazr Mohammed didn’t attempt a three, otherwise we could have had a complete set.

The Dallas game in general was an opportunity lost in the swamp of a stagnant offense. We failed to capitalize on a 5-minute, 32-second Maverick scoring drought in the fourth quarter by only cutting their lead from 12 points to 7. Besides all the missed treys, there was way too much standing around. It was so bad that even the Dallas announcers began to sound frustrated with our lack of motion. We didn’t get the ball to Mohammed nearly enough (nor did he demand it—7 points on just 3 FG attempts in 27 minutes), and basically just hoped for either Richardson or Wallace to engineer something on their own. There also wasn’t enough sliding on the defensive end, which is unfathomable because Devin Harris, Jason Terry, and JJ Barea don’t do much other than get to the hoop quickly—thus the opposition has got to be ready to help. Harris alone torched us for 23 points, most of which were unassisted drives and pull-ups.

And in both games, we saw how limited Okafor is against the benchmark big guys, Duncan and Nowitzki. They do everything Okafor does, plus they do it better, plus they do more. If they’re Transformers, he’s a Gobot. For instance, both are capable of playing much farther out on the perimeter, and as they made painfully obvious: if you pull Okafor too far from the basket on defense, he’s lost. His offense was solid, but just a block and ten rebounds in each game just isn’t enough.

Oh, well. Perhaps I should just “Accept Roster Reality,” as the Observer’s Rick Bonnell urges. Apparently, our lineup dilemmas, like playing Okafor at the 5 and Wallace at the 4, and playing McInnis at all, are “unavoidable.” I fail to see how he arrived at this conclusion (as do the string of hilarious responses posted afterward), but perhaps that's the very point he’s trying to make: it doesn’t make sense, just accept it. I can do that, I guess…

Bobcats Thoughts, 1/20

2008-01-20T15:56:00.000-05:00

The Bobcats went 1-for-2 against the West this weekend, as well as 1-for-2 in uniforms. Saturday night was “NASCAR Night” at Bobcats Arena, a promotion that makes no more sense to me now than it did last year. It’s pretty hard to come up with a smaller cross-section than “Bobcats/NASCAR” fans—it’d be like Mike Huckabee suddenly trying to appeal to his “Hispanic/Jewish” contingent—yet not only do we hold a NASCAR Night, we even unleash some ridiculous “checkered flag”-style uniforms. Unbelievable. I’m assuming NASCAR doesn’t have a “Bobcats 400” race, so I have no idea what’s in this for us. The ultimate irony is that NASCAR drivers famously dress in nothing but corporate logos, and we’re, like, the ONLY team who can’t sell their arena’s naming rights to any businesses. Perhaps we could be the “NASCAR Arena”?

Regardless, the team ran cold-and-then-hot in the back-to-back games. New Orleans crushed us on Friday—it seemed like we were out of this from the time the plane touched down. Other than the plane landing, the second quarter was the turning point, as the Hornets shot 65% and we shot…well, let’s just say it was less than or equal to 65%. The ending of the half was particularly gory, as we went 1-for-8 to fall behind by 19. The domination was so thorough that after the game Hornets coach Byron Scott sounded like a Third World dictator who’d just squashed a coup attempt by leftist rebels. “When you have your foot on their neck,” Scott told reporters, “don't let them up. Smash them down. It might sound kind of cruel but you've got to have that.” Scott then announced that he was temporarily suspending the Hornets’ team constitution and imposing martial law.

Gee, why can’t our coach sound like that? Did you hear Coach Vincent after the Pistons’ game with the bogus offensive basket interference? “I'm sure we're going to contact the league,” Vincent said. “We'd like to do what Miami did and play the last minute over again, also. I believe it would be justified.” C’mon, coach, get aggressive! You think Winston Churchill would have “liked” for the Brits to never surrender in WWII? Was Martin Luther King “pretty sure” he had a dream? Did Public Enemy “believe it would be justified” to fight the power? Where’s the rage?!

Anyway, the only other thing remotely interesting about this lopsided blowout was former Bobcat Melvin Ely, who was sporting a protective mask straight out of V For Vendetta—either that or he was headed to an Eyes Wide Shut-style orgy party afterward. Otherwise, it was Tyson Chandler and David West making our front court look stupid. Chandler needs to come up with a nickname for himself, because he’s long and strikes out of nowhere—how about “the Mamba,” or is that already taken? The same could be said for West, who has no moves to speak of, but just sticks it in the hole (how about the “Inexperienced Male Prostitute” as a nickname then?). And then there’s Chris Paul, who only needed to play 30 minutes and still finished with 13 assists. Add that up with Peja Stojakovic going 5-for-7 from long range and it was a 3-quarter game for both teams’ starters.

Saturday against Memphis was considerably better. We shot 81% in the third quarter, which apparently broke the team record...Hmmm, does that mean the existing record was 80%? When the hell did we ever shoot 80% in a quarter before? I'd have thought just shooting 61% in a quarter would be an all-time high. Anyway, Jason Richardson knew when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em, scoring 38 and going 6-for-10 from downtown and grabbing a completely-out-of-character 14 rebounds.

J-Rich's performance was topped only by Gerald Wallace’s 28 points, 7 rebounds, and 7 steals. One of the many annoyances of never getting broadcasts called by our announcers is that I always have to listen to other teams’ commentators bringing their viewers up-to-date on the Bobcats. It’s good that they do that for their audience and all, but considering the season we’ve had, it’s painful to be told most of this stuff again and again as if I’m hearing it for the first time. For instance, at some point the camera will inevitably show Sean May and Adam Morrison in street clothes, so of course they’ll talk about their “devastating injuries” and how they’re now out for the season. Or I’ll have to hear about how we recently acquired Nazr Mohammed, who at least one of the commentators usually feels is probably over-priced, etc. etc. This must be how all of the characters in the movie Memento felt as Leonard told them things he thought he was saying for the first time, only it was like the hundredth time. But anyway, the one sequence I never mind rehashing is Wallace dunking, stealing the opposing team’s pass, and dunking again, followed by one of the announcers saying, “Wallace is all over the court tonight, (Jim, Dave, Red, Tommy).”

Even Coach Vincent had no shortage of praise for Richardson and Wallace. “I think they've gotten to the point,” he said afterward, “where they're comfortable in their coexistence. They know they're both scorers and they're both going to get shots. I think our nucleus is starting to feel comfortable around them as well." Actually, Coach Vincent had a surplus of praise. His comments really make me want to get out the red marker. Oh, what the heck, I have tomorrow off:

"I think they've gotten to the point where t (delete) They're comfortable in their coexistence. They know t (delete) They're both scorers and they're both going to get shots. I think o (delete) Our nucleus is starting to (delete) feels comfortable around them as well."

Ah, that felt good! My thanks to the aforementioned King!

Bobcats Thoughts, 1/18

2008-01-18T12:55:00.000-05:00

BREAKING NEWS: Nazr Mohammed is good! I have proof! Because we seem to be living in a sort of “postmodern” statistical era, in which all of the traditional stats are deemed completely worthless and it turns out that Wilt Chamberlain was in fact one of the WORST players ever*, I ventured over to the blog site 82games.com to check out what some of their number-crunching has crunched out. And lo and behold, they show undeniable proof that Nazr Mohammed is actually competent. Two things jumped out at me. First, of every guy on the team, Nazr is one of the few with a positive +/- number (+7), meaning we’ve scored 7 more points than we’ve allowed total with him on the floor. Second, our top 5-man-unit in terms of +/- consists of Felton, Carroll, Richardson, Wallace, and…Melvin Ely. No, just kidding, it’s Mohammed again! This crew’s got a net +/- score of +38. Incidentally, the group with the WORST +/- is…the one that currently starts, McInnis-Felton-Okafor-Wallace-Richardson, coming in at an Antarctican -69.

Of course, I’m well aware that these stats are skewed because our starters are playing more of their minutes against the OTHER team’s starters, who are almost always better. But here’s an important analytical point: it is what it is. Does it mean we should replace Okafor in the starting lineup with Mohammed? Not necessarily. Does it mean we should replace McInnis with Carroll? Yes necessarily! A thousand times yes! We should replace McInnis with a Cub Cadet lawnmower, for all I care, because it’s probably faster and can make “cuts” (ha!).

So anyway, I insist that Nazr’s pretty good, but you know who’s really bad? Denver. I haven’t looked at their 5-man units or anything, but I imagine there are only about three combinations of them anyway; the entire team’s beat up. Denver is exactly why people were skeptical about the Celtics’ off-season deals working out, because even though they have marquee names, and even if they can get their chemistry straight, they still have more problems showing up than Britney to a courthouse. Against us, none of their starters played fewer than 30 minutes and only three dudes came off the bench. No Nene, no Najera. The heavily tattooed JR Smith (dude’s arms look like a pair of Air Jordan 20’s) must be in some serious hot water with George Karl if he can’t get more than 19 minutes of PT. There’s also some guy named Yakhouba Diawara, who I only know played for “France” prior to the NBA—not sure if that was the University of France or France State. Meanwhile, watching Anthony Carter covering McInnis is like watching a preview for The Bucket List. These guys are going to struggle.

Oh, and Kenyon Martin just doesn’t get the credit he deserves for being a punk. Really, he’s got to be one of the more underrated punks in the NBA, possibly in all of sports, and it’s time we give him his due. With that obnoxious throw-down slam and the way he punches and/or kicks the ball afterward, plus his run-ins with management, plus it seems like he’s always got some sort of injury, when are people going to RECOGNIZE?! I bet he’s jealous of Shawne Merriman. Granted, if Denver were in the East, they’d be challenging for a division crown, but out in the West, they’re barely holding on—and they’re $27 million over the cap. That’s one sick team; maybe Ben Bernanke can hook them up with some sort of economic stimulus package (assuming he has no hard feelings over losing the beard-growing contest to Smith and Drew Gooden).

So we took the win against Denver, but it was sort of unsatisfying, given the way the Nuggets bumbled around in the final six seconds. This led us to…uh-oh, it’s Magic. You didn’t have to be Ric Ocasek to know that this game would be a problem. Beatdowns by the Magic are starting to feel like a weekly-scheduled event. Orlando makes me feel like “Flick” from A Christmas Story: I just want to say “Uncle,” get the loss over quickly, and move on with my life.

And early on, that’s exactly what it looked like would happen, as Dwight “Scut Farcus” Howard seemed to be turning the game into his own personal Slam-Dunk Contest. Meanwhile, Hedo Turkoglu unleashed his devastating array of “drive slowly to the left without faking or changing speeds or doing anything really and bank it in off the boards” moves that are apparently unstoppable. He did this repeatedly—to the tune of 16 points—and the only thing that varied was the amount of hair I pulled out watching. Also, it turns out Carlos Arroyo is pretty good when you don’t bother to guard him. He still flings his passes around with the accuracy of those t-shirt-launching guns, but with no one within pissing distance of him, he put up 17 points.

Fortunately, Gerald Wallace pulled a "Ralphie" and went off. 36 points, 14 boards, 5 assists, 3 steals, 0—zero!!—turnovers! 11-14 from the foul line!! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! Gerald was all over the court. He was astonishing. He was captivating. He was stoned when they took his publicity photo—check out his picture atop ESPN.com’s “Daily Leaders” board. He still gets a little greedy from the three-point line (sometimes he stands there for almost a couple of seconds, and you can practically see a little “Angel Gerald” on one shoulder telling him to pass or penetrate and a little “Devil Gerald” telling him to shoot), but who cares? He’s our heart-and-soul.

Kudos also to the reemerging long-range skills of Jason Richardson and Matt Carroll, who went a combined 7-for-12 from downtown. And Felton is the point guard, whether it’s his assigned position or not. One of the Orlando television announcers cracked me up when he said, “There seems to be some confusion here in Charlotte, as a lot of people think Felton should be the point guard.” Actually, there’s no confusion here in Charlotte, except maybe with the head coach.

*I made that up. It was actually Oscar Robertson.

Bobcats Thoughts, 1/14

2008-01-14T12:44:00.000-05:00

The last two games—both of which were consecutive heartbreakers—have left me strangely un-discouraged. I’m not sure why; perhaps it’s because the level of pain technically decreased from the first one (a 2-OT defeat in Cleveland that featured one of our best players being carried off the court in agony) to the second (a mere single-overtime loss with no devastating injuries). But I think the more prevalent reason is this: unlike (apparently) every other sports commentator, I DO believe in moral victories. Have you heard these jokers on ESPN and other media outlets lately? It’s become trendy to say, “I don’t believe in moral victories”—like moral victories are Santa Claus or UFOs something. Sean Salisbury’s a big proponent of this phrase, almost as much as he likes saying that equally unintelligent line about certain quarterbacks, “He’s got that ‘It’ factor.” Meanwhile, I think Jeremy Green has reiterated his moral victory atheism on every single podcast for the past 3 months.

You know what’s even more stupid than piously parroting this trite phrase? Just about every time they say it, these guys immediately contradict themselves. For example, they’ll say something like, “I don’t believe in moral victories, but the Giants put forth a great effort against the Patriots, and it’s something they can build on in the playoffs.” Well, then you DO believe in moral victories, right? Isn’t that what a moral victory is? I don’t get it at all.

And apparently, this problem is more pervasive than I thought. I googled the phrase and found it being tossed around in all sports in all societies. It’s not just commentators either; coaches and players love it. Check out the Auburn swimming-and-diving coach’s comments after his team lost to Texas A&M: "I don't believe in moral victories, but I am proud of our growth here today." In India, the coach of the national men’s cricket team even declared moral victories to be “crazy:” “It’s really crazy,” he said, “I don’t know why people talk about moral victories. When you struggle to pick up five wickets in both innings, that’s no moral victory to me.”

Um, actually I can’t really comment on this one, because I have no idea what a wicket even is, let alone its relative worth in cricket—is picking up five wickets a lot? a little? average? How many points-per-game would 5 wickets equate to? So okay, perhaps in this case there is no moral victory in picking up just 5 wickets. And yet, if I had to guess, I would bet that lots of southeast Asian journalists predicted beforehand that this particular Indian team wouldn’t pick up ANY wickets (or maybe just one or two). And maybe they needed to pick up, like, 10 wickets to win. So yes, they lost, but they hustled hard and still picked up more wickets than people expected (maybe they even covered the “wicket-spread,” if there is such a thing). So when India plays its next game against New Zealand (or wherever), they’ll be able to have a little bit more confidence in their wicket-pick-up skills. So I change my mind, it was a moral victory, darn it, whether their coach believes in it or not!

Sorry for the digression, but I’m trying to fire us up, because I imagine there are a lot of sad faces in Bobcats land right now. And I agree, it was calamitous. We played brilliantly in the Cleveland game, and we should have had it. In the post-mortem, the Charlotte Observer actually left out the worst part. See if you notice what’s missing from this summary:

“They could have put this away in the first overtime by scoring off either of their last two possessions, but Matt Carroll missed a 3-pointer and Felton air-balled a long jumper off a screen-and-roll with Okafor.”

Here’s the part they left out: before all of this happened, Carroll hit a trey to put us up 100-97, Damon Jones missed a 3-pointer of his own, and Gerald Wallace got the defensive board but STEPPED OUT OF BOUNDS. And given the extra possession, this time the loathsome Jones made his stupid 3-pointer and sent it to double-OT. Because we’re talking about a horrible turnover leading to a crippling shot by Damon Jones, a sequence of events that would make even a neutral observer cringe, I imagine Rick Bonnell simply blocked these events from his memory. So instead of having a 3-point lead and the ball with a minute to play, we were tied and headed toward another OT.

That’s when LeBron, or, the “L-Train,” as that avuncular FSN-Ohio color commentator calls him (which I find weird. After all, it’s not like LeBron is hurting for nicknames—why can’t he just go with “King James” or “Bron-Bron” or “LBJ” or one of the many others? Is this how it usually works? Back in the day, were there guys covering Wilt Chamberlain who passed on “The Big Dipper” and “Wilt the Stilt” and just made up their own, like “Sweet Chamber-music” or something?), decided he’d had enough. First he launched a 3-pointer from approximately Dayton, then he blatantly (and smartly) began ignoring teammates like Drew Gooden (the only man with the ability to shave his ducktail and actually manage to look weirder—what’s with that beard, is he supporting the Hollywood writers’ strike?), Larry Hughes, et al, and took matters into his own hands. The L-Train made a stop along the Foul Line and parked at 22-Foot Jumper station, after which you could stick a fork in us…except that on top of everything else, Felton sprained his ankle after the game had gone meaningless. And to think, if only he hadn’t hit that 3-pointer at the end of regulation, none of this would have happened—thanks a lot, Raymond…

At least Felton was in a suit the next night against the Pistons. Judging by the way he was carted off in Cleveland, I was halfway expecting to see footage of him wrapped up and being lowered into a pool via cables, Barbaro-style. I suppose it’s also worth mentioning that we didn’t have Jeff McInnis either against Detroit, not that he was particularly missed. Let’s face it, he’s essentially been playing only because we're required to put five guys out there, not because he’s vital (if McInnis were a body part, he’d be an appendix). Because Derek Anderson was also injured, however, we didn’t even have a nominal point guard.

So things could have hardly looked worse, but if there was an upside, it’s that Nazr Mohammed would finally crack the starting lineup, right? Right? Wrong! Coach Sam Vincent shifted Okafor to center, threw Jared Dudley out there, and started Carroll at the one. Huh? Not only was Mohammed coming off a 21-point, 15-rebound performance, he was also presumably extra-motivated to play against the team that openly and inexplicably despised him when he was with them. Combine this move with early appearances by Ryan Hollins and Jermareo Davidson, and Coach Vincent seemed to be saying, “What the heck, let’s just have some fun with this one.” And in fact, it actually DID become fun, and kinda zany. It was like if Hollywood announced they were doing a new version of Othello starring Ice Cube: it would almost certainly not work, but it would certainly be interesting and there’d probably be some laughs along the way.

Actually, I would have been satisfied with just seeing Primoz Brezec come in and bobble the ball out of bounds for old time’s sake (ahhhh, Primoz, you finally made me happy, when you walked out that door). Instead, we got a great game, a spirited effort, and a screw-job call at the end with the phantom interference to help us defer responsibility. And once again, the Observer omitted a crucial, painful detail in their wrap-up: Carroll got fouled on a drive that put us up 91-88 with 1:45 left in regulation, and then he MISSED the free-throw that would have made it a 4-point game. If Carroll, a career 85% shooter from the foul line, sinks that free-throw, Chauncey Billups’ ensuing 3-pointer would have still left Detroit trailing by 1. And because that was the last time anyone scored in regulation, we could have arguably won (I’m sorry, I’m like Bubbles’ counselor in The Wire; I want to bring all this pain to light, it’s the only way we’ll heal).

Oh well, good thing I believe in moral victories…

Bobcats Thoughts, 1/10

2008-01-10T16:04:00.000-05:00

Ahhhhhh…Ummmmmmmm…Huh. I’m speechless. I need to go on autopilot and throw out a bunch of random sports clichés while I try to recover from my shock: “At the end of the day, when it’s all said and done, the last time I checked, that’s why you play the game, it is what it is, I don’t believe in moral victories, TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT ME TO DO!”

Phew! Okay, I’m back.

Last night’s victory over Boston in Boston was the equivalent of Barack Obama losing the New Hampshire primary…to Dennis Kucinich. Where to start? How about Paul Pierce’s comment afterward: “It was one of Charlotte's best games.” Yes it was, Paul, in the same way that “Come On Eileen” was “one of” Dexys Midnight Runners’ best songs. In fact, I might be going out on a limb here, but I’d argue that it was the best game we've played this year (narrowly edging out that victory over the Milwaukee Bucks in November).

