Life is not easy for fans of the Charlotte Bobcats. Watching Dwight Howard dominate the league is a constant slap in the face. Seeing Jeff McInnis’ name in print makes my blood boil. Raymond Felton’s lack of development can be infuriating. I once had a dream that Sean May, Nazr Mohammed, and Adam Morrison kidnapped my family and delighted in my misery. And underneath the layers upon layers of psychosis, behind the Alex Ajinca punchlines, there are tens of us fans of the franchise, brutally mistreated but begging for more.
I’m pretty sure it’s because we don’t expect any better.
But for those of you who aren’t Bobcats fans, victims of fan abuse, or kicked puppies, I thought I’d take you through the thought process of a part-time Bobcat fan in the aftermath of a miserable trade. Upon reading the news of franchise cornerstone Emeka Okafor being traded for a center once appraised at the value of one Chris Wilcox, one Joe Smith, and a sock full of quarters, I curse the name of Robert Johnson. The deal has salary savings written all over it, but with blatant disregard for the process of team-building and considerable sacrifice to both the team’s short and long-term output. As I understood it, the goal was to make the playoffs. Now the goal is to simply trade away every player who won’t agree to put in extra practice time by mowing Larry Brown’s lawn. Or every player who gives LB a dirty look. Or maybe just every player.
I’m not sure how one could even begin to argue that this trade is about basketball. Okafor and Chandler are absolutely comparable players, but one of them has more NBA experience with no offensive growth to show for it. Chandler’s offensive game is restricted solely to dunks and garbage buckets, and on a team lacking in Chris Pauls, those opportunities will be scarce. Meanwhile Okafor’s offensive talents will be fully appreciated in NOLA, where Oak’s robotic but occasionally effective back-to-the-basket game and short-range game will be a breath of fresh air from Chandler’s reluctance and inability to shoot. David West is precisely the type of talent necessary to balance out Okafor’s game, and the combination of D-West’s skill set and Paul’s dreamy eyes court-vision should make Emeka’s job inside even easier. Oak has shown something up to this point, and his offensive game has some headroom. I’m just not sure that Tyson Chandler, despite a startlingly similar age, has the awareness or understanding of the offensive end necessary to really progress on that front.
Defensively, a healthy Tyson Chandler is undoubtedly superior. But considering that Emeka is still a stand-out defender at center, is this deal even remotely worth the risk? The Thunder pulled out the rug on trading for Chandler last season, despite the fact that both parties were all smiles. The Thunder wanted Tyson, and he would have fit in brilliantly with OKC. But Chandler’s extensive injury history drove the Thunder away despite the fact that they had very little to lose, and yet here are the mighty Charlotte Bobcats, dumping a valuable center for the same bounty.
And for what? For a competent, oft-injured player that will either be off the team in two years in the name of supposed cap space? Or for a clearly inferior player that will need to be re-signed to a big contract in order to maintain the team’s assets?
Neither inspires confidence in the state of the Bobcats…and ideas like playing Chandler at power forward don’t really help either.
What’s even worse, to me, is the notion that the Bobcats are still capable of making the playoffs this year. The meat of the East is too wide open to ignore the possibility, and a playoff berth would likely be misread as a step in the right direction. If the Bobcats luck into a winner here, it won’t be because they pulled a fast one on the Hornets or built Larry Brown’s roster to perfection. This move is money first, second, and third, with basketball somewhere off in the distance, and any basketball bi-products would serve only to instill faith in failed management and ownership systems. That thought makes all of us at HP warm and fuzzy inside, as the reality of the Bobcats slipping into a Grizzlies or Clippers-esque era of mismanagement is simply too real to ignore.
