Season Previews Charlotte Bobcats

[KG-MVP21]

One of these days, the Bobcats are going to have to start spending some money. Up until now, the new Charlotte franchise was opting to build through the draft and by developing young players, but like so many Clipper teams can tell you, it's the veterans that are going to win you games.

Last season, the Bobcats were decimated by injuries, namely to power forwards Emeka Okafor and Sean May, and never really got a sense of what their team was capable of at full strength. What they could tell was that as a team, they fought as hard as anyone in the league and simply didn't have the experience to turn that heart into victories.

At the end of the day, talent can only get you so far. While the Bobcats are loaded with talent, they don't really seem to have any rhyme or reason to whom they're acquiring. This team still has no off-guard to play with Ray Felton in the backcourt. They are overloaded at the forward position with Okafor, May, Gerald Wallace and rookie Adam Morrison. Throw in Argentine forward Walter Hermann and one has to wonder how all of these talents are supposed to develop when they all have to split time with each other. Add to this the fact that some time soon these players are going to be up for contract extensions and, barring another round of injuries, it's going to be hard to get a uniform evaluation of all the people lining up for their next deal.



Which brings us back to the issue of veterans. Youth can record impressive stats. They can make it onto nightly highlight reels. If they are particularly talented, they may even drag you into the playoffs. But make no mistake, none of this should be confused with actual winning. A winning team is always in control of their own destiny. Win or lose, they determine their fate for themselves. They have the basketball acumen to make the right decisions at the right time, to put themselves in a position to be as successful as their ability will allow them to be.

The Charlotte Bobcats do not have that kind of savvy. They may win some games, and they may even win games on their own terms every once in a while, but this team does not know how to win games. They do not have the basketball I.Q. it takes to be able to read games and adjust to stay on top. They do not have a leader on this team who can maximize the team's system to take over a game when needed (rather than just grabbing the ball and going one-on-one every possession). They don't have what it takes to control their own destiny yet, and it won't come until this group of talented youngsters is mixed with a group of talented veterans.

It isn't going to be about going out and unloading their entire salary cap on one player. They need to spend wisely and see what this team needs specifically to augment its young talent base. When the Clippers decided to start importing some veteran help, they went out and got two players, Sam Cassell and Cutino Mobley, to augment their frontline of Elton Brand, Corey Maggette and Chris Kaman. They turned into a playoff team virtually overnight because they knew not only that they needed veteran help to start winning games, but they knew where they needed the veteran help the most to get the most out of their talented front court.

That might be the biggest reason the Bobcats need to start bringing in some help. Right now, their team's talents aren't being maximized because as a group they don't have the basketball know-how to make each other better. They are all getting short-changed because they do not have players on their team who can make them look good not only individually, but also as a unit.

I can't say at this point if bringing Michael Jordan into their ranks is going to speed up this process or screw up this process. But I do know that if this process doesn't begin soon, in whatever form, then pretty soon we're going to have a new team that wears the old Clipper crown; draft young talent, then see it blossom on another team.

PROBABLE STARTING LINEUP

PG - Ray Felton

After splitting time with Brevin Knight last year, and even sharing the backcourt with him at times, the point guard position will be given to Felton outright so he can begin to develop his instincts on an NBA level. Felton is an exciting young point guard, but he has the unenviable task, right now, of leading this team into battle every night. He is the one responsible for keeping the team clicking on offense without a balanced roster to help him in his cause. He had a great statistical season last year, but it's got to be about the team having great statistical seasons from now on.

SG - Gerald Wallace

He's playing so out of position here to accommodate Adam Morrison. He can't shoot well enough to keep defenses from sagging off of him on defense, and worse, playing out on the perimeter keeps Wallace from the glass, where is absolutely devastating at gobbling up rebounds. While he'll have no problems covering this position defensively, and will probably just get stuck on the other team's best weapon anyway regardless of position, his lack of ability on offense could really hold him back this year after such a stellar, Shawn Marion-esque season last year.

SF - Adam Morison

There are a lot of people who doubt that his college skills will translate into the NBA game, and I don't really have an opinion on this matter one way or another. Until I see him on an NBA court with NBA defenders, anything I predict would just be uneducated guessing. Sometimes college stars like Morrison thrive in the NBA, and sometimes they disappear. There isn't any kind of system that can help people predict this, but one thing is for sure: He has so much passion and intensity on the court, that even if he fails, it won't be for a lack of trying.

PF - Emeka Okafor

Well, the early results are that the Magic made the right choice in the 2005 Draft. While Dwight Howard has joined the ranks of Amar? Stoudemire and Elton Brand as the future of the big men in the NBA, Okafor has struggled to stay healthy from a variety of ailments from his back to his ankle. While all the reports coming down the line from Charlotte are that he's fully recovered and raring to go are promising, he's entering into the "I'll believe it when I see it" category for me. Okafor is a very solid player. He is not the kind of player that you can build a team around, but when he's healthy he is definitely the kind of player you want to have on your frontline. He rebounds, blocks shots and hits open jumpers. He leads by example and maybe having Morrison around as the primary offensive weapon will take some of the strain off of Okafor to have to perform at both ends of the court on every possession. If he can develop into a kind of rugged, Antonio Davis-type of player for the Bobcats, it'd go a long way to solidifying his role in this overcrowded frontcourt.

C - Primoz Brezec

I almost put Okafor here and brought Sean May in to start, but May is still a rookie in many ways, having played only 400 minutes all of last season, and Prezec has been so steady in his two years in Charlotte, someone should have to earn his way into this spot rather than just have it handed to them. Brezec isn't spectacular at any one thing, but like Jeff Foster in Inidana or Rasho Nesterovic when he was with the Spurs, Prezec just does everything that is asked of him and will never demand more shots or more of the spotlight to keep him working. While down the road his skill set might prove to be too limiting once this team starts fleshing out its roster and winning, until that day comes, he deserves every chance work-in with whatever changes are in the pipeline for this team.

[Sports_Locks]

Wow thats long...