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zach lowe article on cats

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2014 2:54 pm
by powerforward
http://grantland.com/features/the-charl ... lding-nba/

once again a solid article on the cats. Good to see reasonable articles on us from the media, its a good change from what we have had to read about us for the last couple years.

Re: zach lowe article on cats

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2014 3:14 pm
by fatlever
another great article about us from lowe. he pretty much perfectly sums up my feelings on our current players as well as our step toward certain mediocrity at the expense of another tiny chance at being great.

interesting tidbits
- we have "half a dozen" analytics guys now, but we were very late to the party
- mcroberts hates the nickname "mcbob"
- price had mkg shooting one handed shots during the hand injury, but once healed mkg immediately reverted back to the awful form using his left hand on top of the ball.
- we will get the most money, 20 mil, from revenue sharing

Re: zach lowe article on cats

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2014 3:56 pm
by tondi123
Zach Lowe may be the only national type writer who can write 5000 words about the Bobcats and pretty much nail every one of them. Everybody else either ignores us or craps on everything we do. He must have a bit of a soft spot for us as he seems to give us more attention than anybody else.

Re: zach lowe article on cats

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2014 7:15 pm
by LamarMatic7
tondi123 wrote:Zach Lowe may be the only national type writer who can write 5000 words about the Bobcats and pretty much nail every one of them. Everybody else either ignores us or craps on everything we do. He must have a bit of a soft spot for us as he seems to give us more attention than anybody else.

You could say that about Zach Lowe and every team. He's a legitimate NBA junkie.

Re: zach lowe article on cats

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2014 8:18 pm
by fatlever
unlike those other media hacks, lowe actually watches all the teams on a regular basis - not just the good teams, teams with stars and teams in the same market as the writer. you can usually find him commenting on random games the following morning as he watches them on DVR. also being based in NYC he has the ability to easily attend live games for Nets, Knicks, Celtics and Sixers as a way to get a better perspective on other random teams.

Re: zach lowe article on cats

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2014 8:21 pm
by LamarMatic7
Lowe actually recently hosted a podcast with Arnovitz as the guest. It having an actual title ("The Lowe Post") makes me hope that this becomes a regular thing. I can't get enough of the man's material. Sometimes the best stuff comes out when a podcast takes an unexpected turn and Simmons asks his opinion on something. That possibility would be higher if this podcast of his takes off.

Re: zach lowe article on cats

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2014 5:01 am
by Eoghan
This article pretty much sums up everything I've been griping about all season, albeit with a more positive spin. We overpaid Al in an attempt to stop hemorrhaging money by making a cheap playoff run in the awful East. We've severely limited our future/chances of being a championship contender by ruining draft pick position and salary cap and we aren't a legitimate FA destination. And it's all pretty stupid b/c with the rebrand the franchise would have had the warm and fuzzies of ticket and merch sales regardless of not trying so hard to make the playoffs this year.

What Lowe doesn't mention is that if Cho was better at drafting we likely wouldn't have been put in that situation in the first place. Barring incredible draft luck, we're looking set in stone to re-debut the Hornets as a treadmill team.

Re: zach lowe article on cats

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2014 12:32 pm
by BeesWax
BrotherDave wrote:This article pretty much sums up everything I've been griping about all season, albeit with a more positive spin. We overpaid Al in an attempt to stop hemorrhaging money by making a cheap playoff run in the awful East. We've severely limited our future/chances of being a championship contender by ruining draft pick position and salary cap and we aren't a legitimate FA destination. And it's all pretty stupid b/c with the rebrand the franchise would have had the warm and fuzzies of ticket and merch sales regardless of not trying so hard to make the playoffs this year.

What Lowe doesn't mention is that if Cho was better at drafting we likely wouldn't have been put in that situation in the first place. Barring incredible draft luck, we're looking set in stone to re-debut the Hornets as a treadmill team.

I agree. I think Cho has the right idea with the analytics but I am not sure he has the right people doing them. If we were better at drafting and FA signing we would be in a better position to succeed right now. You can get a genius to crunch numbers but it doesn't matter if you are not crunching the right numbers. Sometimes it seems like our analyst are a bunch of monkeys smacking a keyboard with the choices we make. None of them seem to be coherent and in line with the other moves. Everything seems very disjointed.

