I see your negativity, and raise you.

[W_HAMILTON]

I wished we'd undo all of the trades we made this year. Well, except for the Morrison one, but that's a given.

I'd rather have Richardson + Dudley + Hollins + Carroll and a great shot at Blake Griffin than whatever it is we have now. I might have thought otherwise if we were able to finish out the season strong, but we haven't. We haven't been playing defense like earlier in the year, and our offense has reverted back to its poor form.

It's one thing if we could have said that we finished out the season strong, but couldn't make the playoffs due to starting off so slowly. But it's another to have a heckuva run, followed by inexplicable losses to some of the worst teams in the league, when we were supposed to be beyond that. If this team is as good as it looked for awhile there, there's no excuse to lose some of these games we have lost lately. They were building a defensive identity and playing really well for awhile there, then it all fell apart.

It makes me worry that it was more of a honeymoon phase than any real improvement. If we were really improved, we wouldn't have struggled to score 80 points against one of the worst teams in the league in a game that was basically do-or-die for our playoff hopes. A lot of the positives that the team had started to show a few weeks/months ago, just completely disappeared lately, when it mattered most.

[BigSlam]

Regardless of the outcome, there has been massive improvements over the past 3 months.

More than during any other transitional stage of this franchises existence IMO.

[W_HAMILTON]

That's what I thought, until I watched these past few weeks.

If there was true improvement, there is no reason for them to suck like they have been sucking. Where is the defense? Where is the improved offense? What happened to including everyone in the offense? Why did all of that just stop? And if it can abruptly stop like that, who's to say it won't happen next season? In which case, we are not really any better off.

I agree that they definitely looked like an improved team for awhile there, then something happened in the past few weeks, and they reverted to a team that looked like it had the same sort of problems as previous teams. Who's to say that THIS team won't be the one we see show up many nights next season? Why should I believe in that previous success we had, when we are sucking right now? Again, who's to say it wasn't just a honeymoon phase? If we truly had improved, why hasn't it been evident in the past couple of weeks, when we most needed to win?

[Dexmor]

The trades we made were still very good. There is no guarantee we would have gotten Griffen. Hell odds are if we kept the same team we would have gotten the 7th or 8th pick instead of 12th which we will probably get now. In this draft that might not be much.
I think our mistake was not trading Mek for a real star and passing on Lopez. Besides that we did good this year.

[chrbal]

Honestly, did anyone think that Diop or Radmanovic were the two missing pieces? This franchise is building towards something. There are so many really bad teams this season, and even if the Bobcats didn't make a single move they still really would not have had a legit shot at Blake (nice guy by the way, met him during the Final Four).

Lets not make this into the Knicks board where every player brought in is either the "Next great thing" or an absolute waste of space.

This team did some very good things and has fewer issues to adress then they have ever had in the past.

[W_HAMILTON]

We have fewer issues to addressed because we addressed our biggest problem by acquiring a PF, ANY PF considering we haven't had one of any consequence since we switched Okafor to C.

If we had kept that old team, we wouldn't have won as many games, but we would still only be one position away (PF) from also having "fewer issues to address," and we would have had a better chance at addressing that issue in a pretty big way by having more of a chance to draft Griffin.

As I've said, who's to say that this team of the past few weeks isn't the team we will see more of next year? The same team that has not been playing great defense like before, the same team that has reverted to poor offensive habits, and the same team that has been inexplicably losing to some of the league's worst teams when we most needed to win. If this stretch hadn't happened, I can see why everyone would still be positive.

But when people like Bonnell says that this team will definitely make the playoffs next year, I don't see how that is so after watching the previous few weeks. Is this just a temporary thing? Or was our great stretch the previous couple months just a temporary thing? I thought the team had really turned a corner for awhile there, since they were playing great defensively and were beating teams that they should, and competing with teams that they should have been getting blown out by.

But that's all changed over the past few weeks, and it came at a time when we most needed to win. I don't see how people can be as hopeful for next season. We essentially had our playoff destiny in our own hands, then we lost to teams like Washington and OKC. Why will things be any different next year? Sure, our young guys may improve, and we may sign some better players, but the same could have been said if we kept those guys we traded away as well.