It’s sad and petty of me, but you know what made it even better? Listening to Tommy Heinsohn descend into madness. In the span of 2 hours or so, he turned into Colonel Kurtz. It’s almost mean-spirited, because when the Celtics get creamed, Heinsohn becomes something of a sympathetic monster—you almost feel like you’re laughing at a handicapped guy. Tommy blamed the refs (specifically Ken Mauer), Ray Allen’s injury, Glen “Big Baby” Davis’s injury, and—laughably—the Celtics’ three off-days for their loss. Pretty much everything but Jessica Simpson was responsible for this one, according to poor Tommy. The only credit he’d give to the other side went to Nazr Mohammed, of all people, although even this was delivered in classic Heinsohnian fashion: he actually had to ask play-by-play Mike Gorman who this “kid” was, despite the fact that Mohammed is 30 and playing in his tenth season. Tommy also capped off a memorable night with the gem, “Jeff McInnis hasn’t played an inch of defense!” Um, is that like the "inch of respect" we all apparently owe Roger Clemens? I said a few days ago that unlike Red Kerr, Tommy at least uses words in his commentary—but I didn’t go so far as to say those words made any sense.

Anyway, as much fun as it is poking fun at Tommy, it’s even more fun to bask in the glow of two straight victories. And on that note, let’s not underestimate the significance of crushing the Nets just one night prior. As much as the Bobcats drive me crazy, I would still rather root for them over teams like the Nets. As crappy as they are, I’ve never, EVER seen our Bobcats put forth a garbage effort like the Nets did on Tuesday. By far the most interested looking guy for New Jersey was poor Lawrence Frank. Even scarier for NJ? The second-most energetic guy was Josh Boone. Hey, what happened to Nenad Kristic? Has anyone heard from him? And what about Marcus Williams? He didn’t get caught stealing computers out of the Nets' HR department or something, did he? As for those on the court, Vince Carter was at his sulkiest, and even better for us, he shot about as well as that kid bursting from the kitchen in Pulp Fiction: Carter made an abhorrent 5-of-15 field goals.

Still, given the way we’ve played, the Nets victory was impossible to enjoy until the very end. I kept waiting for the Wile E. Coyote moment, which I was pretty sure had happened with about 4 minutes to go in the third. Gerald Wallace drove home an alley-oop to put us up by 19, New Jersey called a timeout, and right on schedule, there it was: McInnis doing a playful little pirouette by the bench right before they cut to commercial. That’s it, I thought, there’s the smile, we’re screwed. Sure enough, right off the timeout, Richard Jefferson made an unopposed dunk, Mohammed turned it over, and Bostjan Nachbar drilled a 3-pointer. But that was it. After Jason Collins hit a free throw, we pretty much traded baskets from there on out.

“We hadn't had a chance to have one of those kind (sic) of games all year long, really,” Coach Sam Vincent said after the game. I’m not quite sure what he meant by that—isn’t every game a chance to have one of those kinds of games? Also, in a perfect world, I really wish that Michael Jordan having any sort of contact with the players—as he apparently did prior to this game—wouldn’t be so newsworthy. I mean, seriously, isn’t this what he’s supposed to be doing? It reminds me of that headline from The Onion a few weeks back, that one that went something like, “George Bush Makes Surprise Visit to Work.” But whatever, I’m really in no mood to complain…

Onto Boston, and man, that crowd was rocking. Is this how they normally sound? Maybe I’ve just gotten used to all those ghost-town home games we’ve had, but they were like the Soviet crowd at the Balboa-Drago fight. Once again, there was no way I was stupid enough to start get excited—no matter how long we stayed in this one. Paul Pierce was capable of beating us all by himself last year, forget about having KG and Jesus S. by his side. Plus, Rajon Rondo is a walking optical illusion. He’s listed as 6’-1”, 171, but I swear that’s +/- six inches depending on the camera angle. And even when we’re able to contain a team’s stars, we have this tremendous knack for allowing journeymen to put up legendary numbers. That’s why, in the second quarter, I was not in the least bit surprised to see a lineup of Eddie House, Brian Scalabrine, Tony Allen, James Posey and Scott Pollard (who, in a remarkably short period of time, went from looking like a gutter punk to one of my uncles) giving us all we could handle, stretching out a 4-point lead to 9.

Thank goodness they put Garnett and Pierce back in! Otherwise, we probably would have lost. Instead, Nazr was illmatic under the hoop, scoring 18 points and grabbing 10 boards (of course, in the twisted mind of Coach Vincent, this probably means he’s now destined to spend the next two weeks on the bench). Meanwhile, Gerald Wallace lately seems as confused about how to score as he is about how to wear his hair. Fortunately, everything he tries seems to be falling: drives, mid-range jumpers, 3-pointers. But the man of the night (and of the past several) was J-Rich, who can miss all the free throws he wants as long as he keeps putting up 34, 9, and 64%. I don’t want to go overboard, but if we keep this up, 15 wins for the year won’t seem like such a pipe dream…

Bobcats Thoughts, 1/07

2008-01-07T17:31:00.000-05:00

The headline in today’s Charlotte Observer read “2nd-Half Meltdown Gives Familiar Look to 7th Loss in 8 Games.” Actually, whoever wrote that was not being entirely accurate, unless they meant the “2nd-half of the last half of the fourth quarter.” We had a 7-point lead with three minutes to go and the ball. As Mike once strategized in Dazed and Confused, all we had to do was "get one or two shots in there, play defense, and wait." The Bucks didn’t have Michael Redd, neither of these teams is going anywhere, and I’m sure everyone wanted to get to the locker room to find out what happened with NFL Wild Card games. This sucker was done!

Instead, Okafor made an incredibly stupid foul on the lumbering-but-really-slow Andrew Bogut, who made both the field goal and the foul shot. Then Gerald Wallace began cranking out turnovers like they were Police Academy movies. Wallace lost the ball in just thirteen seconds for a breakaway Mo Williams layup, then did it again a minute later, and yet again a minute later. If only he’d stopped at Turnover 4: Citizens on Patrol, but instead he continued it all the way out to Turnover 8 (Mission to Moscow?)!! We ended up making only one more field goal in that last three minutes to complete a loss so terrible I really thought one of my apartment neighbors was going to call the cops—so pronounced was my screaming.

This latest string of collapses has something of a Wile E. Coyote feel to it. Remember poor Wile? He would always come up with some contraption, usually involving some sort of rocket pack. He’d get on the thing, launch off, and there’d be an adjustment period in which he’d struggle to get control of it. Then, once he got it down, he’d get a kind of confident look on his face, and then he would always, ALWAYS look right at the camera and sort of smile like, “hey, I think I’m finally on the right track,” and that’s EXACTLY when you knew he was about to smash right into the side of a cliff. This is how it’s been with us during this streak of blown leads. Whether it’s the second, third, or fourth quarter, we get off to a shaky start, and then pull even, and then take a nice lead, usually into the double-digits. And then either us or the opponents call for a timeout, and as the telecast goes to commercial, the last thing you see is one of our guys (Hollins, McInnis, etc.), looking into the camera and sort of smiling…

If there was any consolation to these latest two symphonies of destruction, it’s that the Nets and Bucks announcers were pleasantly vanilla. The Bucks announcers were also of the ludicrously optimistic sort. Early on one of them actually said something about this game being crucial for both teams’ playoff chances (ha!), and later on the other said—and this was great—“Some nights, two struggling teams can put on a great show. This is one of those nights.” I damned near fell out of my chair laughing at this bit of poetry, because at the time it was midway through the 4th quarter and the score was only 78-74, not to mention the Arena was so empty it was some stray dogs and barbed wire fences away from resembling a Cold War-era, East European ghetto.

More bittersweetness: after the loss to the Nets on Friday, I flipped over to the Hornets-Warriors game. In sharp contrast to our finishes, you should have seen Chris Paul close this thing out. He was Mo Rivera. With eight minutes to go, the Hornets clinging to a six-point lead, and on the road at the deadly Oracle, CP3 just took control. Commanding every possession, he hit two runners in a row, assisted Chandler on a FG-and-one, assisted Mo-Pete on two treys in a row, then hit two jumpers in a row, and capped it off by dropping in a layup-and-one. Even though the Warriors answered on just about every one of their possessions, Paul had stretched the lead out to 18 at that point, with just a minute to play. 11 points, 3 assists, no turnovers, drive home safely. I go from that to watching Jeff McInnis bringing it up for us in crucial spots last night...Jay's right: when you're used to filet mignon, it's kinda hard going back to Hamburger Helper.

Bobcats Thoughts, 1/04

2008-01-04T16:15:00.000-05:00

How many times are we going to see the Bobcats take a large 3rd quarter lead and then fail miserably down the stretch? At least one more time, apparently, because they did it again against the Bulls on Wednesday. Do you realize that with that loss, we now account for a quarter of Chicago’s wins this season? Suffering through a 3rd straight Cats-Bulls game with that crack Chicago announce team just made it all the better. Here’s a sampling of Red Kerr’s “commentary”: “Ohhh! Awww, that’s a foul, ref! C’mon, (Andres) Noc(ioni)! Oh, that was traveling! Awww!” I’m not exaggerating this at all—this is how he sounds, like he’s actually playing the game rather than analyzing it. At least the horrible Tommy Heinsohn uses mostly words; Kerr spends the whole time grunting. I really don’t have anything else to say about Kerr—it’s like criticizing Jeff McInnis or Britney Spears. He’s absolutely terrible and it’s not even funny anymore. I’m tapping out, NBA League Pass, until you guys make it a rule that the telecasts split up the announce crews evenly, like home and away games for teams. If (god forbid) we have to play the Bulls another three times this year, we should get our announce crews all three times to even it out.

What in the world is Sam Vincent thinking? Jeff McInnis starting at the 1? No Nazr at center? Why?! I can only guess that Vincent read that ESPN.com article by Lake and McKitish and decided he better bench Mohammed before he starts to suck. Coach, you have to wait for him to play poorly first. Haven’t we learned the dangers of preemptive strikes in this country?

Apparently not, because why else would we go small against Chicago when it’s been well documented that they have no big-time low-post presence?!? This whole thing played out like Airplane!, when they ask that guy, “Shouldn’t we turn on the runway lights?” and he goes, “No, that’s just what they’d be expecting us to do.” Of course Joakim Noah’s going to look like Moses Malone when the biggest guy out there is Okafor.

Look, if Sam Vincent was a well-established coach with some cache to burn, that’d be one thing. It’s why we forgive Radiohead when they put out Kid A, Jay-Z when he does Kingdom Come, or HBO with John From Cincinnati. These are credible geniuses who have the right to stray from the formula every now and then (sometimes it even works too—I challenge you to find a more potently beautiful song than G’N’R’s “November Rain,” and look where it is on that album: just two songs removed from “Back Off Bitch.”) But if those artists had STARTED with those albums, they’d never have gotten work in the first place. Jay-Z would still be slinging crack in Bed-Stuy, and Radiohead would be panhandling in the subway with acoustic versions of “Creep” and “Paranoid Android.”

Anyway, 17 offensive boards for the Bulls. I repeat: seventeen. That's the worst use of the number "17" since that Winger song. How about Gerald Wallace out-assisting Jeff McInnis 8-to-5? Andres Nocioni and Aaron Gray in a race to see whose haircut could most resemble Anton Chigurh’s? Kerr’s grunting? Noah’s screaming practically every time he jumps? I can only imagine him in the gym lifting weights (here’s a scary thought: what if he had a baby with Monica Seles? Would cutting the umbilical chord alone shatter the hospital window glass?). These are among the many stats and images that will haunt me from Wednesday’s loss. And to think, we were actually leading for a good portion of this game. In fact, we had a 72-64 edge with 5:35 to go in the 3rd. But then the Bulls went on such a frenetic tear, that instead of Johhny Kerr, the play-by-play should have been done by Ghostface Killah. We only scored 22 point in the final 17 minutes. Oh yeah, it was that bad.

Next up: the NJ Nets. Oh dear lord. The Izod Center. Vince Carter. I may be paranoid, but not an android, and this could be brutal. In fact, I’m already sobbing softly to myself just thinking about it. The panic, the vomit, the panic, the vomit. God loves his children, god loves his children…

Bobcats Thoughts, 1/02

2008-01-02T17:04:00.000-05:00

Whew! Sorry it’s been so long since I wasted your time with yet another pointless column, but I’ve been busier than Digital Underground rappers in a Burger King bathroom. First it was entertaining the in-laws, who were visiting the Big Apple for the very first time. We showed them around all the usual places, and you just can’t imagine how much fun we had. It was so much fun that I enjoyed those precious few minutes I wasn’t stuck in some mobbed tourist trap by holding a gun to my head and talking myself out of pulling the trigger. Once we finally got them on a flight back home with “I (heart) New York” merchandise bursting merrily out of their luggage, I then had to prepare my wife for her first day of working for PETA, where she’s about to start a rewarding career bombing fur farms and setting fire to Wilson’s Leather outlets. All of this yule-tide activity has left me with no time to write and stretched thinner than Johnny Depp’s singing voice in Sweeney Todd.

Or maybe I should say “thinner than the Bobcats’ bench.” My oh my, since the Knicks victory, we’ve gone one-and-five, and once promising guys like Jared Dudley and Ryan Hollins are now distant memories, like the movie Lions for Lambs. The only notable sub recently has been Matt Carroll, and only in the sense that he’s been terrible. Even the Nazr Mohammed parade has been thoroughly peed on. In their “Are You For Real?” column on ESPN.com, Guy Lake and Brian McKitish both took turns bashing him—it was like the final scene in Death Proof. Darn it, I’d been so pleased with Nazr too. I mean, no one’s going to confuse him with Hakeem Olajuwon, but no one’s going to confuse him Primoz Brezec either—and that was the whole point. Apparently, though, Mohammed has a history of starting fast with new teams before regressing severely, at least according to Lake and McKitish. And all I can do on that one is tip my cap to them, because quite honestly I haven’t followed Nazr’s career that closely. And if they’re right, I appreciate the warning.

If there’s been any bright spot, it’s Jason Richardson, who’s finally been playing up to his contract. In the last 5 games, he’s put up 28.8 points on 51% shooting. But even with him it’s not all rosy and cheerful little Juno-style acoustic songs: the dude’s only hitting 66% of his free-throws this year. And worse: his career free-throw percentage is just 69%. You know what? I somehow feel personally responsible for this, because I had no idea the dude couldn’t shoot foul shots. When I learned we were getting J-Rich, I knew that the guy was a gunner, and so I just naturally assumed he could both get to and score from the foul line. It didn’t even occur to me to look. I wish I had, because I would have said something. Now I feel like I bought some used car that I thought was good until I realized that it had no heater or air conditioning. Oh well, like Kanye said, everything he’s not makes him everything he is, right? And that would be an $11 million scorer who can’t shoot free throws. He’s basically the basketball equivalent of Pedro Cerrano.

Similarly, Ryan Hollins…oy vey. Do you realize the guy’s 7 feet tall and can’t rebound? How did this one slip through the cracks? Once again, this one's on me, because I didn’t notice it myself until the Hornets game, when I saw everyone from David West to Chris Paul jumping over, around, and through him to clean the boards. Often the ball would bounce directly to him and he STILL couldn’t come down with it. Even Primoz would at least get a hand on it and lose it out of bounds, but with Hollins it’s like his arms disappear entirely. Puzzled, I looked at the stats, and there it was: 2 rebounds per. And then I looked at John Hollinger’s profile of him, and sure enough: “non-factor on the boards.” Wasn’t there some highly scientific study done last year about how the one skill that transfers the most consistently from college to the NBA is rebounding? I’d pull up Hollins’ UCLA stats, but to tell you the truth, I’m too afraid. But the point is, did anyone on the staff bother to check this before we drafted him?

Add all this to Raymond Felton’s 5.5 assists-per-game and 39% shooting for the month of December, and you’re going to get exactly what we got: depressing beat downs by the likes of the Bucks, Magic, Hornets, etc. In the Magic game, I actually spent most of the game debating whether the correct phrase is "steamrolled" or "steamrolled over," as in, "Orlando steamrolled (over) us." I'm still not sure. But anyway, all of it’s made even more dreary when you consider these losses are mostly at home and with no significant injuries to our roster. Opponents are shooting 46.5% on us, fourth-worst in the league. And when they miss, they’re averaging 12 offensive boards a game—tied for 7th worst in the league. Forget playing us like a violin, they’re playing us like Guitar Legend by getting open shots and getting second chances.

At least we ended on a bright note by beating the Pacers…except it wasn’t on League Pass, which makes us 4-0 on games not televised in the NYC-area. Yay. I’m so bummed out I’m practically jealous of the Knicks right now: at least lots of people CARE that they suck. We’re like Kenya to their Pakistan. How could I feel any worse right now? Wait—honey, the in-laws are back home, right?

Bobcats Thoughts, 12/24

2007-12-24T12:29:00.000-05:00

On Friday night—ahh, at last—the Knicks came to town! I could practically see MJ standing by the Knicks’ team bus as it pulled up, shaking their hands with each player as he stepped off. "Welcome, Zeke, always great to have you; and who’s this little man brought with you—Z-Bo? Great, great trade, by the way." We have to be nice to these guys, because let’s face it: now that Atlanta’s gotten all respectable and whatnot, and Sacramento’s buffoonish Maloof brothers have either died or are holed up in a hotel casino, snorting coke and lighting firecrackers, I feel like the Knicks are the only ones preventing us from becoming the #1 league-wide joke.

On the other hand, what a safety net! The Knicks continue to be a sad burlesque of a franchise, the type of disaster that when Quentin Richardson and Isiah Thomas get into a heated and very public exchange (as they did tonight), it’s considered to be progress. Although New York didn’t have Starbury suiting up, he still managed to come through with his own wonderful magic. Just before tip-off, the latest issue of Dime magazine found its way to my mailbox, and it contains a gem of an interview with Steph. Here’s the best part:

Dime: People were emailing links to the videos of your interviews, especially the Bruce Beck appearance.
Marbury: And saying that I’m on coke? That I’m on crack, right?
Dime: You guys have known each other for a while, right?
Marbury: Yeah…now here I am having fun, bugging out, tripping out…and so now I’m crazy? So now I’m on crack?
Dime: The word “crazy” has been attached to you a lot lately when people are talking about you.
Marbury: Yeah, that and I’m on crack.

Oh, Steph, promise me you’ll never change; you’re a candle in the wind. Anyway, after a frighteningly competitive first few minutes, we went on a 23-7 run to take control of the game, en route to 67 first-half points. We could have actually gone scoreless for the first eight minutes of the second quarter and still just been tied—so ineffective was New York. With guys like Eddy Curry and Zach Randolph, it’s always to tough to figure out whether they’re just not trying hard, or they’re simply too overweight to move very fast; I guess it’s two sides of the same coin.

And for all the talk you always hear about how Zeke needs to play David Lee more, yowsers, he was really bad. He shot just 5-13 from the field—and these weren’t exactly half-court attempts, if you catch my drift—plus he made just 1-of-6 free throws and had four turnovers, each of which was spectacularly awful. Meanwhile, our own big guys came to play. Our savior (Nazr) Mohammed had 20 points, 14 boards, and 4 blocks, while Okafor had 17 and 8. In fact, every starter scored into double-digits, led by Gerald Wallace with 27.

In the 3rd quarter, when we pushed the lead out to 29, Thomas began benching his players. But after the jawing session with Richardson, I was halfway expecting him to do something completely radical, like reassign positions at random—maybe put in Nate Robinson at center with Curry running the point. Instead, the Knicks buckled down a bit and made things a little more interesting at the end. But with Lee clanking foul shots and a slew of missed put-backs by the Knicks, plus our 50% shooting, things were never really in doubt. I just hope Jordan left them some nice mints in their lockers; they’re welcome them back anytime.

