Why you should be rooting for the Bobcats

I don't ever remember actively rooting for a Charlotte Bobcats team before. For their short 10-year history, the Bobcats have been a franchise defined by a silly name, drab uniforms, an overbearingly famous and imposing majority owner and some of the least-compelling basketball known to the Association.

The Bobcats haven't just been bad--though they've certainly been that, at times historically so--they've been boringly bad. Even their Exciting Young Players--high-drafted college hypes like Emeka Okafor, Raymond Felton and D.J. Augustin--have mostly proven to be low-upside, prematurely old rotation cogs, not the kind of fresh talent needed to inject a moribund franchise with vitality.

They did make the playoffs once before, with a Frankensteinian roster of displaced league oddities like Gerald Wallace, Stephen Jackson and Boris Diaw, which in theory should have been pretty fun. But even that roster was so dependent on last-stand veterans--let the history books show that in the Cats' first-round series, 37-year-old Theo Ratliff was the starting center over Tyson Chandler, who would be the second-most-important player on a championship Mavs roster just one summer later--and so obviously and depressingly tapped out on potential that it was hard to really get behind them. 

I bring all this up to give context to what a personally momentous occasion it was for me last night to find myself pulling for the Bobcats, harder than I've pulled for any team this postseason. Of course a large chunk of the credit for that has to be given to the hosting Heat, since rare is the Miami opponent I don't find myself heing oddly supportive of whilst their matchup is ongoing. I spent most of my basketball-watching life hating on the Spurs, but when they played LeBron and company in The Finals last year, I was literally (not literally) bleeding silver and black for a couple of weeks. 

But this was more than just my typical "Anyone But Miami" reflexes. I actually liked this stupid Bobcats team. I hadn't paid them terribly much mind this year prior to the postseason--old Charlotte prejudices combined with a spiritual block on the likes of Gerald Henderson and Ramon Sessions, and the belief that eventually they'd turn out to be the same terrible Bobcats of previous years. 

But as I was watching last night, I realized I actually liked most of the guys on this team now. It's fun watching Josh McRoberts hit line-drive threes and make high-low post deliveries and occasionally posterize unexpecting back-up bigs. I was so focused on Gerald Henderson's deplorable offensive game that I never realized how enjoyable he could be locking down on the defensive end. Cody Zeller is more Hansbrough-esque than I previously realized, which is always good entertainment. Pretty sure there's only four quarters in a basketball game, but somehow Kemba Walker manages to hit a half-dozen buzzer-beating end-of-quarter threes a night--impressive stuff. And thankfully, Ramon Sessions is no longer associated with this team--though they got Luke Ridnour in return, and truth told, that ain't much better. 

And then there's Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. When MKG was in discussion to go to the Bobcats with the No. 2 overall pick a couple summers ago, nobody doubted his bonafides on the defensive end, but there were two primary trains of thought regarding the Kentucky forward's offensive potential: 

1. He has absolutely no clue how to score and probably never will.
2. He's smart and hard-working, he'll figure it out. 

Two years into his career and I'm not sure we're any closer to figuring out which of the two is the more accurate or relevant position. They might both be true: His shooting form is so bad, so fundamentally misguided that even after a year's worth of improvement working with legendary shooter Mark Price, it still looks basically unsalvageable. 

But MKG can get about 10 points a game on athleticism and sheer force of will alone; against this undermanned Heat front line (whom he was able to line-drive his way to the basket on with impunity last night), he can get even more. With his defense considered, it's possible that Kidd-Gilchrist could still justify his high lottery selection without ever refining his offensive game--odd to say for a guy who LeBron scored 61 on, but he plays the four-time MVP particularly well, taking away his driving lanes and forcing him into the kind of tough fadeaway jumpers that only players of his specific build, skill and athleticism can--though it'll always be a fascinating push-pull between the facets of the game MKG adds to tremendously for Charlotte, and the ones he detracts from nearly as dramatically. 

The heart of this year's Bobcats team, however, is obviously Al Jefferson. Big Al spent the second half of the season dominating the low post like only fans of the '09 Timberwolves remembered that he could, making scoring on the block against any level of defender look simply like another fundamental aspect of the game, which anyone should be able to do with enough practice and discipline. To paraphrase Doc Rivers, you didn't know how he was going to score once he got the ball, only that he would, and in such a direct and unpretentious manner that it would seem casually insulting to his defender.

