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Whats up Bobcats,I wanted to ask you guys a ?.In the 04 draft the Magic had the #1 pick in the draft and they chose Dwight Howard,you guys of course had the #2 pick and chose Oakofor.I wanted to ask how would you guys would have felt if we chose Oakofor and you chose Dwight do you think that the Bobcats would get more National TV time with a Superstar as thier franchise,also do you think you guys would be a more attractive team to sign free-agents with Dwight as the conerstone of the franchise.

I asked this question because we were so lucky that we drafted Dwight because everyone wanted us to pick Oakofor.But I just wanted to ask if you guys ever thought about what if you would've had Dwight on your team.

Good luck to making the playoffs this year also,I think you guys are a up and coming young team in the East.

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Okafor's one of my favorite players, so i'm not mad the Magic picked Howard (i'm actually glad). The arena would be more filled because we would be a better team. As for attracting free agents, I don't think Howard correlates to that. Right now, things are looking great for the Cats!!! Hopefully EO50 is backing up Dwight in the all star game.

cats would have taken howard and after a year or so of thinking (what if we had okafor).... they would have realized that howard was a STEAL at 2, rejoiced and never looked back.

fatlever wrote:cats would have taken howard and after a year or so of thinking (what if we had okafor).... they would have realized that howard was a STEAL at 2, rejoiced and never looked back.

Yea, I'd like to think we wouldn't have passed on going big for the first ever pick in the franchise, but unfortunately I think we probably decide not to trade up and just pick between Childress and Iguodala at our original spot (4 was it?)

Charlotte moved up in the draft to take a Howard or Okafor, plain and simple. They had the move in place before the draft even happened.

Part 1 was; the rights to the no. 4 overall, the 2nd round pick in that draft for Predrag Drobnjak (the bobcats didn't take anyone else of the Clippers roster. In spite of Keyon Dooling being there) and the rights to the no. 2 overall.

Part 2 (although its not official, but god its suspicious) was the rights to two 2nd round picks to the Clippers for Eddie House (available in the expansion draft) and Melvin Ely.

We moved up to 2 to get Dwight or Emeka. I think Orlando always had their eyes set on Howard, but they did throw out some misinformation to the media making it seem like they weren't sure who they were going to take.

Your glad we have Mek over Howard?
That is bringing homerism to a new level. Who cares if he is your favorite player. Howard is the best big man in the league right now and the Magic are the #1 team right now record wise or were last time I checked. This franchise doesn't even have more televised games then the Bulls in NC and up until 2 weeks ago we were a joke in the nba. How could you be glad they got Mek over Howard?

I understand liking Mek and even him being your favorite but he is no more then a role player who if ever makes the allstar team it will be because of the weak centers in the league.
Now granted if he used the fact that he is a hard worker for him and worked on his offense alot and had a killer insticnt and actually called for the ball I could see being glad but as of now you can't be glad you got a role player over a sure fire hall of fame franchise Center.
Howard is a top 5 player.

Richard Jefferson is my 2nd favorite player but I wouldn't be glad if we traded Mek and Crash for him. That is about the equal distance Howard is from Mek in comparison. I would however love a Crash and anything besides Diaw, Mek and Felton for RJ. Even if it were DJ.

No. I was mostly pointing out that I think Orlando had picked Howard long before the draft and that the Bobcats wanted a big with that pick.

For the record, I was hoping (before the expansion draft) that Orlando would take Okafor and Dwight would be taken by Charlotte. Also, that Charlotte would've spent a little more money to deepen their frontcourt so Howard wouldn't have to have so much pressure on his shoulders right off the bat.

PrImoz Brezec (expansion pick), Melvin Ely (trade part 1), Marc Jackson (expansion pick or team trades Jahidi Whites expring for him and something) <I liked his size and offensive game and he was getting paid about $5 mil a year for 3 years>, Dwight Howard (no. 2 overall pick), and Predrag Drobnjak (trade part 1) <strong offensive game and easily manageable contract>.

My theory was that no matter overspend on a frontcourt if you're an expansion team.

