Shawn "My knee is fine now, Thank you very much" Livingston
Great move.
With what the Bobcats have at the 3 and 4, and a teaching coach like Larry Brown, if kwame can't turn it around in Charlotte, he never will.
I feel like he's finally going to get it. If he does, it could at least give the Bobcats a serviceable 5.
I'll take the depth. 1 year, who cares? If he's a poor man's Okafor that is bigger and more mobile it works for me. When we mention offensively inept, the first person that comes to my mind is this: Tyson Chandler.Originally Posted by mj4life
Brilliant!
Who the fuck is Dominic Mcguire
Shawn "My knee is fine now, Thank you very much" Livingston
You can't be pleased with this off season. Yes, Felton is gone, and that is addition by subtraction, but the Bobcats have made pretty terrible moves. I don't really have a problem with Tyrus Thomas, but the Livingston and Kwame signings are suspect to say the least. I want Diaw off the team. The guy is soft and now he is doughy (too many baguettes, I suppose). My ideal scenario would be for the Cats to package both Dampier and Diaw and make a run at some talent. Otherwise, they've taken a pretty big step backwards.
A year ago we hadn't signed Flip Murray, we thought Tyson Chandler was going to be a savior, we thought DJ would give Raymond a run for his money at PG, we had very little wiggle room under the cap (so not many options to improve ourselves without help) and Stephen Jackson wasn't on the roster.
This offseason isn't over yet.
We know Nazr, Kwame and help from TT and Diaw at the center position will match the mediocre output of the Center position last year. We don't expect anything out of Diop (so we won't be disappointed), Jackson will have a training camp with LB, we still have the flexibility that Dampier's dust chip will bring (either in an improved all-star player or Cap relief which provides for greater flexibility during the season as the trade deadline approaches).
It's ok to be upbeat about the team, most of the beat writers don't do adequate research before spitting out a couple sentences about why the Bobcats aren't any good. Doom and Gloom sells papers.
*orders more bandwagons for the flood that will be upon us in December.
Losing Felton was addition by subtraction.
I ran across this following quote from another source, done back in 2002. Everyone thinks of Jordan being the hard ass on Kwame (which he was at times)...but this might help that perception just a little bit...
Growing Pains - Washington Post
Brown couldn't do anything right. "He couldn't catch it, couldn't throw it, couldn't shoot it right," Jones says. In a series of three-on-three drills, the Wizards banged him -- hard, intentionally. "He got pretty beat around," Jones says. Center Jahidi White knocked him to the ground -- and fell on top of him. Brown lay there, stunned and bruised.
"Get up, you aren't hurt," White said.
Brown got up, aching, holding his back. His gray practice shirt was soaked through. Nobody had any sympathy for him. Not even Popeye Jones, the veteran who'd looked out for him the most. "It's time for you to grow up," Jones told him, coldly. "Now. Today. Stand on your own two feet."
Collins, still not satisfied, ordered a set of punishing sprints. Brown hesitated. "I hurt my back," he said.
Collins wheeled. Now it was his turn. "Stop being a baby and start growing up and playing, and earning the respect of your teammates," Collins shouted. "They're tired of you. They're tired of you getting knocked down, and laying around. They're tired of you holding your back. And holding your head. And holding your thumb. You're the one who has to be in that locker room, and meet them eye to eye."
Brown stared at his feet. "Do you want to play or not?" Collins snapped. No answer.
"Get off the court," Collins said disgustedly.
He sat in front of his locker trembling and crying. This is it, he thought, the league's not for me. I'm horrible. The coach thinks I'm horrible. The whole team thinks I'm horrible. I can't even play. Then he got on a treadmill and ran as hard he could, for almost an hour.
After a while, Jordan came into the locker room. He sat on a bench with Brown, and put his arm around him, and hugged him. "You're going to be all right," he said. For several minutes, he talked to Brown in soothing tones.
"Doug is tough, but in a few years you'll understand how good he is," he said. They still believed in him, Jordan affirmed. "We put our necks out for you," he said. "We think you have the ingredients to be a great power forward for a long, long time."
To Brown, it meant everything. "He showed me a side you never read about," Brown says. "The M.J. who comes over and picks you up and talks to you when you're down and out."
Hope Resurrected: "I think I can bring an attitude to a team as far as, ‘All right, no matter what, we are not losing this game'." - Kemba Walker
"Its okay to be bad; just so long as you're bad ass." - Keetch
I'm not sure (at his price) why anyone would consider Brown a negative hire...we need "big" depth and we get it at bargain basement prices...I'd certainly rather have him (as an option) behind Nazr than Diop...
A tribute to "Crash"...We'll miss you Dude...
I agree for the most part. Felton's love is completely ridiculous... I find it hilarious how some people love labeling him a winner when he never did anything here before and try to label his improvements this year as his own when Jackson taking pressure off of him was the main catalyst. I really don't even think that Felton is any better than Kyle Lowry at the moment, maybe a little worse.
Still, the offseason isn't bad. Once Diaw is gone, I'll be happy though. The team's been getting turned inside-out for the last 3 years some stability around a decent group of players should do wonders. I was all about blowing the team up before the draft, but I'd like to see if the team can actually develop some talent for once.
Again, its kind of funny how a lot of other people are flipping out and wanting to blow the team up now. I was all about that long before it was in style lol, and on top of that people were getting mad at me for it. Now that we actually make a sensible move in Kwame for 1 year/pennies, they want to flip out? Come on...
I don't see how the team got worse at all. Hopefully with Kwame around, LB will have a new punching bag and he can leave DJ alone. Just two years ago everyone was ready for DJ to replace Felton's forever mediocre ass anyways. There's no point in trading for TJ Ford essentially - financially, or otherwise. Tyson was never good for anything, all Kwame has to do is consistently fill the gap on the inside and he's a significant improvement. Tyrus and Gerald are damned good help defenders so we could play a bookcase at center and it'd get decent production.
The team hasn't got any worse at all this offseason. If anything they'll be better after getting a chance to mesh for once. 6th seed for the team is more than reasonable. We're still a 2nd round team at best though, not happy about that but I guess I'll just have to wait until the team naturally dissolves in two years.
So a player who's been forced to be a 1st or 2nd option and struggled...when given more tools (talent) and can then be the 3rd option and does better...is somehow a negative and it reflects no improvement? So much so that he's then "addition by subtraction"?
Ok...
We've debated this before:
http://www.bobcatsplanet.com/vb/show...=felton&page=4
(thanks to the guys/Zig on searching!)
...and I REALLY don't want to debate it again as he's no longer a Bobcat, and this team is really all I care to concern myself with.
Personally I hope "everyone" was right and DJ is really Steve Nash waiting to break out.
Back to Kwame...I don't really see anyone freaking out over the signing! Most (myself included) thought it was ironic that Jordan would be bringing him back due to their history...and that was at first thought. A "bad" signing though? How can a vet min be a "bad" signing?
Hope Resurrected: "I think I can bring an attitude to a team as far as, ‘All right, no matter what, we are not losing this game'." - Kemba Walker
"Its okay to be bad; just so long as you're bad ass." - Keetch
See: McInnis, Jeff.
Thats the thing, Felton didn't do that much better at all... No one said that DJ was Nash 2.0, but just a few seasons ago people were more than ready to give him the starting job over Felton.
You don't see people freaking out over the signing? Okay... this thread wouldn't be 10 pages long if that were the case. I'm in agreement though, there's nothing bad about this deal. And given what we need out of the center position and the FA available, he was the best choice.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks