Bobcats Update

Okie Dokie, starting to come down from the Rich Cho high yesterday.  It’s awesome though to get credit from every basketball junkie on the planet for a team that hasn’t had a whole lot to celebrate.  Never has this team had something so widely praised happen.

So, today, Rich Cho’s first real workday with the Charlotte Bobcats, the team had their seventh day of workouts for potential draftees.  Alec Burks (Colorado), Marshon Brooks (Providence), Charles Jenkins (Hofstra), Darius Morris (Michigan), LaceDarius Dunn (Baylor) and Julyan Stone (UTEP) worked out.  One problem though:

So, the Bobcats own website can’t get it right!  Oh well, maybe they wrote it before the big news yesterday.  That plus they called Alec Burks, Alex.  Hope he doesn’t see that and want to reject the team if they call him draft night.

Interesting group, all guards.  Here’s where they rank on DraftExpress:  Burks (14),  Morris (23), Jenkins (38),  Brooks (57), Dunn (85), Stone (unranked).  Funnier sounding that way anyway with Morris/Jenkins and Brooks and Dunn.  I went by their top 100 rankings, not mock draft by the way.

Burks has intrigued me since I read my first mock draft.  He’s the second best wing in this draft behind Kawhi Leonard, according to DraftExpress. Not a great college 3 point shooter at 29.2% but he didn’t attempt much either, maybe 2 or 3 a game.  He racked up points without that extra point as Kemba Walker and Jimmer Fridette were known to, but he did score 20.5 points per game.  He’s also a teammate of Bobcats’ President of Basketball Operations Rod Higgins’ son Cory at Colorado.  Cory is getting some workouts as well.

I won’t pretend to know much about any of the others.  Marshon Brooks seems to have potential, 6’5″ and a long reach/wingspan.  He shot better from behind the arc than Burks at 34% with 6ish attempts per game.  Seems like one of those long guys, like a Tyrus Thomas or Josh Childress that’ll shoot pretty well and defend not bad for ya.  He played for Providence in the Big East and I don’t know, maybe he was really good and the Bobcats will give him a look.

Charles Jenkins out of Hofstra is around 6’2″ and a combo guard, thanks but don’t we already have one of those?  He’s a great scorer/playmaker/shooter but like I said, we’ve got DJ Augustin for that.

Darius Morris, who is actually not the third member of the Morris Twins, went to Michigan, played point guard and scored 15 points per game and 6.7 assists per game.  While I would love for a floor general/playmaker/table setter Point Guard, I don’t think it’s what the Bobcats need right now, maybe at 39 but not so much at the 9 or 19 selections.  I like the assist numbers, I like the size at 6’3″ I don’t like that he’s just a sophomore with 15 ppg.  So, we’ll see.

LaceDarius Dunn from Baylor was in, he scored 19.5 points per game.  I like scoring, of course but I don’t like undersized guys because the Bobcats just can’t dictate matchups.  I may be wrong though and if he’s undrafted, they might bring him to training camp and summer league.

Interesting story I saw today out of New Zealand.  Looks like the Bobcats are bringing in Lance Allred from the Otago Nuggets.  Allred is historic in that he’s the first ever leagally deaf guy ever to play in the NBA.  He played a bit for Cleveland and a couple D-League teams.  He played sparingly at Utah, he’s actually older than me at 30.  He wrote a book called Longshot: The Adventures of a Deaf Fundamentalist Mormon Kid and His Journey to the NBA. Just interesting they’re bringing him in at this point, obviously not a draft prospect, hasn’t touched an NBA court in 3 years and there’s a lockout looming so it’s not like he’ll be going to camp or anything soon.  Just sort of a head scratcher.

I’ll end on this note:  One day, I hope soon, it is my desire to not see a story that mentions the current NBA team in Charlotte, NC as the Hornets.  I know it rolls off the fingers when typing and I know it’s habit or something for some folks.  I also hope that with Rich Cho, a name certainly known amonst NBA die-hards and geeks, I hope that people will understand that Michael Jordan is the Owner and CEO of the Bobcats organization and not the GM or director of basketball operations.  I would also love for people to go back and fix typos on blog posts, I certainly would hope people would tell me about such mistakes around this site, and I’ll go back and change them!

That is all.