I’m dying for news. I wonder what I’d feel like if the lockout wasn’t on. This of course is my first full time editor gig, and I haven’t had to keep up at this point of the offseason. I’m wondering if it just feels like there’s nothing going on, if there would actually be things going on or whatever if there wasn’t a lockout. But of course, it is on and there is no league business, no workouts at the arena, and likely won’t be for quite a while.
It’s interesting to see these summer leagues and workouts and what they’re calling the Lockout League in Las Vegas. I haven’t paid attention to where players go once the season ends before. The wise-one, Nazr Mohammed seems to be the most active and in depth tweeter of the Bobcats and former Bobcats that I follow on twitter. He said something a week or two back that didn’t really register with me until now. He said basically, unless you’re a superstar, you don’t buy a house where you play. He said he’d done that twice and lost a ton of money each time. Sounded like he just sold his house in Charlotte or something, who knows why it came up but I can understand that.
Players, for the most part scatter after their season ends. I’m only telling this because, up to this point, it wasn’t obvious or a big deal before to me. Matt Carroll went back to his home town of Philadelphia. D.J. White has been splitting time between his home town of Birmingham, Alabama and up around Indianapolis where he went to college. Tyrus Thomas seems to be one player that has set down roots in Charlotte and loves it here, although I think his wedding took place in Baton Rouge. His friend and one of his best men was Garrett Temple, who split his summer between Charlotte and Baton Rouge before taking off for Italy 10 days ago. Gerald Henderson has been between Charlotte and Durham as far as I can tell. D.J. Augustin has been spending most of his time in New Orleans, I think, he’s not on twitter so who can tell? I’m not sure but I think I read something that said Kwame Brown went back to Georgia.
What’s interesting to me was a tweet last week that said Derrick Brown, Gerald Henderson, Tyrus and whoever else were working out together in Charlotte. While you hear about Amar’e Stoudumire or Chris Bosh/Dwayne Wade/Lebron calling their teams together for organized workouts, you won’t hear a whole lot about these guys putting in work. They don’t call up ESPN every time they do it and try and overhype things. I like that.
The big series that people are calling “The Lockout League,” but the organizers won’t call it that, they call it “Impact Basketball Competitive Training Series,” will have some big stars and big chunks of several teams involved. The big names are Chauncey Billups, John Wall and Zach Randolph. Some of the other players named are former Charlotte Bobcats Stephen Jackson and Jared Dudley, according to the New York Times: “Rockets: Kyle Lowry, Chuck Hayes, Chase Budinger and Courtney Lee. Mo Williams and DeAndre Jordan of the Clippers will form the core of a team, with hopes that their teammate Blake Griffin, last season’s rookie of the year, will join them.
Others who have committed include J. J. Hickson of the Kings, Eric Maynor of the Thunder, Al Harrington of the Nuggets, Jermaine O’Neal of the Celtics and Jared Dudley of the Suns.”
So, no Bobcats out there, the way it looks right now. But we know Kemba Walker will play in the Jimmer Fredette organized rookie games in Utah later this month. There are rumors of a series developing between Washington, DC based Goodman League and the Los Angeles based Drew League, then a couple New York leagues want to get in on it, the Baltimore area players under Carmelo Anthony formed a team. There are rumors of a Philadelphia team and an Indiana team gathering to compete. The Philadelphia and Indiana based teams could prove interesting for some of the Bobcats players. With D.J. White being involved in Indiana and Gerald Henderson and Matt Carroll living or having roots in Philadelphia, it’s possible they could get involved.
I don’t so much worry about any of the Bobcats players really getting fat or anything. Boris Diaw has the Eurobasket tournament to stay in shape and the rest of the guys seem to be dedicated, as does much of the league. Bottom line is, the lockout sucks.
Andrew Barraclough is Senior Editor for RobertoGato.com, a Charlotte Bobcats Blog on the Fansided Network. Follow him on Twitter @therobertogato and Like the site on Facebook.