Sadly, the good times didn’t continue the next night in Milwaukee. Things started with a calamitous road trip, featuring inclement weather, delayed flights, bus trips, and pretty much everything but John Candy trying to sell Sam Vincent some shower curtain rings. The team arrived only a few minutes before tip off, and the Bucks had target-lock on the hoop. And though we fought hard to come back out of double-digit wilderness by shooting over 50% for the second straight night, it’s like saying Sal Maglie pitched a great game against Don Larsen in the 1956 World Series, because the Bucks were just about perfect. By my count, Milwaukee scored on 12 of their first 14 possessions to start the 3rd quarter, stretching an 11-point halftime lead out to 22.

The chief perfectionist was Yi Jianlian, who hit his first 12 from the field and finished 14-17. These weren’t point-blank makes either; most of them were long-range baseline 2’s. In my opinion, this will go down as one of the more unheralded-but-extraordinary performances of the season. Mo Williams was the runner-up MVP, hitting 9-of-20 for 22 points, penetrating often, and assisting more than public housing. Oddly, Michael Redd was the weak link for the Bucks tonight, missing a ton of open shots (10-of-27).

All in all though, things still seem to be looking up slightly as we cruise into the holiday break. I’ve been downplaying the now-famous Jordan-run practice a few days ago, because I didn’t think it would amount to anything. Because the Observer’s Scott Fowler basically described it as a repeated succession of Jordan shooting and scoring on our guys, my thought at the time was, did he teach us anything other than getting schooled? I mean, don’t we already have that part down? But who knows, maybe he’s injected some guts and leadership into our guys. Oh yeah, there’s also that little Primoz-for-Nazr deal, which has been an upgrade worthy of a show called “Pimp My Center.”

Bobcats Thoughts, 12/21

2007-12-21T11:56:00.000-05:00

Very strange win against Utah on Wednesday night. The Jazz were (was?) up by 12 points late in the fourth and completely derailed. Usually when I’m watching a team unravel like that, a) it happens in the 3rd quarter, and b) it’s our team. And actually, I missed a lot of our run for this one. In fact, after Andrei Kirilenko sank two free throws to make the score 86-74, my personal contribution to the amazing comeback that followed was sighing dejectedly and going off to brush my teeth. Meanwhile, the Jazz went on to miss two layups, throw a horrible pass out-of-bounds (courtesy of Derron Williams), and commit 4 fouls and a shot clock violation over the next few minutes. By the time I came back for a cursory check of what I thought would be a deficit somewhere in the high teens, we were actually UP a point.

And it only got worse from there for Utah, who seemed to be on some sort of suicide mission without any upside. They were like Bruce Willis at the end of the movie Armageddon, only if his explosion didn’t blow up the asteroid and save the world but simply paid for some acting lessons for Liv Tyler. Actually, even that would have been a small upside. So I don’t know what happened with the Jazz, but what I do know is this: any of you Carlos Boozer-for-MVP campaigners out there might want to hide the tape of this game, just like Rudi Giuliani backers might want to shred any Econo Lodge and Motel 6 receipts from 2000-01 that they come across. The Booze scored a grand total of 2 points over the last 6 minutes, committed three fouls, a turnover, and had just one board.

The Bobcats, on the other hand, hit the boards like a bong, getting key rebounds from not just Gerald Wallace and Emeka Okafor, but also J-Rich, Felton, and even Matt Carroll. Crash had an absolutely Kareem-tastic block-and-steal on a seemingly wide open Ronnie Brewer layup with 90-seconds left that preserved a 3-point lead, and Felton’s subsequent free throws iced it. And speaking of which, what’s with the sudden foul shooting proficiency? I counted 20-of-22 foul shots made in the fourth. The only explanation I have is that the Knicks beat Cleveland by 18—there was just something in the NBA air tonight, and not even Phil Collins could feel it coming.

And look at Nazr Mohammed! He catches, he rebounds, he blocks, he…he…does things. With those two stuffs he had down the stretch, Nazr not only helped save the game, I think he also passed Primoz Brezec on the Bobcats’ all-time shot-block list. Sure, Nazr only had 17 points, which isn’t amazing or anything, but you know what this is like? This is like getting an appliance for the first time that most people already have. Like if you just now bought a microwave, or even better: a dishwasher. Let's say that until now you’ve just been making due by scrubbing all of your dishes with soap, and then one day you finally get a dishwasher, and it’s like magic! And then you try to tell everyone at work how amazing it is to have a dishwasher, and they’re looking at you like you’re insane, because they’ve never NOT had a dishwasher. That’s what Nazr Mohammed’s like. We’ve essentially been making due without a center this entire time, which most NBA teams have, and even though we just got the basic version, it’s completely going to transform our lives for the better. I think this is what people are overlooking when they criticize the Brezec-Herrmann/Mohammed deal.

NFL Thoughts, Week 15

2007-12-18T17:04:00.000-05:00

If the analysis I did last week were drugs, it’d be marijuana: a gateway, experimental narcotic that leads to much more addictive ones. It was supposed to just be for recreation, all in good fun—“hey, everyone else on the internet’s doing it, how bad could it be?”—and now look at me, I’m completely strung out on stats.

If you recall at the end of my Week 14 thoughts, I realized that I hadn’t fully answered my own question about how important special teams units are to a team’s overall success, and that there were many other ways of looking at it. Thus I began fiending for more analysis, and now I’m fresh off a marathon binge of numbers-crunching that will probably cost me my job and my family, all in an effort to seek that euphoric knowledge high. And though I’ve got a more complete perspective on that special teams question, I’m STILL not satisfied—there’s more I can do! It’s like I’ve gone from the pot of results comparisons last week to the crack-cocaine of percentages THIS week, and I’m basically one week away from the full-fledged crystal meth of positive and negative correlations. No more! I must stop before you catch me in a gutter somewhere, turning tricks in exchange for hits off of someone’s Excel spreadsheet.

But all that said, what a rush! I feel like Motley Crue’s Vince Neil or Poison’s CC DeVille anytime they’re interviewed on one of those lame “Behind the Music” documentaries. Sure, they’re a mess now, and they’d take back all of the coke, strippers, etc. if they could, but there’s an unmistakable gleam of nostalgia in their eyes when they talk about it.

So here’s what I did: in my continuing quest to figure out the importance of special teams, I’ve chopped up six years’ worth of overall team stats and injected them into my MS Office Excel, then snorted them into my brain (and vomited out results, I guess, to complete the entirely unnecessarily graphic analogy). I chose three offensive categories: total yards, total points, and total giveaways (lost fumbles + interceptions). Then I selected three defensive categories: total yards allowed, total points allowed, and total takeaways (recovered fumbles + interceptions). Then I used the same six special team categories I used last year: kickoff return yards, kickoff return touchdowns, punt return yards, punt return touchdowns, % of punts that pinned the opposition inside the 20, and average net yards per punt.

Having selected my stats, I went through every single category for each season’s playoff teams and checked whether or not it was within the Top-12 for that year. The two exceptions to the “Top 12 Test” were the kickoff returns and punt returns for touchdowns, in which case I observed whether or not the team had more of two of them (the vast majority of teams only return 1 or fewer kickoffs and punts for touchdowns each year). If this sounds easy to do, it’s not. In fact, I’m not even sure it sounds easy—just trying to describe what I did is giving me a contact high.

So having done all that, it was time for a little subjectivity (subjectivity is the statistician’s chaser). I decided that a team’s overall offense was “stellar” if it ranked in the top-12 in all three categories, “good” if it was top-12 in 2-out-of-3, “bad” if it was top-12 in just 1-out-of-3, and “awful” if it wasn’t in the top-12 in any category (considering that I was only dealing with playoff teams, there were a surprising number of “bads” and “awfuls”—more on that later). Then I did the exact same thing with the defensive categories. Special teams were a little trickier, because I had six categories, rather than just three. So I decided that 5 or 6 top-12 categories rated a “stellar,” 3 or 4 rated a “good,” 2 rated a “bad,” and 1 or 0 warranted an “awful.”

Then it was time for the ultimate trip: the results. Of the 72 playoff teams of the past 6 years, 25 had “bad” or “awful” offenses, 25 “bad” or “awful” defenses, and a whopping 47 “bad” or “awful” special teams. So by that measure, special teams are far less important than the other two units. Incidentally, there were more “stellar” offenses than defenses (26 to 19), and fewer “awful” offenses than defenses (9 to 11) among the playoff teams, so I suppose that great offenses are better than great defenses—contrary to all we hear about defenses winning to championships. And yet, there are probably other ways to answer this…STOP! I better stop right there before the cops are surrounding my apartment, and someone with a megaphone is telling me to “step away from the laptop.”

Back to special teams! Of those 72 playoff teams, four of them actually had “good” or “stellar” special teams and “bad” or “awful” offenses and defenses. So by that count, it would seem that special teams CAN actually carry a team to the playoffs…until you try the same measurement with offenses and defenses and find that 13 “good” or “stellar” offenses have overcome “bad” or “awful” defenses and special teams through the years. Similarly 15 “good” or “stellar” defenses have overcome offenses and special teams that were both either “bad” or “awful.” So once again, the stats show that the significance of crack special teams units should be marginalized (AND that defense might be more important than offense, but again, I’ll stop right there).

Let’s see, was there anything else? Is that all I have to show for this? I guess there was one other thing: just for kicks, I was wondering how many were playoff teams were “good” or “stellar” in ALL THREE categories (offense, defense, and special teams), and it turns out that there have been 13. And of course, then I had no choice but to find out if/how many teams have been “bad” or “awful” in all three areas, and there have actually been 3, believe it or not: last year’s Giants (which most New Yorkers probably have NO PROBLEM believing), the 2004-05 Rams, and last year’s Seahawks, who happened to be the only playoff team of the last 6 years with the dubious honor of being “awful” in all three categories. So if you’re a fan of those any of those franchises and have been feeling vaguely guilty for criticizing them even though they made the playoffs, Merry Christmas from me.

So anyway, the conclusion is…ummm, I forgot the question was at this point. Oh yeah, with very few exceptions, special teams are pretty much not that important…which is actually what all of us know intuitively in the first place. I’ve basically accomplished nothing. I suppose I’m at least a good cautionary tale. Stay away from spreadsheets, kids, because they’ll ruin your life. Try smoking pot instead…

Defensive Player of the Week: Scott Fujita, Saints. 10 tackles, 2 sacks, and a FF kept the playoff dream alive for the Saints against Arizona. Too bad he can’t run the ball for Reggie Bush and Deuce McAllister.

Offensive Player of the Week: Fred Taylor, Jaguars. Taylor’s 147 yards and a TD on 25 carries against a solid Steelers defense keyed a huge road victory for the Jags. From now on, Fred Taylor should be an adjective that describes a consistently excellent player who nonetheless flies under the radar for most of his career, as in “Curtis Martin had a very Fred Taylor-ish career.” Incidentally, this week’s runner up, Jamal Lewis could also describe a player who’s great even after he does an extended stint in prison. For instance, in 2010, we could all be saying, “Mike Vick just pulled a great Jamal Lewis.”

We moved Primoz? Great Trade! Who’d We Get?

2007-12-17T17:03:00.000-05:00

Friday had to be one of the strangest days in Bobcats history—second only to the day ownership decided to give Charlotte’s new team the name “Bobcats.” Just a couple of nights after there was no television coverage of our game against the Clips whatsoever, ESPN ran a virtual all-day, um, “extravaganza” of “Insider Access” to Charlotte’s pre-game shootaround, conversations with Sam Vincent, Michael Jordan, Bob Johnson, a little fun with Jared Dudley, a gritty rehab session with Adam Morrison (remember him?), and a comically staged “meeting” of the coaching staff. All of this build-up culminated dramatically with a…total blowout by the vastly superior Orlando Magic.

If you’ve ever read an issue of Blender magazine, you know that every month they like to do a review of some longtime artist’s entire repertoire of albums (e.g., all of Bob Dylan’s work). The best part about the review is the way they divide up the albums into descending levels of quality. Instead of using plain old 1-4 stars, the category headers are “Essential,” “Great,” “Check It Out,” “Be Careful,” and “For Fans Only.” ESPN’s Insider Access was definitely for Bobcats fans only.

The screwiest part of the whole thing was the Bobcats had a real-live, major, behind-the-scenes deal actually happen: the trading of Primoz Brezec and Walter Herrmann to the Pistons for Nazr Muhammed. How amazing (and yes, I admit it, delightful) would it have been if ESPN had had a camera crew follow Vincent, Higgins, Jordan, or whoever it was who ultimately broke the news to Primo, as he walked up to the big guy, tapped him on the shoulder, and gave him the axe? What was Primoz’s reaction? Did he burst into tears? Did he leap for joy? Did he get suddenly terrified at the thought of playing with Rasheed Wallace? I’d believe any of those scenarios. Instead we just got a bunch of canned interviews—ESPN blew a golden opportunity on that one. It’s also weird when you go back and look at the clips later--which you can do on the ESPN.com web site--as there’s Primoz doing his thing in the morning shootaround, there’s Dudley showing off his merchandise at the team store, etc. It’s all pretty ghostly.

The one thing that’s worth looking at is Vincent’s meeting with the staff, which is unintentionally hilarious. Vincent clearly already had the real meeting prior to the taped one, so here he’s more or less “reenacting one”—the way all the staff members are vigorously nodding to his generic instructions is the dead giveaway. The meeting also leaves a couple of questions unanswered. First, there’s the decision in the “meeting” to send Jermareo Davidson down to the NBDL, yet he suited up for us that night and even played the next night in Atlanta—so what happened, did the Primoz trade nix that? Second, what’s with the mysterious Starbucks drink? It appears in various clips yet doesn’t always have a clear owner—so is it the same one, or is the whole staff hooked, or is one of them just serially addicted? I need to know these things.

As for the trade, Muhammed is slightly shorter than Brezec, costs about $3 million more (although he costs less than Anderson Varejao), and has more years on his contract, while Brezec’s was expiring this year (although it’s not like we’re on the hook with Theo Ratliff-levels of pain). Other than that, as far as I can see, it’s upgrades across the board, particularly in the areas of rebounds and simple ball handling. For the last two seasons, I swear, our guys almost couldn’t pass to Brezec without something bad happening. I’m convinced that his listed turnover rate this year, .81, was not even CLOSE to capturing the number of blunders he committed. I think it’s kind of like incomplete passes for quarterbacks in football, which almost always side with the receiver rather than the passer in terms of assigning the blame. Trust me, the number of times a pass in his direction resulted in a lost possession would have made for a deadly drinking game.

Herrmann gets a big fat “inconclusive” for his brief time here. Besides his hair, his biggest crime was playing in the one position in which we have depth to deal, particularly when you factor in Sean May and Morrison, who are untradeable right now with their injuries. If Walter had exhibited more down-and-dirty defensive prowess, he would have been more necessary. Instead (say the following line in a low, Carl Weathers growl:) he’s an asset, an expendable asset, and GM Rod Higgins used him to get the job done, got it?

The Bobcats’ subsequent two post-trade games were both dreadful affairs in which we were competitive in the first half, and then ignominiously clank-happy in the second. The first one was on ESPN, the second one took place in a desolate, quarantined-looking Phillips Arena in front of about 25 former WCW fans wearing Sting and Lex Lugar t-shirts. Dwight Howard was unstoppable in the first game, Joe Johnson was unstoppable in the second game, and Jason Richardson was highly stoppable in both games. In fact, I’m not even sure if these games rated high enough to be "for fans only"; they might have only been fun for future serial killers who have nothing better to do with themselves on Friday and Saturday night only (e.g., me).

Bobcats Thoughts, 12/14

2007-12-14T11:22:00.000-05:00

The Bobcats are now 3-0 in games that aren’t televised. By myself, I probably represent 50% of Charlotte’s out-of-market fan base, so I think I speak for most of us when I tell you, League Pass, that we do NOT appreciate shelling out all that cash to see our beloved franchise, with its rich history, etc., only to tune in and find the game’s NOT on—especially when they’re playing a big-time powerhouse like the Clippers. It’s bad enough that I’m marooned up here in NYC, where every time I take my dog for a walk I’ve got to be careful that he doesn’t start chewing on a discarded syringe or licking a homeless guy’s urine bottle, but now I’ve got to fill up this column with lame, unfunny jokes instead of analysis because I CAN’T WATCH MY TEAM. And then, to top it off, it looks like they went out and played reasonably well! And considering they’ve only won 8 games total, I’ve missed practically half of them.

Anyway, after I flipped through the 401-412 channels, began drifting into the porn-on-demand region, and eventually accepted that the game wouldn’t be on, I realized that my only alternatives were the Knicks-Sonics game and E3: The Extra Testicle. Considering both were crude productions put on by people with limited abilities, it was kind of a tough choice. But I went with Knicks game, just to get a look at Kevin Durant. K-Smoove was definitely solid with 30 points, and yet…it was accomplished so incrementally—4 in the first quarter, 7 in the second, 10 in the third, 9 in the fourth, and he almost never scored more than twice in a row—that you never felt him taking over the game. Of course, his athleticism is there, and he’s willing to drive to the hoop despite having less bulk than a Kenyan marathoner, and all of this at 19—yikes, he could become the biggest one-man-wrecking crew since Gandhi 2.

On the opposite end of realized potential, I also fixated on Chris Wilcox. I can’t help but feel disappointed by him. It’s not that bigger things were expected from him coming out of Maryland 5 years ago, but…I guess that’s it, actually: bigger things weren’t expected of him. Forget about his PPG; if you look at him, he’s so naturally big and strong, that how could he only be averaging 5.5 rebounds for his career? And just .41 blocks a game?? I mean, the guy’s 6’-10”. I remember after Greg Oden announced he’d be missing the season, Bill Simmons had an excellent article about how some big guys “fill out” their size and weight better than others. Well, Wilcox is excellently proportioned, and yet you can tell he does nothing to improve upon it. And look at Hollinger’s scouting report on ESPN.com: “he has no post game at all and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him attempt a real jump shot.” Well, to be blunt, that tells me he’s really not practicing. So what's he doing with himself? I guess just coasting on $6.5 million per. For the general, non-NBA-adoring public, there’s always going to be a disproportionate amount of coverage devoted to “thuggish” behavior, but for those of us who care about it, it’s guys like Wilcox who will frustrate us much more.

So, how’s this for a 180-degree turn: we go from no television coverage at all to prime-time national coverage on ESPN tonight. It’s okay, though, it’s Orlando, and as everyone knows from last year, we own these guys on prime-time TV.

PS—
Romance Tip of the Week: Any of you fellas with better halves out there want some guaranteed action? Take 'em to see Juno ASAP. It’s not all that funny, the dialogue is completely unrealistic (EVERYONE, including and especially little kids, zing each other nonstop with late-night talk show-caliber one-liners), and an annoying amateur acoustic song breaks out approximately every 2.5 seconds, but trust me: the women will love it. Not only is there heartwarming romance (the audience in my particular theatre seemed ready to fawn from the giddy-up; there were tons of "Aww"s) in the mood, but there are tons of gal-pal scenes and “you-go-girl” moments—highlighted by Juno’s step-mom going ballistic on an ultrasound technician for whom I felt kind of sorry—that will unleash the tiger in them. For just a 90-minute investment, you can’t miss…

NFL Thoughts, Week 14

2007-12-11T13:16:00.000-05:00

This year, Nate Burleson, Leon Washington, and Josh Cribbs have emerged as celebrity threats to run kickoffs and punts back for touchdowns at any moment. Meanwhile, Devin Hester has solidified himself as a bona fide rock star in Chicago for his highly specialized explosiveness. As a whole, there have already been 35 punts or kickoffs returned for touchdowns this year, compared to 24 for all of last season. Overall, this might be the sexiest year ever for kickoff and punt returns.

