3 Players that we need to build round/untouable

[Dexmor]

1.Raymond Felton-He has really improved his play after not being traded. The Bobcats have won 4 games straight now and in his last 5 games he has averaged 15 points and 9 assists with 2 steals. He has officially been our best player in those games. He has even been finishing and hitting shots and his fg% has been very good which was his only problem. He is playing like a franchise pg. Hopefully it will keep up and it's not just to get a contract. I see him from now on out being our best player (did anybody else realize how good of a passer and playmaker he was? I think having shooters is showing how capable he is. He has got allstar potential and talent and it takes some pg's a few years to get it and with Brown's help he is getting it. He is making taking DJ over Brook a real biunder.
They have to keep him over DJ or keep DJ in a perminant Bobby Jackson role. You can''t choose DJ over him because he is 1.stronger 2.Bigger 3.more athletic. 4.more durable and less prone to injury 5.more athletic and versitle. He is overall a much better talent. He is the best talent they have.

2.Mek-If he continues to improve just a little bit in scoring and gets 17 a game next year he will officially be an allstar. He will be there second best player and a defensive big man and when you have a pg who can really make plays and who can score along with a scoring and defending big man you have a core.

3.Boris Diaw-having a point forward when you have a guy like Mek who can't create is invaluable. Having a pforward when you have 2 pg's that can score like sg's makes them even more valuable. Having a guy who can play literally all 5 positions gives you depth of 2-3 players in 1. Also unlike the other 2 he has playoff expirence.

I would love to have DJ around in the Bobby Jackson role but I don't like that Felton almost got traded because he is our best player and if we can something for DJ and not have to worry that Brown might choose DJ to save face on the Brook Lopez thing so trading DJ might make sence espially if we don't really like what we see in the draft and don't want a rookie we can package him.
Either way I don't want to turn this into a trade thread because it's not and I like DJ I am just saying MJ and Brown need to realize the core which is untradable and which they should build around should be Mek/Diaw/Felton.

I was gonna put Crash in to but he plays on pure athletism and by the time there ready to contend for a championship who knows if he will have slowed down.

[PerkinsFor3]

yes. just give us your pick & dj for kaman and its ok.

[ccbballin]

yes. just give us your pick & dj for kaman and its ok.

Make it a 2nd round pick, throw in Eric Gordon, and a Kaman injury insurance policy, and you got a deal. We'll even give you Sean May.

As for our franchise players, I agree Felton is probably our #1 guy. If not mistaken, wasn't that Jordan's plan a year or two ago?

EO50 and Diaw are great role players, maybe Emeka is an all-star someday, but we would still need a player better than them to become a champ. contender. IMO.

[PerkinsFor3]

so eric gordon, kaman for augustin and a second round pick? yeah cool, throw in sean may and we'll give you jordan, camby, bdavis and thornton too

[amcoolio]

augustin is better than eric gordon, so there is no reason for the Cats to do that trade

[Dexmor]

Well I didn't mean for this to become a trade thread but first off DJ is not really better then Gorden and even if he is a little it's still a trade you have to make because Gorden is a 2 who can play 35-40 minutes and DJ can not get that kind of burn. So yes you trade a backup pg for a starting sg.

I do agree that that Mek and Diaw are role players but really good role players and Mek could be better then that.
I really hope MJ still wants to build aroud Felton.
Wallace is a very good player so imo we need 1 more allstar caliber player at either forward position or C and move Mek to the 4.

I think the core of Felton-Diaw-Mek will get us to the playoffs this year.

There was a part of me that was hoping they get in the lotto because they need talent but with this Felton thing being so important I really want them to make the playoffs even though they can't win a game because they need to be shown they need to keep Felton.

[Dexmor]

Since we are talking trades here I think we should package Lexi if he has value
DJ-Lexi and the pick for an star caliber sg or pf or even a Kaman type.

I do believe Raymond Felton and Mek both have potential to be allstars.

[Felton for Pres]

augustin is better than eric gordon, so there is no reason for the Cats to do that trade

Have you seen Gordon play? I can't say DJ is better, perhaps we can stick with "different"

[Dexmor]

I have seen Gorden play and he is better then DJ.

The Bobcats problem is they need 1 more scorer and they need to rebound better. There PF gets 6 a game. That's bad. Even Cartier Martin the new guy gets 1 per game and Radman boards like a guard.
Luckily Wallace is above average for his position which keeps us not pathetic but we need work in that department.

[Rich4114]

Ummm, I like having the security of DJ as our backup PG. See Toronto 2007-2008: Ford + Calderon. They dump Ford for the up and comer Calderon and now they suck.

I too think Felton is one of our best players and certainly our best PG. DJ is a better shooter, but that's really it at this point. However, DJ for being a rookie is a very VERY capable PG with lots of upside so unless we're landing a big impact player I wouldn't want to get rid of him.

Of course you've brought up the flip side of that argument which is the internal politics of we can't have two good PG's because there's only room for one to start. I hope the Bobcats as an organization don't shoot themselves in the foot with that type of thing.

