Rich Cho, New Bobcats GM

As stated in my initial post on this topic, this is a big deal.  The Bobcats announced Monday night/Early Sunday that they had hired Rich Cho to the position of General Manager and promoted Rod Higgins to the position of President of Basketball Operations.  I was trying to walk myself through how this came to pass, the timing and all that.  I started looking at my twitter timeline and asked some insiders that I talk to some questions.  I hope this better acknowledges how and why this happened:

Monday, May 23, 2011: Rich Cho fired as GM of the Portland Trailblazers. 11 months on the job, some say that it was all Paul Allen and the folks at Vulcan (Paul’s company) that just didn’t like that Cho sort of did his own thing, wasn’t a yes-man answering to Allen on everything.  The official release from the Blazers said “The fit between Rich and our team simply wasn’t right.  This was a tough move because I respect Rich and he’s a good person with many strong skills. But it simply wasn’t a good match.” Weird

(as I understand it) Monday May 23, 2011:  Every team without a concrete GM and full staff contacts Cho.  This included the Bobcats.  I can report that a source has told me that it was set in motion right away.  Rod Higgins, at the time, incumbent GM called Rich Cho and immediately felt him out to see if he’d like to come to Charlotte.  This is intriguing because Higgins would be hiring his own replacement, thus we can presume that Rod was not worried about being supplanted, he was confident that he’d be retained.  Makes you wonder…

Monday, May 23, 2011:  James Plowright, Plowman at BobcatsPlanet, calls for MJ to hire Rich Cho.  Ask James for lotto numbers, he’s in England and can’t get in on our Powerball and MegaMillions!

12 am to 1 am Tuesday, June 14, 2011:  Rick Bonnell reports that the Bobcats have hired Cho and promoted Higgins.  It came out, because Ricky B doesn’t do the twitter, simultaneously via InsideHoops, as retweeted by our good friend Sean Highkin at RipCityProject.  I was sleeping, or at least not checking twitter.  The Bobcats posted it simultaneously on their own website.  Interesting that Rick Bonnell is still getting exclusives with the Bobcats, I was under the impression that he was up Larry Brown’s….sorry, he was in Larry Brown’s camp and that was where he got most of his info but as the biggest and only paper in town, regardless of web-presence, he got the story.

12:50 AM:  RufusOnFire posts the link to the Observer story.  Good for them, little whipper snappers hitting up the links in the wee hours.

1:45 Am (approx):  Kevin Pelton of basketballprospectus.com tweets:  “RE: Rich Cho to Charlotte – heard the Bobcats were impressed with him while negotiating the Gerald Wallace deal.”  Someone else says no, I heard that was all Larry Miller and Vulcan, more of that arm-chair reporting you hear but interesting none the less.

Chris Mannix, who fills in for Dan Patrick regularly and of course writes proliffically for SI.com, tweets:  “Not even remotely surprised someone snatched up Rich Cho. His value as both a cap expert and talent evaluator is well respected.”  I love this.  Mannix is one of those 3-4 guys that get on everything first, and know and talk to everybody, if he says Cho is well respected, he’s really well respected.  I read this this morning and the excitement starts rolling.

Keep in mind, this is all around midnight-2 AM, who breaks stories that late?  I mean really?

2:12 AM:  Mike Cranston gets in on the action, of course it’s the best general info story on this whole deal that you’ll read.  That’s how Mike rolls son.

4:57AM:  fallen_xxi over at BobcatsPlanet gets the story up.  The comments are interesting from a fan’s perspective.

10:15AM:  David Aldridge from NBA.com tweets:  “Very good hire in Charlotte, naming Rich Cho as GM to work with Rod Higgins, MJ, etc. Always a plus to have different perspectives in group.”  Another all bball guy giving the Bobcats props.  This makes me happy.

11:20AM:  Our buddy KL Chouinard from Anaheim Amigos and We’reBucked tweeted:  “Hiring Rich Cho may be the best move MJ has made since he stopped playing for the first time in ’98.”

11:30AM:  Nic, staff writer at RobertoGato.com, tweets:  “Bobcats now officially have the baldest front office in the NBA. Not a hair among the three of em. Unless you count MJ’s Hitler stache.”  That’s some comedy right there.

So, now they’re wrapping up the presser, hope they had some nice food, Mike Cranston tweeted confirming that Rod called Rich the day after he was canned.  We are going forward in a whole new direction, with a new-thinking guy.  This is highly exciting.