Do all these new flashy, special team stuntmen spell total anarchy for the NFL? Not really. Of the ten teams who’ve scored more than one touchdown on kickoff and/or punt returns, only 5 would be in the playoffs if the season ended today. Further, the non-playoff Bears lead the league with 5 TD returns, and the non-playoff Ravens are tied for second with 3. So even the best, most dangerous return teams haven’t given their organizations much of a competitive advantage. Similarly, of the 12 current playoff-bound teams, only 7 are among the league leaders in combined kickoff/punt return averages (Buffalo’s #1). So do special teams have any special significance? Or are they all style and no substance?

I went back to the 2002-2003 season and examined the past 5 years’ worth of special teams data. Focusing on what I thought to the most significant stats for kickoff and punt returns, I selected six of them. Four were offensive: average kickoff return yards, total kickoff returns for touchdowns, average punt return yards, and total punt returns for touchdowns. Subsequently, two of them were defensive: the average net yardage allowed on punt returns (meaning the average of the punt itself minus the amount returned by the opposing team), and the percentage of punts that pin the opposing team inside their own 20-yard line.

What I found is that of the twelve playoff teams each year, only 5 of them on average were among the top-12 in kickoff return yards. Only 4.4 of them on average were among the top-12 in punt return yardage. The net-return yardage allowed stats were even LESS indicative of a team’s success, as only 4.2 playoff teams on average were among the top-12. And the touchdown return numbers seemed the least significant of all: there were usually about 20 teams each year who didn’t return a single punt or kickoff back for a touchdown the entire season, and anywhere from 6-to-9 of those teams were playoff participants. So while brilliant kickoff and punting performances might provide dramatic plot twists to individual games, their ability to enhance a team’s playoff chances over the entire season are marginal at best.

The one stat that did seem to matter—albeit slightly—was that %-inside-the-20 one, in which 5.2 of the playoff teams on average were in the annual top-12. More telling was the fact that in two of the five years, 2 of the top 3 teams in that category were playoff teams. And one season, 2004-2005, the top-3 teams in %-inside-the-20 were ALL playoff teams.
These results are somewhat intuitive. Good teams are going to have fewer kickoff return opportunities in general, because the opposing teams won’t be scoring field goals and touchdowns against them as much. And I would have to assume that most kicks end in simple touchbacks, although I could find the actual percentage anywhere. Moreover, good teams will probably be receiving more onsides-kicks from desperate teams who they are leading late in games, which again would damper their return yard averages. And when they DO receive regular kickoffs and punts, good teams will normally be ahead on the scoreboard, and therefore less likely to try and “make something happen,” opting instead to just take a touchback or a fair catch.

As for net punt yardage allowed, bad teams will more often than not be punting from deep inside their own territory, and therefore their punters can blast the ball as hard and far away as possible, which will increase the likelihood of a high net yardage. Good teams, on the other hand, will usually be punting from advantageous field position, resulting in lower net yardage and a higher percentage of punts that end up inside the opposition’s 20-yard line. Thus, these stats are all circumstantially explicable, and do not seem to indicate that a new generation of return superheroes can carry their teams to glory.

So the conclusion is that crack kickoff and punt units have no real correlation with their team’s overall success. And yet…to be thorough, I should probably check out overall offensive and defensive statistics and examine their correlations. What if they’re equally insignificant? What if, say, only about half the playoff teams each year are among the best in yards/game or yards allowed/game? Hmm. Or what about teams that have really good special team stats, but are otherwise mediocre-to-poor offensively and defensively? Then you could make the case that special teams are extremely significant, because there’d be no other explanation. That would probably be a better way to approach this question. Or maybe I should just not do anything and enjoy the games. After all, as my statistics professor liked to say, the numbers will tell you anything if you torture them long enough.

Offensive Player of the Week: Tom Brady, Patriots. 32-46 for 399 yards, 4 TDs, and 0 picks, all against the #1 rated defense in the league. Plus he dished out some Stone Cold Steve Austin-style trash-talking to Anthony Smith like he just gave him a stunner. The ratings for this week’s game against the Jets should be huge, and not without an element of bloodlust, because it’s going to go down like a public hanging.

Defensive Player of the Week: Gary Brackett, Colts. 9 tackles and 2 interceptions, one for 49-yards. Like most Jersey guys, Brackett’s a 5-11, 230 lb.-schlubby dude who went to Rutgers. Unlike most Jersey guys, he’s got 102 tackles on the season and is a key ingredient of the reigning world champions’ ferocious defense.

Bobcats Thoughts, 12/10

2007-12-10T13:40:00.000-05:00

It’s been 7 hours and 15 days…since you took your buzzer-beater, Ray Allen—nothing compares 2 U. Ever since Walter Ray ripped our collective heart out and showed it to us before we died, we’ve been performing worse than a mortgage-backed security; we ought to change our names to the "Charlotte Structured Investment Vehicles." Thus I was as excited about Saturday’s game with Cleveland as I normally am about cleaning my cat’s litter box. There just wasn’t anything to look forward to in this one, not even watching LeBron plow through us, because he wasn’t suiting up. The other thing about LeBron is he offers a built-in excuse for losing—without him in there, it’d be a modified version of the Toronto game, and the only thing to do would be to just accept that we really, really suck.

For a while, it looked like Larry Hughes would be more than happy to remove that embarrassment, as he returned to the lineup, looked buffer than Brad Pitt in Troy, and played like a dynamo. Hughes had been out for so long that no one even remembers what it was that he injured in the first place, including Hughes. Yet Larry Hughes ran through us like Larry Davis, getting 22 points in 26 minutes. The Cavs also proved that they do have a couple other guys who can play, including guards Daniel Gibson (15 points), who made a name for himself against Detroit in last year’s playoffs (unfortunately, that name ended up being “Boobie”), and Shannon Brown (15 points). LeBron was there in spirit as well, although—sadly—not in turtleneck. Fortunately, he did rock a fabulous, multicolored vest straight off the 1990 In Living Color set as he cheered his teammates from the sidelines.

Still, this was yet another terrible game between two bad teams. There were 47 turnovers, 79 free throws, and a horrifying finish that nearly defies description. The good news is that Raymond Felton scored 8 points in the final 16 seconds to break our 7-game losing streak. The bad news is that the 8 points were all foul shots, meaning those 16 seconds of game time took approximately 2-and-a-half hours of REAL time to elapse and caused anyone who actually sat through it all to contemplate grabbing a knife and stabbing themselves repeatedly, Exorcist-style. Raymond showed some true grit for this performance, but he would never have had to do it if not for two monumentally, fantastically, spectacularly stupid fouls by Jason Richardson and Gerald Wallace, both of which stopped the clock and allowed the Cavs to get close enough to continue fouling. A sort of combination miniature golf/free-throw game ensued, in which both teams walked back and forth across the court, took foul shots, and called lots of timeouts. I’m still floored by the sheer atrociousness of the experience. It was like watching a fight to the death between Sasha Vuyacic and Dan Dickau, with the winner advancing to face Luke Ridnour.

Besides Felton’s clutch play, Gerald Wallace had a brilliant night—other than that foul on Gibson…on a 3-pointer…(stab-stab-stab). Crash notched 22 points, 7 rebounds, 5 blocks (including a game-saver on a wide-open, waltzing-in-for-an-easy-layup Zydrunas Ilgauskus), and 4 steals. Wallace was so good, at times he seemed like the only one moving out there, like he was Hiro Nakamura and he had frozen time and space to swipe passes.

The thing that confused me was Coach Mike Brown’s decision to limit Drew Gooden to just 22 minutes. He does know how weak we are in the front court, right? Why not beef up with his two big power forwards? Especially since at this point, our options down low are pretty much limited to a) Emeka Okafor, and b) trying to angle passes off Primoz Brezec’s hands in such a way that after he inevitably drops them, they either ricochet to a teammate and/or into the basket—it’s become like a carnival game.

Anyway, I think the time we had to savor the victory was less than those last 16 seconds, because it was immediately onto Detroit for a Sunday mid-afternoon showdown with the Pistons. This one had nothing unexpected about it, as Detroit jumped out to a 22-10 lead, repeatedly doubled us up in scoring, and pounded us against the wall like Sunny Corleone on a bridesmaid—no alarms and no surprises…

As expected, the Back-to-Back Games Excuse Meter was cranked up to 10 for this 104-85 beatdown, although once again I’d point out that we’ve only played 5 games in 9 days. There’s also the fact that the vast majority of the previous night was spent standing around and watching Raymond Felton win a glorified game of HORSE. Nonetheless, Rip Hamilton, Chauncey Billups, Tayshaun Prince and the rest of the Bad Boys dribbled circles around us, frequently spinning Jeff McInnis around like a dredlocked sprinkler.

Despite the success we had with feeding Okafor down low the night before, that new approach apparently went out the window last night, as Mek had fewer field goal attempts (11) than Derek Anderson. Meanwhile, Jared Dudley’s almost completely vanished: he went from double-double to not scoring at all to not playing at all, although he did get 11 minutes last night. Baffling as that one was, the other no-show was even more mysterious: just 3 points for Wallace!? As a whole, we kept the turnovers down (12), but that’s mostly because we barely had the ball in the first place.

I must confess that with about 6 minutes to go and the deficit in the 20’s, I flipped over to the Colts-Ravens game. Watching a garbage-time squad of Jeff McInnis, Othella Harrington, and Derek Anderson on the court wouldn’t have been all that enticing in '98, let alone '08.

Bobcats Thoughts, 12/7

2007-12-07T11:11:00.000-05:00

This latest week has been like the HBO series Tell Me You Love Me: mostly terrible, but also occasionally interesting. On Monday the Bobcats took on a Toronto team that lacked Chris Bosh, TJ Ford, Andrea Bargnani, and Jorge Garbajosa. Their injuries forced Coach Sam Mitchell to throw out a starting five of Jamario Moon, Joey Graham, Rasho Nesterovic, Anthony Parker, and Jose Calderon, and against such a devastating arsenal, the Bobcats didn’t stand a chance. It was a debacle right from the tip, as we found ourselves down 16-4 in less time than it takes for Primoz Brezec to mishandle a pass. Speaking of which, in an inspired move, Coach Vincent sat the Big P and played Jared Dudley instead. And Dudley responded; in fact, early on, he was the only one producing at all, causing commentator Henry Williams to wonder aloud—somewhat hilariously—“Where would the Bobcats be right now without Dudley?” Good question, Henry! 18-4, 20-4? You’re right, it could’ve been bad.

However, Coach Vincent, after watching us blow up on takeoff, apparently decided that the one thing this fire lacked was some more grease, and decided to sub in Jeff McInnis and Primoz. And then things really got ugly, with the Toronto B-listers putting up numbers like sudoku. Carlos Delfino was deadly, hitting 4-of-6 3’s for 17 points. Kris Humphries can’t even spell his first name correctly, yet he scored 17 and grabbed 6 boards, plus hit 7-of-8 free throws. The most terrifying of all was Calderon, who was slinging assists like crack and driving to the hoop with such ferocity that the Raptors actually quit even bothering to set picks after awhile. On one play Calderon blasted past McInnis so fast it straightened his dreadlocks; I actually thought Jeff was going to go spin out in a jet-wash.

Meanwhile, the Bobcats shot with about as much accuracy as a villain on TJ Hooker. Raymond Felton went 0-of-8 from the field. Mr. Third Quarter, Jason Richardson, went 3-of-17. Meanwhile, I’m still trying to figure out what’s more disturbing: the fact that Gerald Wallace went just 4-of-13 or that he only took 13 shots in 40 minutes. God help us, McInnis led the team with 5 assists. Dudley was arguably the best player, shooting 8-of-14 for 16 points and grabbing 10 boards and 3 steals--it was the one shining diamond in this pile of feces. Maybe Dudley needs to play much, much more, and it took an event this horrible and calamitous to bring forth his talent and ability, just as it took the Spanish Civil War to produce Guernica.
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In the interlude between Monday’s Catastrophe in Toronto and Wednesday’s Homecoming from Hell against Chicago, we managed to sign but not get the services of disgruntled Clevelander Anderson Varejao. We sure could have used the big lug. Jared Dudley’s a great kid, but replacing Brezec with him is like replacing gasoline with corn-based ethanol: it’s a highly imperfect substitution. Varejao has got 3 inches on Dudley (in height, that is) and about 3x the annoyance capabilities. Playing against him automatically puts teams in a putting-together-a-piece-of-IKEA-furniture mood, and the irritation factor alone is probably worth a few victories. But forget it, he’s gone, and I hope the marketing department didn’t put too much money down on the “Varejao Wig Night” promotions.

As for the PF/C front, I’m sure something will get done. As GM Rod Higgins put it in one of his always highly-informative quotes, “We’ll continue to look for possibilities to hire another quality player. That’s our job.” Ooookay. Apparently his job doesn’t include realizing the blindingly obvious in any sort of timely fashion, which is that Primoz Brezec is quite possibly the worst center in the NBA and the NBDL and probably several South American leagues, and Higgins probably would have gotten a more quality player if he’d conducted one of those Kevin Bacon, “Air Up There”-style scouting trips to Chad or something during the offseason. Seriously, this hasn’t been a closely kept secret. “Primoz Lacks Talent” is not exactly “Iran Lacks Nuclear Capabilities” in terms of stunning headlines. So whatever. Now that the staff has hopefully recovered from the shock, go get 'em, Rob, you’re just in the nick of time. And if you ever get tired of this gig, I’m sure FEMA’s got some openings for you.
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As for the Wednesday nighter: Johnny “Red” Kerr for the second time in a week! Joy to the world! Christmas has come early this year! Fortunately of my sake, the Kerr Effect was somewhat muted by a 3rd commentator in the Bulls booth, the increasingly annoyed Stacy King. First of all, King sounded like he was coming in on a walkie-talkie, so one of the techs over at WGN needs to look into that. Second, King is such a hoot to listen to that I actually wouldn’t mind tuning into future Bulls broadcasts. This guy gets legitimately angry during the broadcasts, and with the Bulls trailing most of the way against us, I honestly was waiting to hear the sound of something breaking and the screen suddenly switching over to a test pattern. The height of his fury came toward the end of the 3rd quarter, when Walter Herrmann hit the second or third of his "Dr. J"-style finger rolls, after which King fumed—without any trace of irony—“If I see that move one more time, I’m GOING TO SCREAM.”

Sadly, we’ll never know if King would have kept his word, because shortly thereafter the Bobcats collapsed and blew an 11-point lead they held as late as the end of the third quarter. This was pretty upsetting, because—and this isn’t exactly news, except possibly to Rod Higgins—the Bulls are really, really bad this year. And in this one they played, really, really bad. They missed a stupefying number of easy shots, turned the ball over 20 times, looked thoroughly disinterested for most of the game, and were pretty much asking to be put away.

Unfortunately, this is a Bobcats team that couldn’t defecate in a toilet if you held the seat up for them. We were outscored 38-22 in the fourth quarter and mainly began taking our anger out on the poor, innocent 3-point line, hitting just 1-of-6 in the fourth (and 6-of-26 overall). Considering we’re the 4th-worst shooting team in the league, I have no idea what was behind all the long-distance shenanigans, although part of it was because Emeka Okafor was limited by foul trouble. The Dudley-as-starter experiment also apparently went through a sophomore slump, as he went 0-of-6 from the field. The team also missed ten of its fourteen free-throws, including some critical ones down the stretch when we still had a chance.

It was a pretty terrible night, capped off by the sting of watching the Bulls celebrate at the end like they just beat trial. Scott Skiles was reduced to the role of Michael Keaton in Herbie: Fully Loaded, cheering along like a pathetic dad. We’re definitely in a serious malaise right now, and we can only hope there are no reports of Sam Vincent getting attacked by a rabbit.

Bobcats Thoughts, 12/03

2007-12-03T17:27:00.000-05:00

If I get sent to hell, the best way to punish me would be to have Red Kerr provide the color commentary of my descent, wherein he’d probably complain the whole time that I haven’t been stuck with enough pitchforks. This would be a fitting fate for me, because no matter how painful losing to the Bulls is, Kerr makes it worse. In fact, Kerr makes everything worse; there’s nothing Kerr can’t worsen by simply opening his mouth—it’s almost impressive, really. Kerr could exacerbate a nuclear holocaust if he were within earshot. So basically, Saturday night’s loss to Chicago wasn’t pleasant on a number of levels, both visually and sonically. For the game itself, we lost in the kind of way that makes me feel like we’ll never win again. Meanwhile, Kerr provided the soundtrack, and--when he wasn't complaining about the refs--over-praised the crappy Bulls like they’re a bunch of 4-year-olds who just made their first finger-painting.

Offensively, Ben Gordon and Luol Deng dug our graves, while Ben Wallace cleaned up on the boards. Deng had 15 of his 29 points in the first quarter, and Gordon had 15 of his 34 points in the 3rd quarter. Even though we were down by just 1 at halftime, Gordon hit three consecutive 3-pointers in the third to officially announce he was In The Zone, and the rout was on. “That's a big part of my game,” Gordon said afterward. “My hands up, my hands up, they want me with my hands up,” he added, in a soft, quasi-reggae-style voice, “I’m your…shooter, shooter, shooter!” Wallace had 10 points and 19 boards, actually looking—for one of the last times in his career, I'm guessing—relevant. As a whole, Chicago shot 54% and made 17-of-19 free throws (although if it were up to Kerr, it would have been 83-of-85).

With Tyrus Thomas flying around like a halftime trampoline act, the Bulls temporarily looked like they weren’t seriously deficient in the interior. And the reason for this is we’re perhaps the only team that’s weaker than Chicago in the frontcourt. Emeka Okafor was solid as usual (21-9-3 blocks), but other than that, we’d have gotten more production from a 7-foot inflatable doll than the rest of the crew—especially with Ryan Hollins still reassembling his arm from that run-in with Dwight Howard. Chicago doubled us up in rebounds (48-24) and blocked 7 shots. I remember last year the local broadcasts had a regular “Points in the Paint” graphic sponsored by Lowes, and it became something of a running joke for me, because we were always getting killed in that category. In fact, I’m not sure you could pick a worse stat to sponsor, unless it was # of times GM Michael Jordan actually showed up to our games. Things haven’t changed this year either.

Jason Richardson threw us his twice-monthly bone, getting 22 points and showing some sporadically impressive athleticism. He’s almost like an absent father who neglects his kids, occasionally feels guilty about it, and randomly shows up with a cool present to try and make amends before disappearing again. Wow, thanks, J-Rich, a brand new 22 points on 50% 3-point shooting, cool! See you in a few weeks...This was also easily Raymond Felton’s worst showing: 5 points and 2 assists. Thank goodness we’ve got all that depth at point guard—almost as much as at center.

Bobcats Thoughts, 11/29

2007-11-29T16:50:00.000-05:00

When we last saw Miami, they shot 38% and had Pat Riley contemplating suiting up for the first time in 31 years. That was two weeks and 20 percentage points ago. On Tuesday they had Dwyane Wade back in the lineup and their performance ratings rose faster than Mike Huckabee’s. Never mind that Wade only played 26 minutes for them, just as voters don’t seem to mind that Huckabee thinks the Earth is only 6,000 years old: D-Wade transforms his team from the Miami Clank Machine to the Hot Hot Heat. D-Wade is to the Heat what Accutane is to Jessica Simpson: he completely changes the complexion.

You know what I’m starting to think is the true definition of a superstar? The ability to bomb a long-distance 3-pointer with no time left on the shot clock. Think about it: all the great ones do it—LeBron, Kobe, Gilbert, Wade. You pin them down outside the arc, isolate them with a double-team, seal off all of their passing options, manage to bleed the 24-second clock down to 3-2-1, and what do they do? Chuck up a what-the-eff trey that...goes right in. Only a select few can do it, and the effects can be traumatizing. Wade did it in the first quarter last night, and right then and there, I knew the “Heat Suck” party was over. Someone could have dumped pig’s blood on Gerald Wallace while he was shooting a free throw and I wouldn’t have been more demoralized.