Re: zach lowe article on cats

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2014 1:12 pm
by yosemiteben
BrotherDave wrote:This article pretty much sums up everything I've been griping about all season, albeit with a more positive spin. We overpaid Al in an attempt to stop hemorrhaging money by making a cheap playoff run in the awful East. We've severely limited our future/chances of being a championship contender by ruining draft pick position and salary cap and we aren't a legitimate FA destination. And it's all pretty stupid b/c with the rebrand the franchise would have had the warm and fuzzies of ticket and merch sales regardless of not trying so hard to make the playoffs this year.
How can you list ruining cap space and not being a legit FA destination as negatives right next to each other without seeing the obvious contradiction there?

I strongly disagree that we could have become a championship contender via this draft without picking up Al, so I don't think we've seriously damaged any championship aspirations. I also strongly disagree that ticket sales for next year would be the same and there would be the same excitement if the Bobcats were far below .500 this season. I still strongly disagree that Al is overpaid relative to the value he's brought.

Re: zach lowe article on cats

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2014 3:48 pm
by Snidely FC
This point by Lowe will never cease to be relevant:
Close your eyes and you can still see Cho on television, taking the gut punch and wincing when the second-to-last envelope revealed the Charlotte logo.

There is no excuse for a team owned by the league, in the process of being sold, to jump to #1 in the draft the way New Orleans did. That's either Charlotte's epic horrible bad luck or totally rotten shadiness (and I lean solidly toward the latter). Anytime you start accusing Cho of MKG being his first choice remind yourself that MKG was never this team's first choice. That draft set this franchise back five years.

The Bobcats weren’t sure if they could afford to be terrible again. “It’s always in the discussion,” Fred Whitfield, the team’s president and COO, says of the role of revenue in free-agency decisions. “We felt Al Jefferson could help us win now, and that would clearly improve our business.”

It is hard to begrudge them this. But Whitfield admits with this quote that they gave up on the rebuild - the ostensible approach that management told us fans they were undertaking when they hired Cho, and then enacted for two foul years. They lost patience. They admit it. As a fan that unexplained about face took a while to accept. Some nights, when Al Jeff goes for 30, I say to myself, see we don't need Ant Davis, there's more than one way to get a 30 & 10 guy. Then I remember Anthony Davis is 21. F**k.

Re: zach lowe article on cats

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2014 4:01 pm
by tondi123
People seem unwilling, or unable, to come to grips with the fact that the players in the upcoming draft are not going to be taking anybody anywhere any time soon, and possibly ever. There is no Durant, Lebron, or Davis in this draft. The guys at the top of this draft are looking more and more like a bunch of players who will have nice, possibly even borderline all star careers, but that's about it. Sitting through another 60 loss season for the privilege of picking one of them makes even less sense than it did in October, now that we have seen them play instead of only hearing the hype. When you look at the top 5 picks over the last 3 years only Davis (and maaaybe Kyrie someday) have given any indication of being franchise changing type guys. Continuing to lose indefinitely to keep picking guys who come into the league unprepared to impact the game, much less change the entire direction of a franchise, is the height of idiocy, IMO, especially when there are other alternatives.

Only 1 team will win it all this season, and only 4-5 teams are legitimate contenders. That doesn't mean everybody else, other than the tank commanders, is doing something wrong. Far from it, in fact.

Re: zach lowe article on cats

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2014 4:42 pm
by amcoolio
I still think we have a shot at Davis once his contract expires. I really think he would rather be in a better situation with MKG and MJ and the Bobcats and would take less money initially (like a 3 year max deal) then we can break the bank on him once that 3 year deal expires. Maybe some backdoor MJ sponsorship deals like what the Russians did with AK47, haha.

The Pelicans situation is awful and they aren't going anywhere.

Re: zach lowe article on cats

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2014 5:02 pm
by Liver_Pooty
BrotherDave wrote:This article pretty much sums up everything I've been griping about all season, albeit with a more positive spin. We overpaid Al in an attempt to stop hemorrhaging money by making a cheap playoff run in the awful East. We've severely limited our future/chances of being a championship contender by ruining draft pick position and salary cap and we aren't a legitimate FA destination. And it's all pretty stupid b/c with the rebrand the franchise would have had the warm and fuzzies of ticket and merch sales regardless of not trying so hard to make the playoffs this year.

What Lowe doesn't mention is that if Cho was better at drafting we likely wouldn't have been put in that situation in the first place. Barring incredible draft luck, we're looking set in stone to re-debut the Hornets as a treadmill team.


Were a treadmill right now with room for a nice free agent and with hopefully improvements from our young guys (Biyombo, Zeller, MKG, Walker, etc) on the horizon. If were still a treadmill team a year or two from now it will be because our young guys haven't developed and we spent our massive cap space on someone we shouldn't have.