It's hard not to root for Big Al under normal circumstances, the guy being so modest and unassuming and generally anachronistic for a 2010's center. But it's just about impossible not to root for him in this series, when plantar fasciitis has robbed him of his lift and quickness--not much, admittedly, but enough to make a difference--and left him hobbling up and down the court like he was paired in a three-legged race with an invisible Kurt Rambis. His normally indomitable physicality is badly limited in this series, but he keeps grinding just the same, flashing his quickness and craftiness with his hands instead of his lower body, still finding a way to be a difference-making presence. Like Joakim Noah in last year's Nets series, you almost want to cry at the gamerness of it all.

Jefferson might be the team's rock and their only obvious All-Star-caliber performer, but he's not the team's MVP this year. That would be first-year coach Steve Clifford, a Coach of the Year slam dunk in a less ridiculously competitive season, who took an identity-less team that could only hope to go from "unprecedentedly terrible" to just "terrible," and turned them into a defensive juggernaut with a clear offensive hierarchy and a real sense of self. For the first time in possibly ever, you could say the phrase "Charlotte Bobcats basketball" and actually have it mean something.

You could see it last night, and even in the first game, with how the team kept fighting back. The Heat were never likely to lose or even trail in either game, but the Bobcats would not let the reach escape velocity, trimming the deficit to within striking distance each time Miami looked ready to put on some Christopher Cross and sail off into the sunset. Last night, they nearly sent the damn thing into overtime, with the Bobcats reacting with unnatural poise and confidence down the stretch, unwilling to accept a Heat lead of eight with 2:30 remaining as the game's final statement. That's likely largely due to the leadership of proven winners like Walker and MKG, but even with those guys, no way does that comeback happen under Paul Silas or Mike Dunlap.

Ordinarily it would be irresponsible for me to advocate the bandwagoning of a team with such a limited immediate future--the Bobcats are not going to win this series, and if they turned out to only have two games left in their season, it would come as little surprise. Usually, you want a Bandwagon team with at least the potential of going a couple of rounds, part of the reason why I ranked Charlotte 14th out of 16 in my Playoff Bandwagon Rankings back in February. 

But even at this late stage, I now believe it's worth hitching on with Charlotte, because no franchise would derive more meaning and satisfaction from winning just a single game in their first-round series. The Bobcats have never won a playoff game--Orlando swept them in 2010--and what's more, they've never beaten Miami in the Big Three Era--0-15 against their Southeast Division "rival," Miami outclassing MJ's woeful club each and every time. Taking just one game, to prove that they're for real, to put them on the national map, would do wonders for the franchise, and be as exciting a victory as you'll likely see pre-Conference Finals this postseason.

And I think the Bobcats have future potential, too. Clifford's continued presence hopefully ensures that the team's new defensive culture remains intact, and high-pedigree prospects like Walker, Kidd-Gilchrist and Zeller still have upside to be reached, while Jefferson has proven that he can be one of the league's deadliest offensive weapons if healthy (and has a relatively short contract if not). They have good role players on cheap deals, and a good deal of pending financial flexibility via Ben Gordon's expiring contract this summer.

Meanwhile, their own draft pick might not be in the top 10 every year anymore, and in fact this year their first-rounder goes to Chicago via the awful-in-retrospect Tyrus Thomas deal. But they do have a potential home-run asset lurking in a future first-round pick from Detroit, which is virtually unprotected as of next year, and they have all of their own first-rounders after that. If managed right--and MJ and friends are finally starting to show a little consistency in this matter--this could be a fun team for a while.

When the 2010 Bobcats made the playoffs for the first time in franchise history, they got swept, regressed the next regular season and were quickly dismantled. I don't believe any of those things will happen this time around--instead, we might be witnessing the germination of the first legitimately good (and regularly legitimately good) Bobcats team, which is exciting almost regardless of the players. And if they do win one of the next two in Charlotte, I am absolutely gonna lose it, and so should you, really.