Much has been made of Riles’ decision to bench Ricky Davis and Jason Williams to start the game, but Wade is the straw that snorts this team’s coke. He wasn’t perfect, he only scored 13 points, and he launched enough bad passes into the first row to make Carlos Arroyo blush. But with him in the lineup, the Heat regained their swagger and drive. Miami shot 58%, converted 19 Charlotte turnovers into 28 points, and stuck the dagger in when they had the chance by going on a 15-0 run that spanned the 3rd and 4th quarters. For his part, Davis was sensational, getting 23 points on 9-14 shooting and 3 steals. Meanwhile, rookie Daequan Cook became Daequan the Chef, serving up a fine cuisine of 19 points and a perfect 9-9 from the foul line.

For the Bobcats, it was the same old recurring themes: inconsistent play from the stars (Crash had 4 turnovers and only 6 points after the 1st quarter, Emeka Okafor had just 7 points and 6 boards, and Richardson had just 10 points, or 1 point for every $1.11 million he’s owed this year), a non-presence at the center spot (although Jermareo Davis (8 points) is making a strong case for 2nd Best Rookie Named “Jermareo” (after Toronto’s Moon)), and an over-reliance on outside shooting (we’re the 6th-worst shooting team in the lead because we can’t penetrate). Also, Raymond Felton’s got to be leading the league in the Most-Drives-That-End-Up-With-The-Ball-Spinning-Agonizingly-Long-On-The-Rim-Before-Rolling-Off-And-No-Fouls-Called-Despite-Obvious-Contact category.

And not to beat a dead horse, but Jeff McInnis’s season-to-date numbers? 23 MPG, 4.2 PPG, 4.1 APG, and the 4th-worst PG efficiency in the league. Smush Parker is after him, and he was a DNP on Tuesday; McInnis played 21 minutes…I’m starting to envy other team’s point guard situations the way I imagine rappers envy each other’s G-4’s. I’m even jealous of Portland, for cripes’ sake. When we played them a few weeks ago, I was like, “Wow, Steve Blake, Jarret Jack, and Sergio Rodriguez—imagine if we had them.”

NFL Thoughts, Week 12

2007-11-27T09:39:00.000-05:00

By my unofficial estimate, the consensus picks for the NFC and AFC Most Disappointing Teams of the Year have been the Rams and Bengals, respectively. In fact, as a thought experiment, before reading further, ask yourself whether or not you agree with these choices, and why or why not.

Done? Okay. Now here’s why I think St. Louis and Cincinnati have been disappointing in critics’ eyes. On the eve of the season, most NFL prognosticators believed both teams would make the playoffs and—in the Rams case—compete for the division title. The rationale behind these healthy outlooks was that both teams had good-to-great quarterbacks (Carson Palmer, Marc Bulger), wide receivers (Chad Johnson, T.J. Houshmandzadeh, Chris Henry; Torry Holt, Isaac Bruce, Drew Bennett), and running backs (Rudi Johnson, Steven Jackson). While the defenses for both teams weren’t great, weaknesses had been addressed through the draft (the Rams selected DE Adam Carriker 13th overall, the Bengals took CB Leon Hall 18th overall).

The fact that both franchises are now floundering—with no realistic shot at anything—spotlights the lackadaisically narrow view many analysts take when appraising a team. Last season, the Bengals ranked 17th in points allowed and 30th in yards allowed, while the Rams ranked 28th and 23rd. Other than the Bengals’ acquisition of Lemar Marshall, neither team acquired a significant defensive free agent in the off-season, and Cincinnati placed Marshall on injured reserve in the first week of October, where he joined teammate and fellow starting LBs Dave Pollack and Caleb Miller. And though both teams focused on drafting defensive talent, considering the historical lack of impact that even high draft picks have their rookie year, both teams had essentially done nothing to improve themselves on defense in the near term.

So why did NFL analysts expect so much out of these teams? Quite simply, most people—including high-paid experts—ignore the importance of defense, even though—as the cliché goes—it “wins championships.” And do you know why I think they do this? Two words: fantasy football. According to some estimates, as many as 20 million people now play fantasy football—often in several leagues at once. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the rules, fantasy football rosters generally consist of quarterbacks, wide receivers, tight ends, running backs, kickers, and “defenses/special teams.” The first five groups are drafted by fantasy “owners” on an individual basis, while “defenses/special teams” are selected collectively. Thus, for example, a fantasy football roster might feature Tom Brady at quarterback (plus backup), Steve Smith and Andre Johnson at wide receiver (plus backups), Heath Miller at tight end (plus backup), Brandon Jacobs at running back (plus backup), Neil Rackers kicking, and the Baltimore Ravens defense/special teams. Further, the scoring structure within fantasy football is such that the defense/special teams “position” matters the least, because by nature the majority of scoring in football comes from the offense. While defenses do provide quantifiable results (e.g., sacks, interceptions, and even the occasional defensive touchdown), the founders and participants of fantasy football had too much trouble coming up with a method of properly integrating individual defensive statistics into their point-scoring systems. Or they didn’t feel like it.

That’s a shame, because as crazy as it may sound, I really think a side effect of this derivative, pretend game (fantasy football) has been to marginalize the contributions of half the participants—i.e., defenses—of the real thing. I really can’t think of any other reason why—when analyzing a weekly match-up, for instance—commentators will go in-depth on each team’s QB, WR, RB, and TE (and often even touching on their backups) before—almost as an afterthought—merely rating the entire defensive unit as either “good” or “bad.”

Similarly, an over-exaggeration of the draft’s importance distorts our assessment of teams. Out of the entire first round of picks, I count only about five rookies who have made truly significant contributions: Joe Thomas (3rd), Adrian Peterson (7th), Patrick Willis (11th), Jon Beason (25th), and Greg Olsen (31st). Others have been steady if unspectacular, and about a third of them have barely even played. According to Len Pasquerelli at ESPN.com, only 13 first round selections are even starting for their teams this year, and out of the 260+ total selections made every year, only 30 or so on average start. Yet a rundown of each team’s draft picks is typically at the very top of every season preview.

We all love offense, and we’re all excited about rookies. High-scoring games are generally more fun to watch. I’m told fantasy football is really fun to play. Meanwhile, rookies are new, interesting, and prone to saying stupid, thoughtless, highly-quotable things. But sometimes I worry that both fantasy football and the draft are dumbing down our overall analytical skills. Football isn’t all that hard to absorb in its totality in the first place. Let’s face it, watching football and following it obsessively is time that could be spent pursuing more intellectually challenging endeavors. We basically do it because it’s a visceral experience that’s easier than, say, reading a book or listening to an orchestra. So by focusing mostly on five positions and draft picks, what are we saying about our attention spans? They’re not even robust enough to account for half a football team?

This all reminds me of some ads I’ve seen for a product called “Executive Summaries,” which boils down popular business books into 1-page synopses. These uber-Cliffs Notes are targeted for “busy” executives who apparently don’t have time to take in the entire book and would really just like the bottom-line main points. What’s sort of disturbing is the fact that these are books like Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, which doesn’t exactly reach James Joyce-levels of complexity to begin with. Is all this hyper-truncation where society’s ultimately headed? I wonder what might be next; perhaps songs that only feature a repeated chorus, or movies that cut straight to the shoot-outs and sex scenes. If that’s the case, the pharmaceutical companies better get started on their Soma production…

Offensive Player of the Week: Brett Favre, Packers. 381 yards, 3 touchdowns, no picks, and a stretch of 20 consecutive completions. To me, Favre’s like Bono. For a long time, I basically thought of them both as cagey charlatans—Bono with his supposed worldliness, and Favre with his fake tears. But now I’m convinced that both are the real deal and should be celebrated.

Defensive Player of the Week: Patrick Kerney, Seahawks. Forget about drafting Seattle’s defense for your fantasy team, just draft Kerney, who amassed 3 sacks, an interception, and a forced fumbles. Although I don’t know how many fantasy points that’s worth, it helped his real team win the game.

RIP Sean Taylor. Between the spitting, the jet-ski related assault charges, and the explosive plays in the secondary, there was simply never a dull moment for this amazing talent and volatile personality. He lived fast and died much too young…

Bobcats Thoughts, 11/26

2007-11-26T16:58:00.000-05:00

I’ve had to wait a few days for the sting to go down before I could comment. Man, it’s been a rough week. I’m already naturally down on Thanksgiving week, because I’m a vegetarian and not inclined to celebrate over the mass slaughter and consumption of 46 million helpless animals. The little “gobble” sound effects noises on radio shows, all the idle chatter about people stuffing themselves, the humiliating Presidential “pardon” of two turkeys who've already had their lives cut in half thanks to the genetic manipulation performed by factory farms…ha-ha.

I actually do eat Thanksgiving dinner with my family, although I consume “Tofurkey.” Relatives think I’m crazy, laugh at me, and roll their eyes at my irrationality before gorging on the carcass of an innocent bird that spent an unbearably short 14-week life crammed in a 2-foot cell, had its beak and toes severed without anesthesia, got pumped full of hormones to increase its girth to twice its natural size, then—still fully conscious—was hung by its toes while its throat was slit, before finally getting tossed into a steaming vat of water, covered in its own blood, and boiled alive—happy holidays, everyone! Enjoy those leftovers…

Anyway, as I was saying, I was down BEFORE the Bobcats’ 3-game losing streak with results that ranged from merely “painful” to “soul-sucking.” Like all of us, I’m sure, I was salivating with anticipation just prior to the Wizards game on Wednesday. Washington was coming off a back-to-back, they were on the road, and—what was it, something else…oh yeah, they'd just learned they’d be without Gilbert Arenas for the next three months. AND they wouldn’t have Brendan Haywood either—for Washington fans, the Haywood announcement probably felt like the sports fan equivalent of learning the Pentagon had been hit after the WTC went down. Charlotte fans couldn’t have asked for much more.

Instead, Washington rallied without their star like Teen Wolf’s team in the state championship. Antawn Jamison (27 points, 12 rebounds) and Caron Butler (39 points) led the way. I forgot just how fast Butler is, considering his size—he had two breakaway steals and excelled at getting charges called on people due to his ability to quickly get in position. Meanwhile, if only Andray Blatche could solicit prostitutes as well as he filled in at power forward; the man had 12 points, 13 boards, 5 blocks, and 2 steals. We also learned a harsh lesson in what happens if you don’t bother guarding Antonio Daniels. (Answer: he shoots and scores repeatedly)

Don’t let the OT fool you: the effort was terrible, and we deserved to lose this in regulation. Washington out-rebounded us 53-40, had leads as large as 9, and had 18 fast break points to our 10. Only a series of weird fouls at the end of regulation sent this to an extra frame. The chief culprit in our crime spree of laziness was Jason Richardson. And as bad as he was (4-14 shooting for 10 points in 39 minutes), he STILL had a chance to be a hero when he drew an “and-1” with a minute left in regulation and the score tied at 101. But he missed it. I guess I should be happy that he drove, though, because it seems like he hardly ever does—why I don’t know, considering he’s got a good handle and he’s lithe.

The loss to Washington was critical, because it was the only winnable looking one out of the three games. Orlando was next, featuring Dwight Howard, who greeted us like a cyclone does to Bangladesh. Finishing with 34 points, 17 rebounds, 4 blocks, and even 3 steals, I don’t know if Howard prefers playing as George, Lizzie, or Ralph, but whatever the case, he went on a total rampage. The only reason his totals weren’t far higher was Howard’s poor FT-percentage (12-21). If you’re wondering why Orlando’s now 12-3, look no further than Howard. He’s so dominant that it really doesn’t matter if the rest of the team is a bunch of one-dimensional shooters (and not even good shooters at that—take away Howard and the rest of the Magic only shot 27-of-66); Howard will just grab the rebound. And stuff it. And run the fast break. And rip Ryan Hollins’ arm out of his socket and start beating him with it. Howard once said that his ultimate goal was to get a cross on the NBA logo, which—depending on your religious views—is either inspirational or terrifying. In this game, he dropped a hammer of the gods on us.

At least the effort was slightly better on this one. Even though we never led and trailed by as many as 22, we kept scrapping. For once, Gerald Wallace was unable to summon his Claire Bennett powers, and a calf injury limited him to even fewer minutes than Primoz Brezec. Outgunned down low, Emeka Okafor put up a heroic 12 points and 18 boards. What’s alarming, though, is that Mek’s range this season has been even less than Anton Chigurh’s. Unless Okafor is point-blank and armed with a cattlegun, he can't seem to make his shots. Walter Herrmann led the way for us with 16 points, but they were largely inconsequential. This blowout paved the way for…

…Boston. My cycle of emotions during this game mirrored that of the doomed hostage cop in Reservoir Dogs. Follow me here: at first I was basically just praying for a quick death, which I knew I wouldn’t get. Then all of a sudden Mr. Blonde gets shot out of nowhere (or in this case, the Celtics go a full three minutes at the end without scoring a point) and I had a little hope, but then suddenly “Nice Guy” Ray Allen guns me down unexpectedly. It was absolutely devastating.

Making matters worse, I had to watch the game on League Pass with the Celtics announcers, which means…oh dear lord…Hi, Mr. Heinsohn, always a pleasure. After 3 hours with Tommy, and lots of insistence on fouls against the Celtics not getting called, lots of claims about being unable to see anything, and lots of praise for Brian Scalabrine, I was pretty much an emotional wreck. My personal favorite Tommy line of the night: “Needless to say, with a couple of minutes left, the Celtics need some stops here…they also need to score some buckets too.” You’re right, Tommy, that was needless to say.

Anyhow, though I still wish he’d drive more, J-Rich partially redeemed himself with this one by going 5-5 from downtown (although he $#%&ed it up with that inbounds at the end—ARRRGH!). And despite being not particularly big, fast, strong, or athletic—actually, he’s kind of like Sean May, I guess, except without the injuries—Jared Dudley is playing some fabulous ball. Subbing for Crash, Dudley did a little of everything with 11 points, 9 boards, and 3 assists. He’s got a knack for getting open, he’s a good shooter, and he gets to the free throw line the way I wish J-Rich would. And as Beanie Sigel is the general of the ROC, Raymond Felton is the general with the rock. Anything I say about poor effort does not apply to him. Ever.

How odd were the similarities between this game and the Eagles-Patriots? Think about it: two huge underdogs, both playing without their marquee names (Wallace for us, McNabb for Philly), both going up against Boston-based juggernauts, and both ALMOST winning. A little too ironic, yeah I really do think...

Bobcats Thoughts, 11/20

2007-11-20T10:59:00.000-05:00

Just about everything from Saturday night’s game against Seattle went perfectly. First, traveling across the country, coming off a double-OT game the night before, playing the dreaded 4th game in 5 nights, and in general sucking, the Sonics were handed to us on a silver platter. Second, Charlotte continued to defeat the teams that it should defeat. Third, Jason Richardson justified my love by asserting his ability to dominate, drilling 4 3-pointers for 14 points in three minutes during the 3rd quarter and thereby catalyzing a victory. Fourth, Ryan Hollins put in another 25 minutes of solid work, collecting 6 points, 7 rebounds, a block, and a steal; as long as Hollins keeps this up, Coach Vincent can continue to yank starter Primoz Brezec faster than Viva Laughlin. Finally, we held Seattle to just 31% shooting and committed just 15 turnovers in another inspired team effort.

In fact, all in all, there was just one small problem: I couldn’t watch any if it because the game wasn’t televised. I swear to Pat Riley, I was pretty darned angry when it wasn’t even available on League Pass. I tried to make due with watching the running ticker on NBA.com, but after about twenty minutes or so, ayo! I was tired of using technology. Instead I flipped over to the Nets-Heat game, observed Vince Carter in a suit, and gave silent prayers of thanks to our management for not signing him to a 4-year, $66 million deal (with the whole MJ-VC-UNC thing, it had been one of my greatest fears this past spring—in fact, next time I see a Jumpman insignia, I’m going to cross myself). At least they ran some highlights on NBA TV Daily the next day, although they were of the "cheerleader-cam" sort: directly under the basket and hard to make anything out. I remember this happened twice last season, but not until much later in the year.

Oh, and one other semi-related note on this one: did anyone see Peter King’s “MMQB” column on SI.com yesterday—the part where he wrote about the ongoing NFL Network-Cable war? King actually wrote the line, “I don't watch the Network much, because I don't have time to watch much NFL programming other than games…I have nothing against it, and I'm sure I'm missing things by not watching the regular programming. But there's a sea of NFL programming on ESPN and Fox and everywhere else, and you could go blind watching it all.” Umm, anyone have a problem with this admission? King doesn’t have time? How could you be a paid commentator—who covers only one sport, I might add—and not watch the network that’s solely devoted to your sport? And then the “ESPN and Fox is enough for me” part—brother, no wonder they all sound alike…We need some sort of indie-sportswriting revolutionary figure to topple these empires. I can see it now: t-shirts of The Basketball Jones’s Skeets and Taz looking like Che Guevara.

Anyway, onto last night’s game with Portland, wherein we got our first look at their prized hulking rookie...Josh McRoberts. Josh played his first minute (not minutes) of the year, but he didn’t do much other than exhibit his wild-looking hair. Jeez, the last time I saw him flaming out at Duke, he had a crew-cut. Now he looks like he played one of the Dylan parts in I’m Not There.

Anyway, onto the game itself. We were in firm control for the better part of three quarters, thanks to foul trouble to bigs LaMarcus Aldridge, Channing Frye, and Joel Pryzbilla (who’s not much more than a rich man’s Primoz Brezec anyway). The lackluster play of their interior was a key aspect of Portland’s loss. "Not to blame LaMarcus and Joel,” Coach Nate McMillan said after the game—and I love when jocks use the phrase, “Not to blame,” because then they go on to do precisely that— “but the two of those guys had two rebounds.”

The Blazers narrowed the score to 40-36 at the half, courtesy of Steve Blake’s ridiculous half-court shot at the buzzer, but we came out charging in the third. “You never know when it’s going to come,” Coach Sam Vincent said after the game, speaking of Jason Richardson’s 24-point performance. Actually you do, Coach, it’s going to come in the 3rd quarter. Richardson had 14 points in his latest third quarter outburst and had us hovering around a double-digit lead. “Sometimes the basket is the size of an ocean, sometimes it's the size of a cup,” Richardson later told reporters, and for one terrifying second I thought he was going to recite a poem that he had written. Thankfully, he simply added, “When you see the ocean, you shoot.”

All of a sudden, though, the Blazers came back, even briefly leading by 3-points at the beginning of the 4th quarter. This was mostly due to some really cheesy referee work, in my opinion (not to blame them, but…). Gerald Wallace and Jeff McInnis both got called for some ludicrous charges and touch fouls (even the Portland announcers believed they were bogus), and of course Crash was crushed on a bunch of drives that weren’t whistled at all. I think the refs were subconsciously refusing to foul out Aldridge, Frye, Pryzbilla, and Brandon Roy. Jarrett Jack (18 points) also deserves some huge credit for sparking Portland off the bench, as does Blake (4-5 3’s, 14 points, 6 boards), and even though Roy had a somewhat muted night (14, 5, 5), he was still a 2nd-half force.

But Raymond Felton refused to lose, getting 16 of his 24 points and dishing 7 of his 10 assists in the last stanza. Gerald Wallace also had his 3rd straight 27-pointer, plus six steals and some truly demoralizing stuffs. Okafor had a solid 12-12 double-double. And even though neither scored much, Matt Carroll and Ryan Hollins both had 2 huge offensive rebounds to bail out the offense and keep the possessions going.

We’re now 6-4, and yeah, we haven’t exactly been facing the 1996 Bulls night in and night out, but we haven’t been facing the 2007 Bulls either. These are some solid young teams we’re beating, and the wins are especially impressive when they come despite blowing leads. And just think, last year at this time we were 2-8.

