Season Preview Primer

Charlotte Bobcats

Coach: Larry Brown
2007-08 Record: 32-50
Pythagorean Record for 07-08: 29-53
Offensive Rating: 104.6 (24^th in the league)
Defensive Rating: 109.4 (20^th)
Possessions per 48: 91.8 (14^th)
Min%: 84.9 (9^th)
Four Factors:

Roster (Red indicates new acquisition, Blue indicates rookie)

Drafting D.J. Augustin this offseason forecasts the end of the Raymond Felton era in Charlotte. During his three years in the league, Felton has shown flashes of potential as a starting NBA point guard, but hasn’t been able to reliably run an offense. His main weakness is that he’s a terrible shooter from basically everywhere on the court. He can’t shoot threes, and though he’s quick enough to consistently get to the rim, he doesn’t finish well inside. Felton isn’t a great defender, and his floor vision is good but not exceptional, so he has to be able to shoot the ball to be effective. With Augustin in the fold and Felton due for an extension after this year, odds are good that the team will try to move him this season.

One of the big bright spots from last year was Jason Richardson’s continued development into an All-Star caliber player. Most importantly, he proved that he wasn’t just a product of the up-tempo Golden State system, since he produced the best season of his career with the Bobcats. Richardson is able to score efficiently because he’s an extremely good three-point shooter, and he takes a ton of threes. He took 40% of his shots from deep, and hit them at a 40% rate. For a guy who shoots as much as Richardson, that’s a really impressive mark. In addition, he has an extremely low turnover rate. He’s not going to be an elite scorer, since he’s not a good enough ball-handler to consistently get to the rim or draw fouls, but he’s a fantastic shooter who gets great elevation on his shot. He’s only 28, so he should continue to produce efficiently as Charlotte’s main scoring threat.

Another one of the few positives from last year was that Emeka Okafor finally stayed healthy and played all 82 games. When healthy, Okafor is one of the NBA’s best post defenders. He’s a very good athlete with solid size, and his defensive instincts are special. He’s the rare presence who plays excellent man defense, but is also an intimidating rim defender who blocks a lot of shots without fouling. He’s also been among the league’s best rebounders since entering the league. Offensively, Okafor isn’t much to write home about, but he can convert looks close to the rim, and isn’t a detriment at that end of the floor.

Let’s just say the “draft a bunch of UNC guys” strategy from the 2005 draft hasn’t panned out so well for Charlotte. In addition to the disappointment of Felton, the Bobcats haven’t gotten a whole lot out of Sean May. While May has shown a high skill level and the ability to play at this level, he’s also shown that he’s wildly injury-prone. In 3 seasons, May has played only 58 games, and he missed the entirety of last season. He’s had conditioning problems since his days in Chapel Hill, and that has probably contributed to his inability to stay healthy. Since Charlotte is now overpaying for Nazr Mohammed, it won’t be quite as devastating if he goes down, but it certainly wouldn’t be a good thing. This team has woefully bad post depth, and though May and Okafor are talented, they’ve both struggled with injuries in the past. If the two of them don’t stay healthy, it’s going to be a long year in Charlotte.

Two years ago, me and a friend of mine went back and forth over who was the better pro prospect, J.J. Redick or Adam Morrison? He, being a Duke fan, sided with Redick, while I maintained that Morrison could contribute more. While, entering the third year of their careers, the answer to the debate seems to be a resounding “none of the above.” I wasn’t quite as ready as everyone else to give up on Morrison after his rookie year, but things certainly don’t look good. Coming off a knee surgery which knocked him out for a whole season, and playing on the wing behind Charlotte’s two best players, it’s going to be hard for Ammo (he has an excellent nickname at least) to become a productive NBA player.

X-Factor: Gerald Wallace – Wallace really reminds me of Andrei Kirilenko. He’s at his best when he can play power forward in a somewhat smaller lineup, since he’s most effective offensively when he’s around the basket, and he’s most effective defensively when he can be more of a gambling help defender. He’s a prodigious athlete who has excellent quickness and explodes to the rim like few players in the league, regularly throwing down highlight-reel dunks and sending opponents’ shots into the fifth row. However, Wallace’s reckless high-flying has come at a price, and that’s his health. He’s never played more than 72 games in a season, and the missed games almost always come as a result of the constant pounding he takes. As a result, Wallace concentrated a bit more on his perimeter jumper last year as opposed to bulling to the rim at every opportunity. While that may be a good tactic to lengthen his career, if didn’t work out so well on the court. Wallace isn’t a very good shooter, so he’s only an efficient offensive weapon when he’s attacking the rim and drawing a ton of fouls. The Bobcats are in a tough situation since they have to preserve Wallace so that he doesn’t miss large chunks of game time, but they also need to let him play how he is most effective, and that’s throwing his body around like a madman. Rock, meet hard place. How Larry Brown handles Wallace could very well determine Charlotte’s fate this year.

Overview

It was a year of odd decisions on the bench and poor play on the court. In fact, I think any year in which Jeff McInnis plays 26 minutes a game for your team qualifies as both odd and poor. Charlotte entered last year as a bit of a darkhorse to make the East playoffs, but the team was devastated by injuries, and never came close to that goal. Instead, they did things like give McInnis minutes, not play Walter Herrmann, and trade expiring contracts for Nazr Mohammed. Maybe the most confounding decision by the Cats’ staff was not making this into a run-and-gun team. I mean, Charlotte has 3 starters (Felton, Richardson, Wallace) who excel in transition, why not open things up for them? We’ll never know, but we do know that the season ended in futility…again.

Prediction

We went over the ridiculously shallow big man rotation, right? The point guard position, where the underachieving incumbent has to battle with an unproven rookie, we covered that, correct? I also brought up the fact that nearly every major piece of this team is injury prone, didn’t I? Um, maybe you see where I’m going with this. There’s talent on this team, and lord knows if anyone can pull a playoff berth out of a bunch of losers, it’s Larry Brown, but I just ain’t seeing it this year. They have maybe 5 NBA rotation-worthy players, and over half of them are liable to miss 10 games if you so much as breathe on them too hard. Forgive me if I don’t find myself jumping on the Bobcats bandwagon.

13^th in the East – Let’s Not Mince Words, These Teams Suck

xphoenix87 is a Contributing Writer for BallerBlogger.com. He stays up typing so late that he’s slowly resetting his internal clock to become nocturnal. He’s writing season previews for all 30 NBA teams. Check back in tomorrow for Miami’s preview.