Re: zach lowe article on cats

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2014 7:31 pm
by fatlever
so maybe the cats dont sign jefferson, we tank for another year. we still win 25-30 games (or more) just based on the improvement of our young players and improved coaching. we finish with maybe the 6th worst record, get jumped by 1 team and pick 7th. one of parker/embiid returns to school. exum's agent informs everyone his player will only play for the lakers. doesnt matter because he is gone by 7 anyway. we are looking at smart, vonleh, gordon or mcdermott. kemba gets fed up with losing and being on a team that isnt trying to win and he requests a trade in the summer and informs the front office he wont resign after his rookie deal. is that really worth it?

Re: zach lowe article on cats

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2014 7:43 pm
by LamarMatic7
amcoolio wrote:The Pelicans situation is awful and they aren't going anywhere.

some don't like the Al signing, but in the meantime you have to be grateful that we didn't accelerate the re-building process the New Orleans way. they also got hyped about their changes (the new name and new ownership) and just look at all that money they have committed to Jrue Holiday and Tyreke Evans.

Re: zach lowe article on cats

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2014 7:43 pm
by tondi123
fatlever wrote:so maybe the cats dont sign jefferson, we tank for another year. we still win 25-30 games (or more) just based on the improvement of our young players and improved coaching. we finish with maybe the 6th worst record, get jumped by 1 team and pick 7th. one of parker/embiid returns to school. exum's agent informs everyone his player will only play for the lakers. doesnt matter because he is gone by 7 anyway. we are looking at smart, vonleh, gordon or mcdermott. kemba gets fed up with losing and being on a team that isnt trying to win and he requests a trade in the summer and informs the front office he wont resign after his rookie deal. is that really worth it?



Don't let reality get in the way of the fantasy that is the NBA draft to the tankers. You know, the one where we are the worst team every year until we magically pick the right guy, or three, who will instantly make us title contenders. That happens all the time (or once anyway) in the NBA, we just have to be patient and it will fall into our laps. The idea of super competitive players getting frustrated at having their brains bashed in year after year just so they can have the pleasure of someday MAYBE playing with a 19 year old kid who will take them to the promised land is just an internet fabrication.

Re: zach lowe article on cats

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2014 8:03 pm
by MasterIchiro
I disagree with Zach's intimation that we lack avenues to improve via free agency or draft. Big Al in his ESPN interview pretty much guaranteed he will be recruiting hard and so will Kemba. We also have nearly 20 million to spend. We have an up-and-coming coach, a nice arena, a warm city with 4 seasons, plenty of hot metropolitan women, awesome strip clubs, Lake Norman. I do think we are an acceptable destination if the money is right and we have the money. We are not a premiere destination but I still think we have one more move we can make with our cap space. Higgins said we will add 2 stars (Jefferson was the first). So I think the team's plan to improve via free agency doesn't end at Al Jefferson but instead extends beyond him. He was the first domino to fall. They needed him to make the franchise respectable for future free agents.

I also disagree that we eliminated our ability to improve via the draft due to tanking.

We may end up with a top 10 pick from the Pistons in 2014 or 2015 and the Blazers pick could be anywhere from 14-24. The front office considered these assets when the debate to tank or not arose. And because we have draft picks on-hand, we don't need to depend so much on our own. We also can pay off the Bulls in a weak year rather than risk it falling back into the lottery next year.

And finally, we can improve internally and via trade if Cody Zeller, Biz and/or MKG develop correctly. Regardless, Cho can leverage those players and/or package them with picks for upgrades.

Re: zach lowe article on cats

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2014 9:07 pm
by freakon0mics
LamarMatic7 wrote:
amcoolio wrote:The Pelicans situation is awful and they aren't going anywhere.

some don't like the Al signing, but in the meantime you have to be grateful that we didn't accelerate the re-building process the New Orleans way. they also got hyped about their changes (the new name and new ownership) and just look at all that money they have committed to Jrue Holiday and Tyreke Evans.


So true. Not only are they committed to those contracts, a few of them players don't even fit together. Tyreke has been the only one so far lately that has look like he fits and plays great along with Anthony Davis. At least we know what we need to surround Big Al and Kemba.

Re: zach lowe article on cats

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2014 9:21 pm
by JDR720
Evan's, Jrue and Eric don't fit together not to mention at least 2 of them (Eric and Evans) are overpaid, Anderson and Davis are perfect fits tho but they have to fix their backcourt problems....kinda like Detroit's frontcourt problems but in the backcourt

Re: zach lowe article on cats

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2014 10:14 pm
by Benjamin Linus
Don't forget the two draft picks New Orleans gave up to get Jrue. That team is in shambles. IMO, they had the worst offseason of any team, including the Pistons.