NFL Thoughts, Week 11

2007-11-20T09:23:00.000-05:00

In Sunday’s losing effort, Chargers running back LaDanian Tomlinson rushed 16 times for just 62 yards (although he did catch 5 passes for 93 receiving yards). One of his non-runs included a somewhat perplexing decision by Norv Turner to have LDT pass on fourth-and-two late in the game and San Diego trailing by a touchdown; the ploy failed. For the year, Tomlinson is projected to rush for 543 fewer yards than last season—a 30% decrease. He’s also on pace to score 15 fewer touchdowns.

Meanwhile, Seattle’s Shaun Alexander missed his second straight game and has played in only 8 overall, gaining a paltry 492 yards on a whispy 3.3 average gain per carry. Interestingly, his team has won both of those games without him and has looked its strongest all season.

Finally, Baltimore’s Steve McNair also did not play this weekend, due to an injury that is widely believed to be a PR move that spares him the embarrassment of a formal benching. McNair has the 6th worst passer rating among starters and presides over the 21st-ranked passing team in the league.

What do these three have in common? Along with Peyton Manning, they are the most recent MVPs. Consider the winners of the past 10 years:

2006 LaDainian Tomlinson
2005 Shaun Alexander
2004 Peyton Manning
2003 Peyton Manning, Steve McNair
2002 Rich Gannon
2001 Kurt Warner
2000 Marshall Faulk
1999 Kurt Warner
1998 Terrell Davis
1997 Brett Favre, Barry Sanders

Of this group, only five (Tomlinson, Favre, Manning, Warner, Alexander) are still playing, and only three (Favre, Manning, and Tomlinson) are performing at a high level. Sanders, Davis, Faulk, and Gannon are long gone, and Warner’s playing time and efficacy over the past few years has been highly sporadic. Now contrast this list with that of the last ten years’ worth of baseball winners:

2006 Ryan Howard, Justin Morneau
2005 Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez
2004 Barry Bonds, Vladimir Guerrero
2003 Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez
2002 Barry Bonds, Miguel Tejada
2001 Barry Bonds, Ichiro Suzuki
2000 Jeff Kent, Jason Giambi
1999 Chipper Jones, Iván Rodríguez
1998 Sammy Sosa, Juan González
1997 Larry Walker, Ken Griffey, Jr.

Only two of these recipients, Walker and González, are completely retired, and the latter has been attempting a comeback (and Bonds and Sosa might be retiring this offseason). Moreover, every single one of the others is still a great-to-elite player, and one of them, A-Rod, has just won this year’s MVP again. A similar situation exists for the last ten NBA MVPs:

2007 Dirk Nowitzki
2006 Steve Nash
2005 Steve Nash
2004 Kevin Garnett
2003 Tim Duncan
2002 Tim Duncan
2001 Allen Iverson
2000 Shaquille O'Neal
1999 Karl Malone
1998 Michael Jordan
1997 Karl Malone

Only the two furthest back, Malone and Jordan, have retired, while the rest—except for Shaq, I guess—remain perennial MVP candidates.

The difficulty of sustaining superlative individual achievement in the NFL is a product of three factors: the extreme brutality of the sport that shortens careers through injuries, the highly-specialized positions that effectively minimize any one player’s impact, and the salary cap and revenue-sharing plans that promote parity.

Offensive Player of the Week: Tom Brady, Patriots. Speaking of MVPs, Brady could justifiably win this award every week. But this seemed like the best time to pick him because a) he passed for 373 yards, completed 31-of-39 of his attempts, threw 5 touchdowns, had no picks or sacks, and rated 146; and b) the alternative would have been Terrell Owens (8 receptions, 173 yards, 4 TDs).

Defensive Player of the Week: Antrel Rolle, Cardinals. 3 interceptions, 2 of which were touchdowns, led to a big win on the road in Cincinnati. It’s been a tough couple of years for the former Miami Hurricane, but as he points out, “I never pouted, never ranted and raved, never became a cancer to this team.” This is what it’s come to: players praising themselves for not becoming cancers--well done!

Bobcats Thoughts, 11/16

2007-11-16T09:25:00.000-05:00

The last two matchups have played out like a game of Doom, with the Bobcats blasting Miami and then getting blasted by Atlanta. The Heat game on Tuesday made for a pleasurable companion piece to our earlier victory over them this season, a sort of Kill Heat, Vol. 2. I guess that made Gerald Wallace the Bride, as he slashed Miami for 19 points, 7 boards, and a jaw-dropping block on Shaquille O’Neal that really iced things.

In general, though, the Heat finished themselves off with a 38.5 field goal percentage and just one 3-pointer the whole night, low-lighted by Udonis Haslem and Ricky Davis, who combined to shoot just 6 of 25 from the field, despite being more open than a Waffle House at 2 AM. Although Shaq supposedly had his “best” game of the season (17 points), I counted at least 4 misses on his part that were either slams or alley-oops. Miami is still capable of coming out strong, intimidating, and seemingly overwhelming, but they can't sustain their surge—at least, without Dwyane Wade. They’re like a collective George Forman, and if you wait long enough, they’ll punch themselves out.

In this one, we had them on the ropes at halftime, and then we outscored them 31 to 12 in the 3rd quarter to knock them out. Miami’s performance was so terrible it had Pat Riley swearing to God afterwards. “Eventually you've got to shave the beard and either look younger or get somebody else in there,” Riles said in the post-game interviews, “You can't continue like this.” Continue like what, with a beard? I’m not even sure what this means.

Anyway, what about our guys? First of all, we don’t have any beards, so we’re good there. Second, we got the turnovers down to just 8(!). Third, Jason Richardson had 18 points, 8 boards, and 4 assists, including 4-5 3-pointers. But the finest shooting came from Emeka Okafor, who made 7-of-9 free throws! And if not for Manu Ginobli, Josh Childress, Jason Terry, Leandro Barbosa—and, hell, probably 5 or 6 others—Matt Carroll (10 points) would be a frontrunner for 6th Man of the Year. Jermareo Davidson had 6 points, 2 blocks, and 3 boards in just 8 minutes. Even Primoz Brezec had 6 points. “That’s what he does best!” one of the Miami commentators noted, after PB dropped one of those high-arcing mid-range shots of his. Well, I don’t know about that, but it’s certainly what he does.

Then it was on to Atlanta, where the Hawks have turned into a 6-8” high-flying forward factory. Ironically, their extreme depth of sameness makes them a total wild card. I don’t think they’re a great team, but because they’re so unlike any other team in the league, preparing for them is a nightmare; it’s like playing against a wishbone offense in college football. Look at their record, because it totally bears out their inconsistency: wins against us, Dallas, and Phoenix, but losses to Detroit, New Jersey, Boston, and Washington.

This was my first good look at Al Horford (13 points, 13 boards), and the boy is scary good already with frightening potential to one day rule the galaxy. I think he’s the forward equivalent of Chris Paul and Dwight Howard. He’s already got natural rebounding ability, burgeoning back-down skills, and even his range is even pretty good. Plus he gets higher than gas prices, so his blocking ability will soon rival that of teammate Josh Smith. Strangely, Horford didn’t actually start the game; Coach Woodson came out with Zaza Pachulia. The only theory I can come up with on that one is that Woodson was rewarding Pachulia for keeping that feathered, mid-80s haircut when so many guys are doing that horrible Scott Stapp-thing of flat, black, semi-long hair (see: David Carr, Luis Scola, that hideous UPS commercial guy, the priest from Deadwood, and that one eurotrashy vampire in 30 Days of Night (the latter three are all possibly the same guy))

Speaking of Smith: 15 points, 5 blocks, 3 assists, and 3 boards—all by halftime, before he got injured in the 3rd. Early on, Primoz was “guarding” him, and it had me wondering if there could possibly be more of a disparity in athleticism? In any sport? In life itself? Maybe covering Chad Johnson with Stephen Hawking, or Terrell Owens with Laura Bush. Anyway, needless to say, it didn’t last long—Primoz got 5 minutes of point-less pointlessness.

Taking PB’s place was Ryan Hollins, who had an impressive 11 points, 2 blocks, and 6 boards in 25 minutes of burn. He also does a hilarious Kevin Garnett scream impersonation after slams, which looks all the more ridiculous when we’re trailing by 13 with thirty seconds to play. J-Rich had his second strong game in a row (27 points), and Gerald Wallace single-handedly brought us back in the 3rd quarter from a 15-point halftime deficit by matching Richardson for points (including 8-13 on FT’s).

After digging too deep a hole, the second half was a series of frustrating boom-bust cycles, in which we would painstakingly whittle Atlanta’s lead down to 6 or so, and then all of a sudden be trailing by 15 again in, like, 30 seconds. Credit should go to Childress (23 points), Marvin Williams (19 points), and…oh yeah, Joe Johnson had 34 points and 10 assists.

I’ll take the 4-4 record. I’d say with the exception of the Philly debacle, we’ve won the games we’re supposed to, and ditto with the losses.

NFL Thoughts, Week 10

2007-11-13T11:53:00.000-05:00

Adrian Peterson is an unsolvable riddle, an indefatigable debate. He’s abortion. He’s the death penalty. He’s a pregnant woman who wants an abortion because she’s been sentenced to death. He’s Eminem. He’s Elton John. He’s Eminem hugging Elton John on stage.

Adrian Peterson is leading the NFL in rushing with 1,081 yards, 120 YPG, and a cartoonish 6.4 YPC, all on a team that can’t throw the ball. In a recent ESPN.com’s revisionist draft by Todd McShay, A.D. would have gone 3rd to Cleveland, rather than 7th to the Vikings. But this was before Peterson was injured on Sunday, after which he announced he will miss at least one more game. He’s amazing, he’s a bust; there is simply no correct answer for him.

And there never has been. At Oklahoma, Peterson gained almost 1,925 rushing yards and finished 2nd in the Heisman voting as a freshman. He eventually generated 4,045 yards and 41 TDs in less than three seasons. He runs a 4.4 40. He also injured his shoulder his freshman year, sprained his ankle badly as a sophomore, and missed half his junior season with a broken collarbone.

On the eve of the draft, he was projected to go as high as 3rd and as low as 12th. Scouts were confounded by his toxic mix of ability and fragility. While injury concerns are nothing new—especially in football—what made Peterson unique in my eyes was that his potential for lost time was practically a certainty—a question of “when,” not “if.” Peterson himself openly admitted he’d opted for the draft before his senior year precisely because he was worried about injuries destroying his chances at a professional payday. So the ultimate question is, will he be worth it, because he WILL miss time. I guess the answer is going to change weekly.

At work we have a ratings system for all employees that looks like a graph, because it considers every worker’s attributes along two dimensions: Contribution (the x-axis) and Leadership (the y-axis). Contribution is mostly about what you’ve done so far, while Leadership attempts to gauge your future potential. The ratings scheme goes from 1-9, with 1-3 comprising the lowest row (left-to-right), 4-6 making up the middle row, and 7-9 sitting atop the highest row. So if you can picture it, a “1” would be in the lower left corner and a “9” would in the upper right corner. The further up and to the right you go, the better management thinks of you. So a “1” essentially means you’ve contributed nothing and have no potential (and can expect a pink slip momentarily), a “9” means you’re a stud with unlimited potential who will one day be CEO (and eventually get busted for accounting fraud), and a “5” is dead smack in the average-joe middle.

Anyway, to make a long story slightly less long, when I first looked at this chart, I was most curious about who the company deemed to be “3” and “7” people. What would they be like? Because 3’s occupy the lower-right corner of the chart, that means they are phenomenal contributors but with zero leadership potential; I could only envision a “Rain Man”-like savant who could perform any function in seconds, but was sadly autistic. Meanwhile, 7’s contributed nothing but had somehow managed to exhibit extraordinary leadership potential, and that’s even harder to imagine—something like a lazy slacker-genius who never shows up for work but scribbles the idea for an iPod on a Twinkie wrapper and makes the company a billion dollars.

Well, to bring this back to football, ultimately Adrian Peterson is going to be one of those fringe “3” or “7” players. His production will be sporadic yet spectacular...

Offensive Player of the Week: Marc Bulger, Rams. They’ve been the Greatest No-Show on Turf this year, but Bulger finally leads the offense to victory with a 27-for-33/302 yards/2-TD/0-INT day against the Saints.

Defensive Player of the Week: Karlos Dansby, Cardinals. Dansby’s 2 interceptions and a forced fumble spelled doom for Detroit, though I’m not sure why his parents spelled Carlos with a “K.”

Bobcats Thoughts, 11/12

2007-11-12T16:44:00.000-05:00

Well, it wasn’t a sweep, but the last two games were like a fine filet mignon compared to the previous two games’ sack of White Castle. The Cats had an impressive come-from-behind victory on Friday against the Pacers and a heartbreaking defeat to the stacked Houston Rockets on Sunday that was in many ways more impressive.

Emeka Okafor was huge on Friday, throwing up 25 points and 23 rebounds. "I've been looking at other big men and what they do and watching what I do and kind of just comparing," Okafor said afterward, although it was unclear if he was referring to the game or quoting his favorite Dirk Diggler line from Boogie Nights. However, as amazing as his stat line was, even more delightful was Gerald Wallace’s performance. Crash’s 28 points and 4 steals sparked the 9-minute bridge between the 3rd and 4th quarters, during which our 8-point deficit became an 11-point lead. He played like the old Wallace too, driving to the hoop and getting 15 FT attempts (making 10).

For a long time though, things looked grim, particularly because the Pacers’ offense was supplied predominantly by Troy Murphy. I know he and Shawne Williams have range, but when big guys knock down five 3-pointers and a slew of 15-20-footers, it just feels more demoralizing. Add that to Jeff Foster’s 12 rebounds, all of which seemed to a) come on offense, and b) happen in the 2nd and 3rd quarters, and I was looking forward to Quarter 4 about as much as the movie Saw 4.

Further, Raymond Felton was a bit gimpy on the bad knee and Jason Richardson (5 points, 2 turnovers) has gone MIA. (Say what you will about Adam Morrison, but at least you knew when he was out there. Morrison was the crazy homeless guy who drops his drawers and pees right in the center of town square, while Richardson thus far has quietly been taking a dump in the corner.) But anyway, the team rallied, thanks to some timely 3’s by Matt Carroll, a huge 52-39 rebounding advantage, and “just” 16 turnovers, which for us qualifies as “flawless.”

On Sunday, we owned the game for about 46 minutes. For the second straight game the Bobcats excelled in free throws (14/15), turnovers (just 12!), and Matt Carrolls (6-10 FGs, 3-4 3PTs, 17 points). Even Richardson was electric for the first two quarters (14 points), although he was Amish the rest of the way (2 points). Okafor also showed some serious Swan Lake moves early on (12 PTS-11 REB-2 BLK on some stellar ballet down low), but got into the old familiar foul trouble that ultimately hurt us. With an extremely balanced attack (four guys in double-figures), the Cats led by as many as 10. Houston’s Luther Head, Mike James, and Stab-to-my-Lou Rafer Alson were also doing their best to help us out, going a combined 4-for-15 from the field with 6 total assists (and Steve Francis can’t crack this lineup??).

But none of that mattered, because Yao Ming simply would not be denied. With 34 points, 8 boards, 3 blocks, and even 4 assists, we were no match for his powers. Yao missed just 2 of his 15 FG attempts and made all 8 of his free throws in a devastating one-man attack. Fittingly, he snagged the last key rebound of the game when he hauled in Alston’s idiotic 3-point attempt with 38-seconds to go, got fouled, and sank both shots to give the Rockets a 1-point lead. Wallace was called for a ridiculous offensive foul when he subsequently drove to the basket on Tracy McGrady, effectively ending the game.

T-Mac, everyone’s favorite existentialist superstar, got the results when it mattered most, scoring 12 of Houston’s final 16 points. "I don't think there's a better 1-2 combination ... they might be the best combination since MJ [Michael Jordan] and [Scottie] Pippen," a glum Wallace observed afterward (note to reporters: is it really necessary to clarify who Wallace meant by “MJ” and “Pippen”?).

Bobcats Thoughts, 11/08

2007-11-08T10:43:00.000-05:00

To quote Johnny Drama, these last two games were a “bloodbath,” starting at home against Phoenix. You know how economists say that gas prices aren’t that high when you adjust for inflation? NBA teams also use a similar technique for rationalizing blowout losses to Phoenix. “It’s okay if they shot 50% on us, it’s Phoenix,” the supposed logic goes. Well, I don’t care who we'ere playing, 37% shooting and 24 turnovers are horrible stats, not to mention being out-assisted 31 to 11. And normally when we lose to Phoenix, the consolation prize is that we at least beef up our own offensive output. Instead, we got just 83 points, and our top scorer a) had just 16 points, and b) was Jared Dudley.

Thank god no one’s got footage of Mike D’Antoni spying on assistant coaches, or else Phoenix might have REALLY run the score up. On the other hand, watching Sean Marks log 16 minutes of garbage time for 13 points was in many ways MORE humiliating than letting Steve Nash rack up, say, 30 assists. Phoenix executed its run-and-gun offense to perfection, hitting half their shots, 9-24 of their 3-pointers, and turning the ball over just 10 times. Our defense, meanwhile, looked more lost than the President in a stem cell research laboratory. We couldn’t get back fast enough in transition, nor could we rotate properly to cover the open man; Emeka Okafor was often left hilariously trying to guard Nash. Mek also had just 7 rebounds and a block. He also didn’t score…not didn’t score much, mind you, he didn’t score, PERIOD.

If there was any bright spot, it was Dudley. Having barely played at all in the first two games, starting one's career against the Suns is less a trial by fire and more a trial by explosion. Dudley showed some toughness and surprising speed, getting to the line 12 times. Jermareo Davidson also played 18 minutes, scored 6 points, and showed some range, but he also shot way too many times (10). But this game was The Empire Strikes Back, because there were far more highlights for the Dark Side. Beside the god-awful team play, Raymond Felton left in the third quarter after badly bruising his knee, and Gerald Wallace was an atrocity, getting just 12 points in 12 FG attempts and committing 5 turnovers. He’s suddenly pulling the Vince-Carter-settling-for-outside-shots-card, too.

Last night in Philly, things somehow managed to get worse. Amidst a listed crowd of 9,000 at a Wachovia Center that was about as raucous as a mall at 10 AM, the Bobcats turned in an all-time crappy performance. At least Phoenix is a good team; after Andre Igiodala, the Sixers’ second-most famous player is probably Reggie Evans, who’s best known for grabbing another man’s testicles. We actually looked like we were still trying to defend against Phoenix too, with the added twist of repeatedly leaving the lane WIDE OPEN—our interior defense has gone the way of Matt Carroll’s hair: it’s vanished.

I’m not sure how this game could have been any more depressing, unless maybe the halftime show featured a public hanging. How could we have played so uninspired? Perpetually sunny commentators Steve Martin and Henry Williams kept invoking the old back-to-back-games-exhaustion excuse, but I don’t buy it when a) it’s only the fourth game of the year, and b) Coach Vincent pulled most of the starters the night before once it got ugly (i.e., just after the opening tip-off). And before I forget, although I’m an unabashed Matt Devlin supporter, I’m already falling in love with Steve Martin. As we entered the 4th quarter with just 47 points, Martin enthusiastically chirped, “The Bobcats are ATTACKING some franchise lows.” Now THAT is putting a positive spin on it (FYI: we did end up scoring 63, one point better than the franchise’s lowest single-game total).

Unfortunately, none of our other “attacks” failed. Going through our stat line is like reading Citigroup’s latest earnings report. 30…percent…shooting. ZERO threes. And are you ready for this one: 26 turnovers. These are some serious write-offs. Jason Richardson gave what I can only hope will be his worst performance of the season: 4 points on 2-15 shooting in 34 minutes. Raymond Felton didn’t play at all and probably still had a better game than Jeff McInnis (2 points, 2 assists, 5 turnovers). I’ve pretty much said my piece on Jeff over the last few days—no wait, have I mentioned what a horrible defender he is? 4 fouls last night. And they’re not even hard fouls, either. Okay, that’s it from me on McInnis, I’m going to cease-fire on that one. We didn’t get a suitable backup PG, and now we’re paying the piper.

