07 vs 08 Bobcats

[playoffs...PLAYOFFS?]

There's been a lot of negativity lately...some close games we should have won, the recurrent RF bashing, etc..

I was planning on waiting until we played 20 games to do a small comparison between last year and this year...but hopefully we can find some silver lining here given the pessimism

* Lately I've been feeling that we are in the game in the 4Q (regardless if we blew the lead..that's not the point). For the entire season, our margin of loss is 9.1 pts a big drop compared to last year at 14.6 pts.

* In 2007 we had two big blowouts, Suns and 76ers losing by 32 and 31 pts. In 2008, our two blowouts are Pistons and Maverics or Cavs, losing by 18 and 17 pts.

* For all the games so far, the opponent FG % in both seasons is roughly around 45%. But over the last 10 games, this year this FG% drops to 43%, while last year is still 45%

* Our winning margin this year is 8 pts compared to 9 pts last year..not much of a change here

* Our free throw % has improved significantly from 68% to 75%...but has dropped in the past 6 games

* We're shooting less 3 pts, 14 vs 17 per game...but our overall 3 PT % has dropped to 33% from 35% last year

Now, there are other intangibles...we've been succesful at defending some of the marquee players of the teams we've played (Dwight Howard). Although we haven't necessarily converted all of these into wins

Here's the biggest intangible, and something that nobody is bringing up.. TEAM CONSISTENCY. Individually, there is still plenty of consistency...RF, Mek, GW, our bench.

But..last year we almost beat the Celtics by 1 pt...and the next three games , we lost by an average of 18 pts

Another example..we beat Miami the first time around..the second time around, we lose by 20 pts

Since the Maverick game, our loss margin has been 5.5 pts. Keep in mind Richardson was out for several of the games.

Of course we are still losing..and our record is not great. But is the boat heading in the right direction? Definitely..and it is a matter of time before we can covert this close games were we lose into wins.... and when we'll maintain our leads going into the 4Q and win games

[davcbow]

I think things are starting to come together finally and these stats will definitely lean towards this season before too much longer....:cool:

[Ampsportsduo]

Beloved Observer columnist Rick Bonnell has weighed in with a similar column, here (http://www.charlotteobserver.com/bobcats/story/390428.html).

Far be it from me, but this line alone suggested that Bonnell's mailing it in:

Because the arena annually hosts the CIAA tournament and the Jumper Classic, March and April will usually be travel-heavy.

The schedule is out, there's no need to speculate. As we discussed on these forums yesterday, the two most travel heavy months for the Cats will be January and February. He's right about April (6 of 8 on the road), but March has eight of 14 at home. Maybe I'm nit-picking, but it's not hard to pull out the schedule before writing a column.

Also, he keeps going to the well with the Nets comparison, a call back to the column he wrote with Mike Gminski before the start of the season.

When he discusses the salary cap situation or potential moves he couldn't be more vague. The only name mentioned is one that the Bobcats won't be getting and his salary cap numbers are a rough wag instead of detailed.

Being the only Bobcats writer in the area all the focus turns to him, but if we saw an uninspiring performance like this on the court by the Cats, we'd all be sick.

[dnbman]

When he discusses the salary cap situation or potential moves he couldn't be more vague. The only name mentioned is one that the Bobcats won't be getting and his salary cap numbers are a rough wag instead of detailed.

Yeah, but in his defense, if there's no details to report, you can't help but be vague. I'm not saying he always has Bobcat news on lockdown, but he's been pretty good when there are details to report.

I don't know; the guy's covering a professional basketball team. It's not like there's monumental news everyday.

[spectre]

I don't know; the guy's covering a professional basketball team. It's not like there's monumental news everyday.

Problem being fans like us here at BCP NEED news every day!

I agree with DNB that he shouldn't be criticized for being vague on salary; typically those numbers aren't officially released. The teams probably do leak it and what we have is probably pretty close, but saying "for sure" just begs to be caught later on.

[playoffs...PLAYOFFS?]

i think though he could be much better about reporting news and interesting info.. why not check out some practices? or some backgroun on the player? he also rarely takes the time to do any analysis of the team...and he uses 22 pt font for his blogs..

by contrast read the panthers page on the observer...granted they're a playoff contender making things more interesting...but still, the quality of those articles is much better

[Ampsportsduo]

Like I said, I realize I'm nit-picking, but look at these two quotes:

The first by Bill Simmons

They are locked in to nearly $130 million over the next three years for Emeka Okafor, Gerald Wallace, Jason Richardson, Matt Carroll and Nazr Mohammed.

Then Bonnell's

The Bobcats have well over $100 million in long-term contract obligations to five players – Emeka Okafor, Gerald Wallace, Jason Richardson, Nazr Mohammed and Matt Carroll.

One's from a national writer and the other has the sole purpose of covering the Bobcats. The first is more accurate and delivers more detail in two ways (cost and duration). It seems lazy, but maybe Rick had his in-laws in town for Thanksgiving and he was exhausted.