Bobcats Home Opener Coming Up on Friday Night

man, the sound in the game last night had this buzz that progressively got louder as the game went on, it made me think my speakers were shot or that my cat pissed on them.

Good job TWC. Also, the picture looked particularly shitty. Oh well, at least I get to see around 70 games. I look forward to Mr Johnson putting some cash into the production of the games, hopefully it will improve with the TWC sponsorship. I want HD local basketball games before 2010 please NBA. Step up your shit.

And fix those god-awful audio problems. I wonder how the broadcast will differ NC14 on Sunday.


edit: I forgot the most important part. Somehow the Bobcats won despite the worst ft exhibition I've seen in years. Amazing! The big guns all played well, ft shooting excluded. I was particularly happy with Raymond Felton's game. 4 three pointers, nice stroke, 12 assists and 26 (should have been 30) points. Very strong start in an important year for him! It looked like he's going to enjoy running with Wallace and Richardson. If we can keep Oke healthy and get some rebounding help for him we might be fun to watch. I'm looking forward to seeing some games in person this year now that I have a good hookup.

 

what channel was this game on?

 

Teams get worse too. I really think they are building a solid team. If you try to do it all in one year or go out and buy a winning team it will most likely fail.

They have four solid starters and can play an up tempo style that will be hard for the eastern conference teams to match. The bench is not bad either. Where they are going to struggle is against teams with a strong inside presence. They do not have much inside besides Okafor. That is why I say they will be a contender if they add the right guy next offseason. I like their talent at positions 1-4 as good as anyone's in the east. Add a big man and they are going to be solid.

 

The only teams that made significant additions were Boston (KG, Allen), New York (Randolph) and Orlando (Lewis) and maybe Atlanta through the draft.

Everybody else stayed pat or got worse.

The Bobcats have been the most successful expansion franchise over the first three years since at least 1980 (i didn't bother checking further than that)

Most of the "predictions" I've seen lower the Bobcats chances due to Morrison and May getting hurt - though this ignores the fact that May barely played last year and Morrison, by some statistical measures, was the worst player in the NBA last year.

I put very little stock in predictions. How many pundits picked St. Louis to win the NFCW this year?

 

That's not exactly a thing the team should be proud of.

Not me, and I think the majority picked Seattle. Moreover, St. Louis lost Pace after any predictions came out.

 

SI has them 14 of 15 in the East with a fairly brutal commentary about them.

Those were the teams they were "competing" with for the playoffs last year so any improvement they make impacts the Bobcats relative standing.

 

When writers to those ranking they typically just take last year's records and roll them forward a year. If someone makes a big splash like Boston they allow for that. They never really allow for a team to get better with the players it has. I think that was we will see with the Bobcats. Young players are getting better and the addition of Richardson not only means they have another good player but it opens up a lot of things for offense as a whole. If they finish below .500 I will be surprised (barring significant injury).

 

No, they don't, otherwise they'd have everyone finishing in the same place. Instead they expect the Bobcats to finish with a worse record despite potentially being better.

I should start making a Thelt scrapbook because someone who hadn't visited TBR would never believe that you were real. In any case, it's certainly possible for Charlotte to finish above .500, but it seems fairly unlikely.

 

How is that relevant to this discussion? It reinforces the point that losing Morrison isn't really going to affect the team.

 

Only if you ignore the significant upgrade that Jason Richardson represents.

I think the Bobcats will be fine. Atlanta is depending on 2 rookies who are unknown quantities in Law and Thornton to push them over the edge - and remember that they have never finished ahead of the Bobcats.

New York? Zach Randolph is a quality stats guy, but he's known as a black hole, and he's not exactly made Portland a playoff team.

KG and Allen are huge additions to Boston though.

It could be argued that Miami has gotten worse through age and losses. Jersey is getting old in a hurry. Cleveland made no additions, in fact they lost a couple players. Washington made no significant additions.

Remember that there were 3 teams who made the playoffs in the East who were .500 or worse last year.