For the second straight game, Coach Vincent limited a completely demoralized-looking Primoz Brezec to just single-digit minutes, opting to go small instead. Usually, this implies going small AND fast, but right now we’re just small and turnover-prone.

Trying to pick anything good out of these last two games is like trying to pick the best Friday the 13th movie—it’s all sucked. The young’uns—Dudley, Davidson, and Hollins—got plenty of burn, but didn’t really do anything other than try really, really hard. Felton’s injury doesn’t look serious. And…um…Coach Vincent reminds me of Mack from the movie Predator. Those are about all of the compliments I can muster at this time.

NFL Thoughts, Week 9

2007-11-06T11:29:00.000-05:00

I must first confess to barely watching any football this weekend. I only caught the first hour of the Jets-Redskins game—which did not exactly inspire me to put pen-to-paper—before flipping over to the Celtics-Raptors game. And then, although you’d think I’d be glued to my seat for the Patriots-Colts game, you’d be wrong, because I switched to the Bobcats-Heat matchup. My irrational love for a basketball franchise that is so inept that its major offseason acquisition was purchasing the domain name “bobcats.com” from some hillbilly breeders in Montana aside, I think it’s possible to hype games to a fault.

I might be and possibly am the only one who thinks like this, but I find that the level of attention a game receives actually has an inverse effect on the chances I’ll watch it. In an era with instant accessibility to highlights and analysis via the web, ESPN, podcasts, your cell phone, snappy Keith Olberman one-liners, etc., I find the net effect to be a reduction of the necessity of watching the actual games live. For me, ESPN actually defeats its own purpose with its perpetual motion hype machine, similar to movie trailers that give away the whole story. They set the stage so thoroughly that all I really need to know is the end state. I’m results-oriented and I have lots of competing interests (some of which are four-legged and a threat to urinate on my furniture at any moment), so if I have no rooting interest in either team, and I also know beforehand that I’ll have a 3+ hour affair boiled down to a compact, 2-minute package of key plays (complete with a shouting Bob Costas/Chris Berman narrative arc) if I just wait until it’s over, why bother sitting through it?

If only David Carr could condense his football games to two minutes. “I don’t think David deserves a lot of criticism,” FB Brad Hoover told reporters after the game. No, what he deserves is an ice pack. Carr ate the turf 7 times and threw for fewer yards than Adrian Peterson could probably pee after chugging a bottle of Gatorade. I’m starting to think Carr’s got one of those victim-mentalities, and getting sacked is all he knows. He’d probably be the type of lifetime convict who continues to commit crimes because he misses jail. And I had such high hopes for him when the Panthers signed him too. Not that he’s had any help. The defense has managed just seven sacks the entire season, our running backs are apparently still “a year away,” and Jon Beason is the only one who has distinguished himself amongst the younger players (Dwayne Jarrett is a few DNP’s away from becoming the answer to a trivia question).

Offensive Player of the Week: Adrian Peterson, Vikings. It’s hard to argue with breaking the all-time single-game rushing record. Adrian Peterson is like Michael Jordan on the ’86 Bulls: an incredibly magnificent rookie who elevates his team to…mediocrity. As an added bonus, he also SOUNDS like a 1986 Mike Tyson. Have you heard him in an interview? Some reporter needs to ask him to repeat the line: “I’m the greatest fighter in the world. I fear no man.”

Defensive Player of the Week: Shaun Rogers, Lions. 2.5 sacks, a pass defense, and a 60+ yard interception returned for a touchdown. He probably lost 5 pounds alone on that pick-six that lasted longer than a UAW negotiation.

Observations, 11/5

2007-11-05T15:27:00.000-05:00

“A lot of times we've been in big games and we've had the lead and around the fourth quarter they tie the game up,” Gerald Wallace explained after Sunday’s win over the Heat brought Charlotte’s record to 2-0, “We'd get confused or the team wouldn't know what to do.” As it turns out, the solution is pretty straightforward: continue to put the ball in the basket and/or stop the other team from doing so. The Bobcats have done just enough of both so far in their wins, with an emphasis on the “just.”

In both games, the team fell off a cliff starting with about four-and-a-half minutes to go. On Friday, we didn’t make a FG after Jason Richardson’s 3-pointer with 4:20 left. What followed was the worst display of anything involving free throws since Murphy Lee’s rap in “Air Force Ones,” as we hit just 11-of-22 freebies down the stretch to barely escape with a 102-99 victory. On Sunday, the Cats led 81-65 after Ryan Hollins’ 3-point play, and then watched it drip away over the final, agonizing 11 minutes. The last four were particularly painful, as we began hemorrhaging turnovers and AGAIN didn’t make a FG after Emeka Okafor’s 4-footer with 5:31. Thankfully, this time we made our free throws. It also didn’t hurt that Miami was without Dwyane Wade, whose replacement, Chris Quinn, is so green and boyish he probably gets asked by girls which junior high school he attends on road trips.

Besides the perfect record, the good news is that our Big 4 all look tremendous. Felton had more problems finishing last year than the 40-Year-Old Virgin, but so far this season he’s passing out of most of his drives and being more selective (and accurate) with his shots. The turnovers continue to be a problem (9 total), but you can’t his knock his hustle (4 steals). As for Emeka Okafor, his biggest improvement is knowing when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em. By this I mean he’s staying out of foul trouble by just conceding baskets when the opposing teams’ bigs have already got the inside edge to the hoop, whereas last year he’d just jump on them and get whistled. Meanwhile, Gerald Wallace waited all of 1 game to terrify me with his latest potential season-ending injury, grabbing his knee early in the Miami game and being carried off the court. But I’m starting to think he’s got the restorative powers of that cheerleader in Heroes, because he merely shook it off and came back to fill up the stat sheet. And finally, our shiny new addition, J-Rich, went 6-11 from downtown against the Heat for an electrifying 29 points. "I was in a place where it felt like every shot I'd take would roll in," Richardson said afterward, "It's an amazing feeling when you reach that." That’s exactly how Hindus describe nirvana, minus the “rolling ball” part.

The main questions I have after 2 games are:

1. Where is the love for Matt Carroll, Walter Herrmann, and Derek Anderson? All three of last season’s glue guys have gotten less time on the court than a streaker. Carroll only got 19 minutes of run against Milwaukee, and just about none in the fourth quarter, when I’m willing to bet he would have hit more than a quarter of his free throws. Herrmann only got 12, and Anderson got squat. Game 2 was even worse, as Carroll got 7 and Herrmann got 3. As for Anderson, maybe he should just change his nickname to DANP.

2. Why is the love for Jeff McInnis and Primoz Brezec? In Brezec’s case, it’s a matter of necessity—like loving your only son, even if he’s a heroin-addicted bank robber—because there aren’t any other options. And Primoz hasn’t completely shamed himself either. Actually, he’s been totally anonymous, but for him that’s a major step up. Yes, he still runs like a marathoner fighting off severe diarrhea, but he wasn’t in foul trouble either game, and he even provided a moment of levity by drawing a push-off foul from Shaq that nearly launched him into the first row. It looked like a cannon firing out a bassoon. McInnis has also been anonymous, but it’s been 24-minutes a game of anonymity for which I have no sane explanation. Not only is McInnis NOT just spelling Felton for a minute or so at the end of every quarter, Coach Vincent has actually got him out there WITH Felton, playing the 2!! Total McInnis production for two games: 8 points, 7 assists. Your guess is as good as mine…

3. Does David Stern actively hate us? Kudos to the NBA scheduling committee for giving us that coveted, 6 PM Sunday time slot, when the only competing entertainment was that underground NFL league. And even if you were one of the handful of people who care about American football, it’s not like there were any games of significance happening. Really, thanks again, Stern-o.

4. How insignificant are we? We’ve got to be the only team who’s made Andrew Bogut its archenemy. Bogut has monster games against us…and no one else. On Friday he had 17 rebounds and 5 blocks, plus he seemed to be involved in every single foul call, either giving or receiving.

5. How satisfying was it to watch Ricky Davis literally throw the game away? Very, especially considering that he’d tied it with a ridiculous 3-pointer only a few moments earlier.

6. What was on Mo Williams’ shoulder? It appeared to be an ammo belt.

7. Are we down to just one uniform?

2007-8 Season Preview

2007-10-31T16:16:00.000-05:00

Here’s a thought experiment: let’s say you have a gut feeling that something horrible is going to happen—like Christopher Walken in The Dead Zone—except it’s not totally guaranteed, you’re just pretty sure about it. How much would you be willing to pay someone who had the ability to lay down accurate, reliable odds of your fears coming true? I suppose the answer depends on who you are as a person and just how bad the premonitions are.

Anyway, whatever figure you come up with, that’s what I owe ESPN.com’s John Hollinger, who has the gift/curse of quantifying my nightmares. My two biggest dreads this year are Jeff McInnis and Primoz Brezec. I really think they are the primary reasons why the Bobcats have the potential to be bad-to-horrible this year. Anyone who watched those two in “action” last season knows what I mean. But oddly, if you look up their numbers from last year in any traditional stat sheet, there’s nothing really there to justify their sheer hideousness.

Until you check out Hollinger’s profile of each guy.

According to Hollinger, Brezec had the second-highest number of fouls-per-minute in the league, and he ranked 50th out of 62 centers in rebound rate. Oh, and that’s not all: he only made 47.1% of close-in shots in the immediate basket area, down from 61.5% the year before. As for McInnis, he had the second-worst player efficiency rating among point guards, ranked 64th among point guards in steals, and only eight 1’s had a higher rate of fouls-per-minute. More transparently, McInnis had a heinous 39.2% shooting percentage. Ladies and gentlemen, this is our starting center and our backup point guard

Hollinger isn’t a deity, mind you, and I’m not a huge believer in his “Pythagorean Win” theory (especially the ridiculous name—what’s next, "Socratic Shots Blocked"? "Hegelian Turnover Rates"?), but I can’t tell you how cathartic it was to see statistical evidence of what I knew to be rampantly bad play. I almost felt like a character in some crappy thriller who’s trying to “warn the others” about something but nobody believes me or just thinks I’m crazy until in the very end when I prove it. Forget the fact that Primoz missed 24 games and his minutes dropped from 20.8 to 14.5, he was much, much worse than that. But until I saw Hollinger’s profile, I only had anecdotal evidence, like when he lost that jump ball to Earl Boykins or the fact that I stockpiled reserves of “Primoz-fouls-out-again” and “Primoz-misses-from-in-close-again” jokes because I knew I would inevitably need them. The same goes for McInnis, who went Ellisonian invisible out there in his 18 mpg of impactless activity. So thank you, John.

As for the upcoming season...any suggestions? Other than acquiring surplus point guards from Houston or Atlanta (or finding a “Zoltar Speaks” coin machine and having McInnis stand in front of it say, “I wish I were…good”), I would shift ultimate glue-guy Derek Anderson to back up Raymond Felton. DA’s got a pretty decent handle, averaged over a steal a game, can take a charge like it’s nobody’s business, and generally puts a smile on my face. One little caveat to this remedy: Felton needs to raise his mpg from 36.4 to…oh, say, 44. As crucial as Gerald Wallace, Emeka Okafor, and Jason Richardson are, if Felton goes down, we’re getting zipped up in plastic when it happens, that’s it. I don’t care if Felton shoots too much, tries to do too much, or when he steps on stage the girls boo too much, he still averaged 7 assists and 1.5 steals last year, and that was with a woozy Wallace for the first quarter of the year and no Okafor for much of the last quarter (and all of it BR—Before Richardson). And other than Wallace and Richardson, Raymond’s the only one who can create his own shots.

As for center, well, there’s always prayer. We can pray that Brezec returns to the semi-competency of his past, or that mild-mannered Ryan Hollins and Jermareo Davidson both discover they have superpowers. But right now, I don’t even think Vic Mackey could bail us out of this dilemma. The center spot is a gaping hole of horror; it’s like a Sarlacc on Tatooine. Coach Vincent might want to just avoid playing anyone there altogether and run out a small lineup; we simply can’t fight fire-with-fire there against the East’s better centers or it’ll be like fighting fire-with-a-Bic-Lighter.

I’m really not worried about the rest of the lineup, even with no Adam Morrison or Sean May. Richardson and Wallace are capable of taking a game over, and are backed up ably by Matt Carroll and Walter Herrmann. If Jared Dudley does nothing more than grab some rebounds, hit a couple of garbage buckets, and stay mustache-free, I’d call it a success over Morrison. We might as well accept that Okafor will have some sort of back/calf issue at some point, so hopefully a Wallace-Herrmann-Dudley combination can minimize the damage—either that or the FBI will have tracked down Othella Harrington by then.

Outlook
Because we let Brevin Knight walk and couldn’t find anyone better than newbies Hollins and Davidson for the 5, we’re looking at Brezec and McInnis spending substantial amounts of time on the floor together. And that could get really ugly. I’m talking Willie McGee-ugly. It’ll be like 3 guys playing ball with George and Lennie, and it will be particularly destructive against division rivals Orlando, Miami, and Atlanta, whose bigs are going to clog the key, eat Primoz alive, and force McInnis’s shooting percentage down into the single-digits.

Atlanta’s had a monster preseason and Joe Johnson will be back and healthy. Orlando had a similarly terrific preseason, and did anyone see the Dwight Howard story in Dime magazine? It looked like a Playgirl spread—the guy is ripped. I’m predicting MVP for him. I think the Heat are in for a downfall and so are the Wizards, but you’ve got to pencil in the Nets, Raptors, Celtics, Bulls, Cavaliers, and Pistons in some order for the top six slots. The Bucks will be competitive and—dare I say it—so will the Knicks, so you add it all up and I see another 30-win season and no playoffs--not even really close. Who needs a drink?

NFL Thoughts, Week 8

2007-10-30T16:16:00.000-05:00

This was a pretty terrible week of football. There weren’t any marquee matchups, and the two I got in New York were particularly bad. The best thing about the Giants’ sloppy win over Miami was Jeremy Shockey’s new haircut, while the only redeeming feature of the Jets-Bills game was that it ended. And yet I watched both of them, because I just like football—even if it’s really crappy, it’s still football. Where else but football can you get a guy like Devin Hester, who took speaking in the 3rd person to new, unprecedented levels this week? Discussing the dilemma opposing teams face when kicking off to the Bears, Hester boasted: “You can either give it to us on the 40, or you can pitch to Barry Bonds.” What do you call speaking of yourself in the 3rd person, only the 3rd person is someone else? 3rd person metaphorical?

Anyway, my wife is the same way about vampire movies that I am about football. We saw (read: “she dragged me to”) 30 Days of Night, which is a poor facsimile of 28 Days Later, itself a sequel to 28 Days, which was a riff on Dawn of the Dead, the weak remake of the original Dawn of the Dead, sequel to Night of the Living Dead. As you can imagine, very little new ground was broken or blood was spurted on this one. Josh Hartnett, whose star has clearly fallen, was reduced to peering out of a barricaded window every twenty minutes or so and grimly announcing to the others, “We’ve got to move.” Meanwhile, the standard conflicts cycled through their expected motions: what to do when a character gets bitten but doesn’t die right away (answer: tearfully apologize, then decapitate him with an axe); characters weighed the pros and cons of staying safe in the attic vs. making a run for supplies; plot contrivances led to identifying the vampires’ ONE weakness (and actually, I’ll give the writers a couple of points on this one: it’s the UV lamp Grandma uses to grow her medical marijuana), etc., etc., etc.

I think the best testament to the utter lack of originality here was the high number of audience members who went to the bathroom—even during the middle of “key” sequences. It was a collectively tacit admission that we’d seen this all before, and it made it feel very much like we were all just watching a crappy movie in someone’s living room (which I suppose would be comforting if the tickets hadn’t cost $12 a pop). Come to think of it, even the characters in the movie were relatively unfazed by the events that unfolded, considering they revolved around an entire town being ravaged by hordes of undead flesh-eaters. Erin was no exception. She openly acknowledged afterward (and heck, even beforehand) that the movie was not only unoriginal and terrible, but clumsily executed. But at the end of the day—or in this case, 30 days—she just likes vampires.

Similarly, I got just about what I expected out of Week 8, and it wasn’t much. But I still watched anyway, because, hey, it’s football. In Carolina, the Panthers were predictably run over by the Colts. Even though Indianapolis fumbled twice and dropped six passes, Carolina couldn’t be led to water to drink if Peyton Manning were to pour it for them out of his protective cup. And though I was disappointed—not only by the Panthers, but by the games in general—I wouldn’t call it a wasted experience. For some of us, when it comes football games and vampires, irony and quality productions aren’t a requirement.

Offensive Player of the Week: Reggie Wayne, Colts. 7 catches for 168 yards and a touchdown. Without Marvin Harrison to steal his glory, Wayne torched Carolina’s secondary like it was southern California forestry.

Defensive Player of the Week: Mike Vrabel, Patriots. 13 tackles, 3 forced fumbles, 3 sacks. I think he also caught some touchdown passes, assisted Kevin Garnett, and homered off Manny Corpus. All hail the Kingdom of Boston.

PS—

If you go this site, you can download a radio interview with yours truly—along with my better half—speaking extremely knowledgeably about the 2008 elections. Among the many poignant observations I make is that the President is, in fact, the Commander-in-Chief. I also note that Fred Thompson resembles a St. Bernard (the ball’s in your court, Tim Russert). In my defense, I was answering the reporter’s questions while trying unsuccessfully to prevent my dog, Lincoln, from rolling in a pile of mud and emerging looking like a grinning Al Jolson. Because I had bathed him approximately fifteen minutes beforehand, I was a bit preoccupied.

Morrison Tears It Up/NFL Thoughts, Week 7

2007-10-23T08:52:00.000-05:00

Heading into the 2007-08 season, one of the primary challenges facing the Bobcats was how to find minutes behind Jason Richardson for both Matt Carroll and Adam Morrison. Well, mission accomplished! Morrison, tore up his ACL and joined incumbent Sean May on the injured reserve list, thereby ending that particular controversy. All I can say is, thank god for the Atlanta Hawks. If it weren’t for them, all any fans in the Southeast would be talking about is our horrendous drafting history. Fortunately for us, not only have the Hawks stockpiled rookie forwards like T.I. on a firearms shopping spree, but at last check I think Atlanta’s owners had actually filed restraining orders against each other—put them in a trailer park at 2 AM and you’ve got an episode of Cops.

I actually feel really bad for Morrison. Criticism of his play last year was so abundant it became something of a cottage industry. His shooting percentage was bad, his defense was bad, he couldn’t dribble, his PER ratings fell worse than The Bionic Woman, and ESPN’s David Thorpe even published a ridiculously long critique of him that read like The 9/11 Commission Report. And yet, I can think of at least a dozen or so games in which Morrison came up HUGE for us, and was far and away the biggest reason we won. He’s an easy guy to cheer for, and I’m sure he was looking forward to this year.

No Panthers game this week, so I focused on the Giants, who in turn focused on ending Trent Dilfer’s career. It was kind of sad watching Dilfer stumble around out there; he reminded me of Evander Holyfield or Gary Oldman at the end of Sid and Nancy. Like Sid Vicious, Dilfer was never particularly talented, but he did have some brief glory days with the Ravens. That’s all in the distant past now. "They bring enough pressures right when you think you're getting comfortable," a beat-up Dilfer said after the game, sounding like the sad, defeated lyrics to some Radiohead song. "They do a good job making adjustments and overloading you.” Three fumbles, two interceptions, and six sacks. This is what you get, Trent, this is what you get when you mess with the Giants D-Line.

