Bobcats News – In Brief

Your quick hit updates for a little news and a whole lot of snark, here’s Bobcats News In Brief, via RobertoGato.com

Training Camp Invitees – Will Blalock?  Anyone?  I don’t think Paul Silas is nearly as obsessed with third point guards as Larry Brown was but, Will Blalock is an option they’re going to look at.  I’m somewhat disappointed that Garrett Temple isn’t that guy, but I completely understand him taking his talents to Italy.

Ronald Dupree?  Former LSU player, hey, someone to fill that Garrett Temple, Tyrus Thomas’s buddy quotient for the Bobcats.  A small forward?  Which is interesting I guess, being that there seem to be about 9 Power Forwards and 2 Small Forwards.

I don’t know if either guy will make the team, I haven’t heard or found any further info on other invitees but we’ll update if any come up.

Radio Stays the Same – WFNZ is still the flagship station of the Charlotte Bobcats.  You can hear the games on 610 AM and a bevy of other AM stations in NC and SC.  The better news, to me is that Scott Lauer will return as play-by-play announcer.  Lauer was interviewed by GQ once the lockout was proving to cause layoffs and I guess he was the most high profile amongst the Bobcats layoffs, so it’s nice that he’ll be back.

Kwame Brown – Our old pal, Ricky B! (Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer, who I swear I respect, I swear it) wrote about how the Bobcats have 10 guys officially under contract and then he went through his own quick hits (which he probably stole from me).  Kwame Brown is the largest keystone piece that isn’t in camp yet.  He is and was the best option at center for the Bobcats last season.  He started and contributed.  As a former #1 overall pick, he’s going to get attention but I don’t think it was nearly as much as his agent had figured on, or hoped for.  Nene is the big free agent domino to fall, followed by Tyson Chandler and a few others.  Kwame might be hurt on the open market by him playing in Charlotte last year.  Either way, the market is softer, and the Bobcats have been the only place that he’s taken a meeting so far and are likely the only team that has publicly said “Yes, we want Kwame.”  I believe he’s likely to be a Bobcat, and not for the vet minimum as he was last year, but not near whatever the Knicks will give Chandler and what the Nets have rumored to have offered Nene.

Don’t the Knicks know that Chandler is made of glass?  Don’t they know that he played in New Orleans, poorly, in Charlotte, poorly, and in Chicago, poorly?  I don’t hate the guy but he didn’t have anything nice to say about the Bobcats after he was traded for cap space in last year’s off season and he’s been given far too much credit for being an athletic nearly 7 footer.  Magic Johnson, who is ridiculously optimistic (I guess that’s what happens when you beat AIDS), tweeted that the Knicks now have the best frontline in the NBA.  Really Magic?  Tyson Chandler makes such a small impact on that already awesome front line, I’d be more upset about losing Chauncey Billups.

Dante Cunningham – Ricky B! also reports that Dante Cunningham will not be in camp and won’t be in Charlotte today to sign his quallifying offer.  Dumb, that kid is dumb.  He will forever be the guy with the giant loud truck that got arrested for having a pellet gun and weed in it late one night when he was visiting his college 2 years after he left for the NBA.  Now, he thinks there’s some massive market out there and he’ll be offered more than that quallifying offer?  Forget it, I’d yank that offer sheet faster than you could say “Who you gonna scare with a pellet gun?”

Mike Dunleavy – Bonnell also mentioned that the Bobcats were after free agent and former Duke Blue Devil, Mike Dunleavy.  Dunleavy is still able to put up some nice numbers, but he doesn’t really get anyone excited.  He would have been a three point specialist and a nice piece off the bench but $3 million a year was the max and the Bucks offered him $3.5 million, good for them.

Does it seem to you like there are two distinct classes of players and teams in the league now?  The Bucks, Bobcats, Kings, executed a three way trade on draft day.  Then the same players are discussed between the same few teams.  It’s just bizarre.

Reggie Williams – Someone told Bonnell that there were discussions between the Bobcats and Williams, a restricted free agent of the Warriors (another team in that second tier).  Williams is a three point shooter and the Bobcats were second worst in the league from behind the arc last year.  It would be a nice fit, but now Orlando figures into that discussion and of course, being restricted, the Warriors get to match whatever is offered if they want to.

That’s probably enough for now.  Today will be nuts, I mean stupid crazy.  We’ve already seen a blockbuster trade vetoed between the Lakers and Hornets involving Chris Paul and now with Chandler going to the Knicks, the whole Nene thing, and then the rest of the cards waiting to fall after the majors, we will see what teams like the Bobcats are allowed to get in the still, trickle down NBA landscape.

Andrew Barraclough is Senior Editor for RobertoGato.com, a Charlotte Bobcats Blog on theFansided Network.  Follow him on Twitter @therobertogato and Like the site on Facebook.