Point is, if we couldn't win NOW, why will things be different next season? As poorly as we started, we still had a chance to make the playoffs and we simply had to win games to do so, and instead we lost to teams that had nothing to play for.

[MilZo]

the Cavs just lost in Washington
the Spurs recently lost to OKC, at home

hell,
Orlando just lost a very important game for them in NY
not too long ago, the mighty Lakers dropped yet another one to the lowly Bobcats

point is, every team, every year has letdown games
we had to be almost perfect in the end mostly because of a 7-18 start with a very home-heavy schedule

we're a much much much improved team and a lock for next year's playoff depending on how the Felton situation is resolved in the offseason

[Rich4114]

I see your argument Ham, but the fact is this team has way better chemistry now with Raja and Boris. We've got a good shooter off the bench (Radman) along with plenty of size at the C position. Our problem this year has been depth more than anything. Having Wallace out for a while along with Raja, combined with the poor poor start with the team you wish we kept together, and then add in the fact that our crap start came on our home floor early in the season... the odds were stacked pretty far against us.

This team is good enough to be a winning team as it is currently constructed next season. It's built in a way that we can compete with even the top teams. We're still missing that goto all-star, and as much as I liked J-Rich he just wasn't on that tier. Griffen will be a good NBA player, but he's no guarantee like a Durant or an Oden.

We'll have our drafted player next year who will likely be a wing that we could develop, or we can fix the SG/SF problem in FA. It's also possible we could make a big time run at someone like Bosh in exchange for Okafor and maybe our pick. We'll have to see, but I agree with the others - this team could literally sit back and do nothing and still be good enough to make the playoffs next year assuming they resign Felton. I think we're 4th-5th best in the conference if we add some depth or sign someone like AI.

[W_HAMILTON]

Those teams weren't fighting for their playoff lives.

We were.

And if we play next season like we have for the past few weeks, no, we certainly will not be a playoff lock.

It doesn't matter how we started off the season, because we still had our destiny in our own hands, if they simply kept playing like they had been, and they didn't. They stopped playing great defense, our offense had its problems, we had 3rd and 4th quarter collapses, everyone wasn't being involved in the offense like before, etc.

Again, who's to say that THIS isn't the real Bobcats team? If you can't keep up that high level of performance like earlier in the year when you need it most, why would you believe that we can keep it up for a good portion of next season?

[Liver_Pooty]

So you are saying you would rather have kept our team before, which was twice as bad as it is now for basically a 15% chance at landing the first pick in the draft?

No thanks.

[W_HAMILTON]

I don't know where we would have ended up, but, yes. The only thing that team was missing was a PF. They were not inherently bad, they basically the same team like year that won almost as many games as this year's team did, except it did so with the Vincent fiasco. You plug in any decent PF into that lineup, and they are comparable to this team that we have now. You win the Griffin sweepstakes, and they are much better than this team we have now.

[Rich4114]

Meh, we were missing veteran leadership. We're still the youngest team in the conference I believe. We need depth, veteran depth and I think we'll be alright.

[Liver_Pooty]

Last years team had 4 or 5 NBDL players on the roster. Hollins, Davidson, Carroll, Mcinnis, and Im probably missing someone in there ( Morrison might as well go to the NBDL ).

This year our roster is more of a complete roster, as opposed to have 3 at times 4 players who have the ability to contribute on a nightly basis we have 6-8 guys who can contribute on a nightly basis.

Our roster is just fine now. Sign a backup SG with our MLE and draft the best player available with our draft pick and that should shore up thatever deficiencys (sp?) we have on this current team in my opinion.

I like the way this team went this year.

[e4Nf6]

And if we play next season like we have for the past few weeks, no, we certainly will not be a playoff lock.

And if we play like we did on the winning streaks we'll be one of the best teams in the league. The reality will probably fall somewhere in between. Why do you choose to focus on the bad streaks of play?

To hear you pine for our terrible roster at the beginning of the year is bizzare. To say that all we were missing on our roster is a great PF is:

1. Like saying the only problem with a train wreck is the train not being on the tracks

and

2. Wrong.

Any roster where Sean May, Adam Morrison, Nazr Muhammad, Andre Brown, Shannon Brown, and Matt Carrol are getting minutes has more than one problem.