Meanwhile, announcers Daryl Johnston, Kenny Albert, and Tony Siragusa remain unmatched in their level of obsession with “momentum.” I am almost shocked that Fox hasn’t come up with some sort of “Momentum Meter” yet, because to hear those three yammer on about it, speculate on which team has it, announce when it has shifted, etc., it sounds as important and measurable as the score. A team apparently can’t win without it, and although it’s possible to lose a little bit of it, it’s critical to have “all” of it at certain junctures, such as going into halftime and starting each quarter.

And finally, here’s a public service announcement: unless you enjoy seeing total self-destruction, avoid the movie Gone Baby Gone. This is a movie that was cruising along nicely, complete with what appeared to be a serviceable ending, until it careened horribly out of control at about the 90-minute mark with not one, not two, but three entirely unnecessary and utterly preposterous plot twists. Talk about a momentum shift, this thing snowballed into an avalanche of absurdity and just couldn’t stop. You know that scene in The Naked Gun when the bad guy crashes his car into a truck, which in turn crashes into a trailer carrying a nuclear missile, all of which rolls into a fireworks factory? That’s like what happened to this movie: the overwrought stupidity collided and compounded upon itself exponentially. Even if you’re unfamiliar with the movie’s plot, how ridiculous does this sound just by itself: the culprit behind the high-profile kidnapping of a 4-year-old white girl ending up being the Boston police chief…played by Morgan Freeman…who would have gotten away with it if not for one guy. Didn’t anyone in production find this even slightly implausible? How could no one say anything? The only explanation I can think of is that the REAL reason Affleck shot this film is that he was conducting some sort of modern-day Milgram experiment on the perils of herd mentality.

Defensive Player of the Week: Elvis Dumervil, Broncos. I don’t know if Denver’s season can be saved at this point, but Dumervil certainly did his part. His two sacks and a forced fumble played a huge role in the Broncos first impressive outing of the year. Special recognition goes to Darryl Tapp, who had 4 sacks and forced fumbles up the wazoo, but he did it against the Rams, so who cares? It's like saying you had a great game of Scrabble against a 2nd grader. I'm not even sure what it would take for me to make someone defensive player of the week against St. Louis...probably 8 sacks, 4 interceptions, and using one of Stephen Jacksons dredlocks to pick your nose after a tackle--something like that.

Offensive Player of the Week: Randy Moss, Patriots. From a guy you couldn’t pick out of a police lineup to a guy who literally HAS been picked out of a police lineup. Moss had 122 yards and two positively phenomenal touchdown catches. Moss is so incredible in the end zone, he’s got Brady just haphazardly heaving stuff out there in his general direction and getting away with it, a la Jake Delhomme to Steve Smith.

NFL Thoughts, Week 6

2007-10-16T08:26:00.000-05:00

“At this point in my career,” the ancient Vinny Testaverde told reporters after this week’s unlikely Panthers victory, “I didn't want to go without seeing my family for as long as I thought I would be away from them. And that was really the reason why I did not come to the Cardinals.”

It’s unclear whether the “family” he was referring to was his wife or his great-grandchildren.

“I'm just glad they believed a guy my age could come in and help them win,” Testaverde said. I’m not entirely convinced the Panthers actually DID think Testaverde would help them win, anymore than conservative Republicans thought Fred Thompson would help them win the 2008 elections when they urged him to run a few weeks ago; both organizations were simply out of options. Jake Delhomme’s bad elbow and poor decision-making were like Rudy Giuliani’s support of abortion and three marriages, and David Carr’s unproven track record and bad back were like Mitt Romney’s Mormonism and opposition to torturing prisoners. Faced with these unappealing options, both the Panthers and the GOP Committee came to a remarkably similar conclusion: let’s throw a really old guy out there who some people remember seeing on TV years ago, let him sleepwalk through the motions, have him frequently refer to his faith and family (preferably by using folksy words like “Mama”), and we can at least keep things from getting embarrassing.

And thus this week’s Cardinals-Panthers game matched up Kurt Warner and Vinny Testaverde, who I believed last squared off in 1984, although nobody remembers that one because they were either standing in line for Cabbage Patch Kid dolls or too busy gushing over the new commercial for Apple II computers. Or they weren’t born yet. The Panthers are turning into a “Spinal Tap” team of sorts, going through quarterbacks like drummers. If Testaverde spontaneously combusts over the bye week, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see any of it, because I’m here in New York City, watching a surprisingly high number of people engage in two activities I didn’t think anyone at all still did: skateboarding and smoking. In fact, lots of people seem to do both simultaneously. The other thing they do is boo, especially at the sight of the New York Jets. The bubble on head coach Eric Mangini has officially popped, and until further notice the only thing amazing about him should be that he looks remarkably like Paul Simon when he wears a baseball cap in press conferences after losses. Mangini’s fourth-and-one decision to throw at the Philadelphia 4-yard line was utterly inexplicable, as is his decision to keep running Chad Pennington out there. I wouldn’t pick Pennington to win a fight with Def Leppard’s drummer at this point, let alone a football game; his arm is that weak. TV commentator Daryl Johnston criticized Mangini repeatedly for not stretching the team’s offensive formations wider, and I seriously think it was because the coaches can’t rely on Pennington throws to make it even to the sidelines—forget about down the field. And that about says it all for Mangini: when a guy nicknamed “Moose” is questioning your wisdom, it’s probably time to retire the “Man-Genius” title.

Offensive Player of the Week: Adrian Peterson, Vikings. 224 yards on 20 carries, 361 total yards, and 3 touchdowns: Peterson went Bernie Getts on the Bears defense, gunning them all down single-handedly. As long as he keeps doing this, the rest of the Vikings offense can just sit around like subway passengers.

Defensive Player of the Week: Jared Allen, Chiefs. His two-and-a-half sacks in the game actually eclipsed his career total of DUI’s (2), and helped Kansas City to its 3rd win. Plus he had a forced fumble, restoring some luster to the name “Jared,” which has been tarnished in recent years by guys like Jared Leto, Jared Padalecki, and Jared the Subway Guy.

NFL Thoughts, Week 5

2007-10-09T09:33:00.000-05:00

I spent the majority of the weekend barricading myself emotionally from all of the horrible sports news collapsing around me. First was the Yankees’ disastrous elimination by Cleveland, then it was the report that Bobcats Forward Sean May would miss the season with microfracture knee surgery.

Neither of these developments is particularly surprising; in fact, both have become painful annual events in recent years—a sort of sports colonoscopy. The only wrinkle in either of them was Bobcats coach Sam Vincent’s bizarrely sympathetic remarks about the perennially injured and overweight May: “Sean has worked extremely hard to get back on the court this season, which is testimony to his off-season regimen and professionalism.” Either Coach Vincent’s crazy or he was accidentally reading his prepared remarks for whenever Emeka Okafor (who actually IS hardworking) inevitably injures himself later this year. There is no way on earth that Sean May—who, if he were your sister, you’d describe as “pleasantly plump”—worked extremely hard at anything this off-season other than maybe Halo 3. Half the problem with May’s knees has always been his extra girth, so Vincent’s claims are a token formality that glosses over an absolute impossibility, similar to how each cereal used to advertise that it “stays in crispy in milk.”

Without May to shore up the frontcourt, and with Primoz Brezec missing time due to “family issues” (considering he’s from Slovenia, the possibilities of whose those issues could be are practically endless), 2nd year beanpole Ryan Hollins is our new starting center by default. At least Hollins has clearly put some deep thought into his newfound responsibilities. “So me moving around, running after rebounds, and not just banging into guys but playing good defense with my hands up, that’s going to make me more valuable to the team,” Hollins articulated to reporters a few days ago after practice. “All I have to do is rebound, block shots, and play a role.” Wait a sec, Ryan, rebounding and blocking shots is your role—crap, he’s already confused…

Suffice it to say I was hardly in the mood for any Panthers news, because it’s almost NEVER good nowadays. But by golly they beat the Saints, with no small amount of thanks due to Kris Jenkins, who gave the type of majestic motivational speech not heard since Bluto’s in Animal House. “When 11 people play together on both sides of the ball and special teams, that’s what helps you win. It’s not always the Xs and Os and the skill set that you have and the tackling, it’s the integrity that you have when the chips are stacked against you. It didn’t look good at all points of the game, but we found a way.”

I dare you to read those words of utterly profound sublimity and not find yourself softly humming the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

Jenkins was wrong about one thing, however: it didn’t look good at any points of the game. New Orleans had nearly twice as many first downs and third down conversions, a hundred more yards of offense, and eleven more minutes of ball possession. Plus, we somehow managed the nearly impossible task of letting David Carr get knocked around even more than he did with Houston. But a win is a win. And the Panthers are in 1st place. And Sean May is apparently a hardworking professional. Perhaps I need to reexamine my beliefs, which tend to lack integrity (especially when the chips are stacked against me).

Offensive Player of the Week: Kris Brown, Texans. 5-for-5 on field goals, including two 54-yarders and a 57-yarder to win it. An historically great performance in Houston that prevented an Enron-sized meltdown against the woeful Dolphins.

Defensive Player of the Week: Carlos Rogers, Redskins. Six tackles and a pick-six to completely shut down the Detroit offensive juggernaut. Lots of credit needs to go—for the first time ever—to Redskins defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, who realized that Lions QB/religious zealot John Kitna is certifiably insane, and hence not afraid of something so sectarian and earthly as constant blitzing—you might as well be threatening a suicide bomber with a can of pepper spray. So Williams simply rushed his front-four and kept his linebackers back, and Kitna couldn’t handle the extra coverage. Score one for evolution!

NFL Thoughts, Week 4

2007-10-01T13:24:00.000-05:00

"Carolina's a different team without 17 (Jake Delhomme),'' Bucs CB Ronde Barber said after his team's beatdown of the Panthers. "Very different.'' No we’re not, we’re exactly the same: mediocre. We’re 10-10 since the 2005-06 NFC Championship Game, no matter if Delhomme, Chris Weinke, or David Carr is starting. Thus, I hope nobody’s too upset about Carolina’s middling start. It’s nice that Kris Jenkins has spent the last two weeks challenging the team to play better (especially when the only thing he used to challenge was the local Krispy Kreme donut-eating record), but really, were you hoping for?

Look at these linebackers: Thomas Davis, Jon Beason, Nai’il Diggs, and a bunch of Dan Morgan MRI results. The secondary? One guy’s named “Gamble” and another guy’s named “Deke,” so that should tell you all you need to know—it’s like flying a plane piloted by guys named “Turbulence” and “Vomit Bag.” As for the offense, if there were a stat for most number of years expected to be the “breakout year,” Kerry Colbert and Drew Carter would be the career leaders. I saw in the box score that our leading receiver on Sunday was named “Williams” and didn’t even know who they were talking about until I realized it was DeAngelo Williams, the running back. "As a team collectively we have no heart," a distraught Jenkins said after this week’s pathetic loss to the Buccaneers. "We have no energy. We have no drive." We also have no talent, so—again—what did you expect? That this team is 2-2 should be about as surprising as the new 50 Cent album containing songs like, “My Gun Go Off,” “I Get Money,” and “Fully Loaded Clip.”

At least nobody’s complaining about wanting to be traded; that tactic seems to be reserved for NBA guys. I loved disgruntled Phoenix Suns’ forward Shawn Marion’s quote earlier this week: "I'm tired of hearing my name in trades," Marion said by phone from his Chicago home. "I love my fans in Phoenix, but I think it's time for me to move on." So essentially, after claiming how tired he was of hearing his name mentioned in trades by others, Marion decided to mention his name in trades himself.

Meanwhile, new Bobcats head coach Sam Vincent is going borderline Jon Kitna with his predictions of playoff berths. Considering that Vincent’s proclamations can’t simply be dismissed as the wacky ramblings of a born-again lunatic (like you can with Kitna), they’re actually more disturbing. Especially when he tells the Charlotte Observer things like, “I’m a firm believer that I have a style and that I have a system that I believe in.” Huh? ‘I firmly believe that I believe in my system?’ I wish Vincent would get himself to believe in believing that we need another point guard, because I cannot stress enough that Jeff McInnis is NOT the answer. Isn’t Earl Boykins still on the market? I firmly believe that I believe so.

Offensive Player of the Week: Dwayne Bowe, Chiefs. Sure, you could give it to Patrick Crayton of the Cowboys, but putting up big numbers against the Rams is like successfully completing the crossword puzzle in People magazine—anyone can do it.

Defensive Player of the Week: Osi Umenyiora, Giants. Six sacks. Six sacks! That sounds cool when you say it a few times. You can also drag it out sloooowww like the principal in Ferris Buehler’s Day Off did with “niiiiine times.” This is really a pretty astonishing single-game total. The only real downside is that it came at the expense of Eagles’ O-Line rookie Winston Justice, who I want to succeed simply by virtue of his awesome, 1950s-Western-sounding name.

NFL Thoughts, Week 3

2007-09-25T12:03:00.000-05:00

There needs to be a word that describes when teams perform exactly like everyone thought they did—except it happens exactly one year later. This year's Saints should have been last year’s Saints, when no one thought Drew Brees had fully recovered from injuries, their head coach was a green, Reggie Bush was raw and struggling to find his place on the team, their receivers were unheard of, their linebackers were mediocre, and their secondary was nondescript. 0-3 made complete sense…last year. But it seems like this happens with a few teams each year (see the Jets). It also happens in reverse with the Redskins and Buccaneers, who end up performing UP to the standards that everyone had for them a year ago.

Speaking of the Redskins, I could have won my pool this week had they not collapsed in the second half worse than a Simplicity crib. The play-calling in particular was dreadful against a woeful Giants defense, whose best player (Mathius Kiwanuka) was playing out of position, and whose second-best player (R.W. McQuarters) sounds more like a brokerage firm than a cornerback.

And speaking of the Bucs, Tampa Bay and the Panthers are now set for an NFC South “showdown” next week, although it will probably feature less drama and skill than a Showcase Showdown on The Price is Right. The Panthers improved to 2-1, but when you give up 361 passing yards to Joey Harrington and tie the game only because DeAngelo Hall had 67-yards in penalties for unsportsmanlike temper tantrums, it’s hardly a fulfilling victory. It’s kind of like winning $1,000 at a slot machine only after you’ve put in $950 dollars’ worth of quarters. “I don’t think how we played on the field today would have been capable of winning the Super Bowl,” Kris Jenkins understated severely afterwards. Clearly not, Kris, because it was barely capable of beating the Atlanta Falcons in Week 3.

Two other burning questions from Week 3:
1) What’s with the Phantom Circle? This occurs when the teams are lined up before the snap, and one of the announcers circles a random player with the tele-strator, but no explanation is given as to who or why. Then the ball is snapped and of course you, the viewer, end up focusing on that circled player, figuring he was highlighted for some reason, even if 9 times out of 10 he ends up having nothing to do with the ensuing play. Perhaps it’s just an accident, although it seems to happen a LOT during Troy Aikman-announced games.

2) What’s with Journeyman? It’s one of the many new fall shows, and it features that guy from HBO’s Rome miniseries, the one with the spectacular knot at the top of his nose (although I noticed it’s been airbrushed out of all the newspaper ads). Journeyman appears to be some sort of updated Quantum Leap-type deal about time travel, except that I saw in one of the prints a background that looked like ancient Rome. So is Journeyman a new stand-alone show or some weird spin-off? I didn’t see the Rome miniseries through to the end, as I simply assumed it concluded with Augustus taking over the empire as per ancient history, but I’ll definitely go back and check it out if they ended up revealing that knot-nosed guy to be a teleporting secret agent in the finale.

Offensive Player of the Week: Brian Westbrook, Eagles. 110 yards rushing, 111 yards receiving, and 3 touchdowns, plus he didn’t complain afterward about how versatile yet undersized black running backs are criticized more harshly than white ones.

Defensive Player of the Week: Keith Bulluck, Titans. Never mind that his last name’s “Bulluck,” here’s three interceptions for the linebacker extraordinaire.

NFL Thoughts, Week 2

2007-09-18T13:34:00.000-05:00

Sorry I didn’t write earlier, but I was at an all-day conference on Monday. I had been holding out hopes that it wouldn’t last the entire day, but I knew I was in for a long one when the speaker opened things up with, “First I’d like for all of you in the audience to give yourselves a round of applause for being such special people yadayadayada…” That’s always a red flag when that’s the opening line, because it pretty much translates to, “I have nothing informative to say, so I’m just going to go for some cheap sucking-up.”

In other office news/tedium, I’ve been asked by the cleaners to please remove my coffeemaker from my desk, because it’s apparently a fire-hazard. This was frustrating, because I’m not sure this cheap little coffeemaker would be a fire hazard even if you actually struck a match and set it on fire. It’s a piece of garbage—literally, because I found it next to a dumpster one day and decided out of excessive cheapness to take it home and use it—so it’s no big loss, but I liked it because a) it allowed me to lazily avoid walking to the public coffee machine, a trek that’s got to be in excess of 50-feet, and b) the public coffee machine only allows for single-cup pouring, and I tend to ingest coffee in quantities of 3 or more cups at a time (I enjoy wielding a Dirty Harry-sized mug).

My professional frustrations were at least partially offset by the fact that I did get cable in time to catch the weekend NFL games. And boy, it’s great to see all the old faces again: 1) Giants coach Tom Coughlin, who looks and sounds exactly like Al Bundy would if Married...With Children had continued on to circa 2030; 2) Troy Aikman, who—like every other sports broadcaster—has for some reason not been able to grasp the grammatical concept of possessive nouns (instead of saying, “Brett Favre’s arm,” we get “the arm of Brett Favre,” see also: “the legs of Brandon Jacobs,” and—my personal favorite—“the electricity of Brian Westbrook”); 3) Randy Cross, who—also like every other broadcaster—has forgotten that defenses “defend,” not “defense” (Randy, the Jets were NOT having difficulty defensing the Ravens running game, they were having difficulty DEFENDING it); 4) Al Michaels, who—also like every other broadcaster—continues to add indefinite articles to players’ names (example: “That’s what a Tom Brady does for your offense,” as if Tom’s some sort of brand new kitchen appliance or something). With the good, however, also comes the bad: I don’t know why the Sunday night broadcast has gone with those odd-looking down-marker graphics that look like comic book speech balloons, and I hate how the Sunday night show has been stripped almost entirely of highlights. NBC’s doing away with them the way MTV did away with videos in favor of more “branded entertainment,” which essentially means lots of shots of Tiki Barber’s teeth, brought to you by Sprint. Maybe this wouldn’t be so annoying if I hadn’t had such terrible service from Sprint through the years; half the time I’m told I’m roaming even when I’m in my own house.

Not that I wanted to watch anymore than one play of the Panthers’ game. What a disaster. Ahman Green, who was deemed expendable by the PACKERS, mind you, averaged almost five yards a carry against us. And Andre Johnson is talented, but seriously, who else did Carolina have to worry about? I’m not sure Houston even lines up another receiver; I think they employ a 3-tight end/4-right guard formation most of the time, so I don’t know why the Panthers couldn’t focus better on Johnson. And I’m still puzzled by Steve Smith’s quote afterward: “We’re too up and down, too inconsistent. Reason why? I could speculate, but there’s no need to do that.” On the contrary Steve, there’s PRECISELY a need for that. This division is completely winnable, but not if we’re going to drop games at home to Houston. Someone better speculate and figure this out.

Offensive Player of the Week: Jamal Lewis, Browns. Hard to argue with 216 yards and a touchdown. Plus he allows me to continue my streak of making at least one convicted felon a Player of the Week.

Defensive Player of the Week: Rosevelt Colvin, Patriots. Two forced fumbles, two sacks, and an interception—Colvin was like a Scooby Doo villain for New England. With all the obvious suspects, in the end he was the real bad guy. If Randy Moss was the mean old owner of the haunted amusement park and Tom Brady was the creepy night watchman, Colvin was the quiet concessions stand worker. It was downright scary the way the Pats crushed the Chargers this week in late-80s Mike Tyson fashion, and just think: they were without Seymour and Harrison.