I like to think that if we were able to draft Howard, then we would have had a much higher chance at drafting Chris Paul the following year. Not saying that is exactly how that would have played out but if you look at it like Okafor was the better player that year, then we would have probably lost a few extra games in 04-05 if we had Howard instead most likely giving us a higher draft pick in 2005. But who knows. If that were the case though you would think that with two major franchise players to build around the front office would, hopefully, have had a much better sense of what direction to go in and how to use the draft picks and cap space wisely to potentially become one of the best, if not the best team in the league. Which I don't think would have been to far out of the question considering the players we would have had along with the cap space. Anyway just wishful thinking.

But really what can you do. Obviously Howard is the better player but he was simply out of our reach. Okafor really was a good pick and the FO made a smart decision to move up in that draft to bring him in. So I'm content with the pick, it could have been much worse.

I don't care about picks we didn't have any control of like players that were gone when we were drafting like Howard and Paul.
What I care about is making mistakes on players we could of had like

Morrison over Gay,Roy, or even Foye
May over Granger
DJ over Brook Lopez
Lex over Arthur

This is what makes me sick to my stomach.

The Bobcats had no way of having Howard and Paul but they could of had

Raymond Felton
Brandon Roy
Danny Granger
Emaka Okufor
Brook Lopez

If they would have made the right decisions at draft time they would be a top team in the league. Possibly come out of the East this year.
Even if they got half of it right they could of had Roy and Roy and Granger right now or Lopez and Gay or something. The only time the truley got it right was Mek and when they traded for JRich so imo they should realize there weakness and either get a scout who is not mentally disabled like the ones they have now or trade there pick every year because they have only been in the league for 5 drafts and they are the worst drafters in NBA history.

Come'on Dex. If you're going to post on our board and post so often, at least spell out players name's right. You misspelled both Emeka AND Okafor!! I like your posting enthusiasm, but you make a lot of repetitive threads and flip flopping on the direction you think the team should take from week to week.

Also, re: this thread-- FINALLY! AN OPPORTUNITY TO TALK ABOUT OUR DRAFT MISTAKES!

Dexmor wrote:Your glad we have Mek over Howard?
That is bringing homerism to a new level. Who cares if he is your favorite player. Howard is the best big man in the league right now and the Magic are the #1 team right now record wise or were last time I checked. This franchise doesn't even have more televised games then the Bulls in NC and up until 2 weeks ago we were a joke in the nba. How could you be glad they got Mek over Howard?

I understand liking Mek and even him being your favorite but he is no more then a role player who if ever makes the allstar team it will be because of the weak centers in the league.
Now granted if he used the fact that he is a hard worker for him and worked on his offense alot and had a killer insticnt and actually called for the ball I could see being glad but as of now you can't be glad you got a role player over a sure fire hall of fame franchise Center.
Howard is a top 5 player.

Richard Jefferson is my 2nd favorite player but I wouldn't be glad if we traded Mek and Crash for him. That is about the equal distance Howard is from Mek in comparison. I would however love a Crash and anything besides Diaw, Mek and Felton for RJ. Even if it were DJ.

So, you would trade Wallace/Augustin for Jefferson? Jefferson isn't on either one of those players levels. And RJ is gay. We don't need that on the Bobcats.

Gay literally gay?
Well I wouldn't trade Wallace and DJ for RJ but I would if they threw in Sessions or Alexander.

About the spelling, I am a terrible speller a fast typer so I will always be making typing errors so sorry about that.
And my only real flip flop was with Felton and thats because I knew he had it in him all along and he is showing serious flashes of it and you just can't trade a guy like that with potential allstar caliber player in his future espially if his trade value is so low and he is a pg. They need to keep Felton.
He's one of my favorite players and I know if he doesn't break out after the allstar break it will be next year and I realize because of his size and body strenght he is our future pg not DJ. DJ could be with the Cats for a long time and be a huge part of there future but as a backup who plays a ton of minutes.

The most painful aspect of how this all turned out is yes, we most likely would've ended up with Dwight Howard and Chris Paul as our first two picks had Orlando gone with Okafor... damnit. But guess what, at the time we all pretty much would've taken Okafor. I think the Bobcats would've taken Okafor as the #1 pick if we had it.

But the worst didn't happen, because if we kept that #4 pick I'm almost positive Bernie would've picked Josh Childress. A good player, but we would be competing with that worst ever record that season no doubt.