This team had two big problems at the beginning of the year. No PF and 0.0 depth. LB has made significant progress on both fronts. Don't objects in motion usually stay in motion? Why shouldn't we assume that if LB improves the cats in season one that he will do the same in season 2?

[W_HAMILTON]

Last years team had 4 or 5 NBDL players on the roster. Hollins, Davidson, Carroll, Mcinnis, and Im probably missing someone in there ( Morrison might as well go to the NBDL ).

(1) I was talking about the "awful" team we had at the beginning of this year versus last year's team, and (2) you aren't really helping your case by pointing out that half of last year's team was made up of NBADL players, but still managed to win 30-something games. I was purposefully talking that team down.

We were 7-16 before the PHO trade, which means we have been 28-29 since. That equates to around 39-40 wins for the season. That probably won't be enough to make the playoffs this season (CHI/PHI have 40 wins and DET has 39 already with a few games left). But putting that aside, that means this "greatly improved" team is about 6 wins better than a team with arguably the worst coach in the league, and a roster full of NBADL players. Why should I be positive about that again?

And I would happily give Diop back to the Mavericks in exchange for Carroll and Hollins. Diop has contributed very little, and even worse, with him on the roster Brown relies on him too much which means we get to see less of Okafor (Diop is a poor, poor man's version of Okafor anyway). I'd rather have kept Hollins and Carroll (who would be a contributor once again after we got rid of Morrison, especially due to all the injury problems Bell has had).

If this team had kept up its earlier pace, I would be optimistic about their chances next year. But them completely falling off when it mattered doesn't exactly get me excited. Without some moves in FA, or someone like Augustin taking his game to the next level, we will probably be another 30-something win team next year, which most likely won't be good enough to make the playoffs. At best, it will be another situation where we have to play our best down the stretch to make it, and we saw how well they responded to that sort of situation the past few weeks.

[W_HAMILTON]

And if we play like we did on the winning streaks we'll be one of the best teams in the league. The reality will probably fall somewhere in between. Why do you choose to focus on the bad streaks of play?

Because when we most needed to win, those "bad streaks of play" is what this team gave us.

To hear you pine for our terrible roster at the beginning of the year is bizzare. To say that all we were missing on our roster is a great PF is:

I don't even think we needed a "great" PF. We just needed a decent PF. Almost any PF. The team went into the season thinking May was the answer at PF, and got burned for it, and that is a large reason why they started off so slowly.

Any roster where Sean May, Adam Morrison, Nazr Muhammad, Andre Brown, Shannon Brown, and Matt Carrol are getting minutes has more than one problem.

The same could be said for a roster where Diop, Martin, Jefferson, Howard, etc. are getting minutes. A lot of the moves we have made to shore up our depth, we could have made regardless.

[PDXKnight]

You guys are drawing very close to closing in on a playoff spot in the near future (maybe next season). While one could discuss the higher odds of getting Griffin, the fact remains, the Bobcats probably wouldn't have landed number one anyways and the trades they've made have really helped establish them as a top contender for the playoffs next season. While none of the moves were ground breaking by any means, they will certainly work out well in the near future IMO.

[Felton for Pres]

I think people are forgetting two key points here.
1. This team hasn't even played a full season together under a new coach. That type of roster and coaching churn is going to cause problems.
2. This is the bigger one...this is still a young team that hasn't really faced a lot of pressure. Every team has hurdles to clear and obviously this team didn't clear them this year. However, I'd like to think they learned from them and will be better in those situations next year. Ham, if your hope is for a championship team, then perhaps I agree with you. If your hope is for a playoff team and respectability, a learning curve is needed and that is what this messy end of season was, a hard lesson.

[Badd_Intentions]

I'd like to see what the guys can do with a full season together. The team isn't perfect by any means but making strides to get better and setting up a decent foundation for the future.

[Rich4114]

One simple stat you could use which has always proven repeatable is Larry Browns record beginning of 1st season, end of 1st season, and 2nd season. Almost every time his team just makes or just misses the playoffs the first year and then is a top 4 team the following year.