[Dexmor]

I don't mind having 2 pgs as well although I hate seeing Brook becoming an allstar franchice center.
The only reason why I saw maybe you have to trade him because you shouldn't trade Felton because he is bigger, stronger, more athletic, more potential, more durable and they need to get another real star or close to star and you can't get one without giving up something good like DJ.

Now with that said if Felton continues to improve his scoring and Diaw can keep up the good scoring and Mek can get 18 then they can keep DJ. They do need to draft the best avilable sg in the draft.
By the way MCcants had 20 last night.

[Dexmor]

Ray now has 3 point shooters to pass to and he is a drive and kick pg. He isn't a Nash pg so Felton is averaging alot of assists now. Radman-Bell-Diaw means Felton's assists and shooting % will continue to rise as will his scoring and he will become that star we all hoped to get that draft day.

[BigSlam]

But wait: Gordon has only played 58 games and is still on the shelf.

He's obviously "not very durable and prone to injury".

Why the hell would we want him???

[Dexmor]

Well screw Gorden he wasn't my idea but DJ was injured to.
I am not saying lets go trade him asap but we need another scorer or 1 scorer who can get 20 a game.

[August Us Seazr]

1.Raymond Felton- He is making taking DJ over Brook a real biunder.
They have to keep him over DJ or keep DJ in a perminant Bobby Jackson role. You can''t choose DJ over him because he is 1.stronger 2.Bigger 3.more athletic. 4.more durable and less prone to injury 5.more athletic and versitle. He is overall a much better talent. He is the best talent they have.

2.Mek-If he continues to improve just a little bit in scoring and gets 17 a game next year he will officially be an allstar.

Dex- While I agree with you on most of what you say, I think there is a flip side to this coin. While Ray-Ray is coming into his own in the latter portion of this season, there was some doubt as to
1- whether he was capable of making the next step toward developing his talent into that "top tier" guard that was envisioned when he was drafted behind Chris Paul, and 2-the position the Bobcats would be in should Raymond decide to leave after this year.

Bottom line is- we had a major hole at # 2 PG. Larry Brown filled it with someone of capable of pushing Raymond to be better. Both players have responded by exceeding expectations. Good for the Bobcats. To D.J.'s credit, he is getting good coaching from Day One. Not so good is that it took FOUR YEARS for Ray to get the kind of coaching that can truly be called developmental. He is just in the last few games starting to look like the NEW and IMPROVED product. He has cut down on the wild shots and the turnovers. To be fair, some of that is the new team makeup. When you have people that can bury 3s as Diaw and VladRad can do, I can see less pressure on Ray to hoist a bad shot. My point is that D.J. has provided the friendly competitive PUSH that Ray needed to totally advance his game. And the fact that the 2nd unit has its own quarterback has its own merits. Should free agency take Ray away, someone knows how to run the system. Let's hope that won't happen.

Now, on to Mek. How simple would it be for Mek to average 19 a game if he hit at 80% from the FT line? This is a line that has been well travelled. But it is up to Mek to WORK WITH SOMEONE to MAKE IT HAPPEN. I have heard that he has been working with Coach Capel on this. But it is very very hard to make needed long-term changes to your game mid-season. He needs a tutor during the off-season to help break down his motion and work on the mechanics. He needs to look at film of himself- both making and missing shots and maybe even self-analyze the reason so many of his FT's clank. Other than not being able to handle the quick power forwards, this is his MAJOR weakness. And before year six, he needs to make some strides to fix this. Which begs the question- Does MEK want to be an ALL-Star? I hope he does.

[Dexmor]

I agree with you on Mek. I also agree with you on DJ although I still think they would have been better off with Lopez although that is the past.
I am just glad people here agree that Ray is our best player. Alot of people I was thinking would be saying Wallace.
Wallace is another guy who needs to work on his game in the off season. He needs to work on his shot and Mek needs to hit the jumper like Amare and the free throws.

[Walt Cronkite]

Our "best player" has issues he needs to work on as well. How did this go from a thread about who's untouchable to "who's the best player/who's game does/doesn't need work"?

[Dexmor]

There might be other options to get another scorer so i don't want it to sound like DJ's got to go.
I am just saying we should build around the 3 I said. Raymond Felton improves his jumper and becomes a 44% shooter and 34% from 3 and keeps up the assists and he is an allstar next year espially if were on the road to the playoffs.

[August Us Seazr]

Just saying, if drafting D.J. for the second unit pushes Ray to really achieve his potential... even if we pass on Lopez... doesn't it make sense to do it? The NBA is becoming a guard oriented league. We need good talent at all positions, for sure. But doesn't it make sense to have point guard as a long suit in today's NBA?

Now about shooting guard........................

[PerkinsFor3]

so yall didnt catch my sarcasm when including eric gordon? he's going nowhere. you can get chris kaman for augustin and a pick. that's a whole lot for a backup guard.