Are you Ready???

I just had to share this with everyone.  I love the slogan and I feel like we're going to see this very thing this season.


Hello Bobcats brethren!
Have you missed us?
Did you even realize that we were gone?
If you're anything like the staff here at TSP, you've spent the offseason dreaming of better days.  You've speculated who the best coach to hire was, who the best draft picks were, and even who we should have been targeting in the free agent market.  Read on and let me enlighten you as to what has been going on.

The front office, led by Rich Cho, has made all of those tough decisions for us, and now we get to watch the team take shape.  Mike Dunlap is our coach, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Jeff Taylor were the 2 small forwards that we drafted, and we traded away an expiring contract in Maggette for Gordon and a protected first round pick.  We also picked up free agent Ramon Sessions and snagged a very serviceable big man in Brendan Haywood off of waivers for a very small price.  I think that about covers our summer in a nutshell.  Oh yeah, I almost forgot that there was the Democratic National Convention, which netted Charlotte tons of publicity and proved that we could handle an event of that magnitude, but that drifts away from our main topic, so back to the Bobcats.

We have a training camp coming up soon (less than a week away).  Our Bobcats will be on the UNC-Asheville campus this time around.  I actually think this is the BEST way to get the Bobcats out to the fans.  I would even go so far as to suggest that our team have training camp at a different campus every year.  Get the team closer to the fans...at any rate, having an "away-from-home" camp is pretty cool in my book.  As for this training camp, we can view what pieces we have and see who we may need to scrap and who we need to sign (I glance to Corey Higgins and Tyrus Thomas).  Under contract I believe we have 13, so there should be 2 spots open to fill...I personally am looking at the PF and PG spots and expecting guys getting picked up that can possibly play a "combo" role.

So we have a rookie coach, 2 rookie SFs, a 2nd year PG, a 2nd year C, a 3rd year PF, and then there's Hendo, Gordon, Williams, Sessions, Haywood, Carroll, Diop, & Thomas.  Crazy part is that I'm not the least bit worried about the team.  I'm actually quite excited about this season.  I don't expect to win a championship, but I do expect our team to be one of the more exciting and fun teams to watch.  I'd even go so far as to say we may win 30 games this year.  I can also see MKG as a front runner for rookie of the year talks.

Why am I so positive about this season?  Let me start by saying that this team isn't last year's team.  There are new faces...lots of them.  There is new talent, a new coaching style, & a new game-plan.  Best part of it all is that the bulk of the team fits in this new playing style.  We have players that complement each other.  We'll have 2 sophomores that will actually benefit from an entire training camp.  We have players buying into the new culture of "TougherFasterStronger".  Yep, that's the new motto for this season, and I think it fits the team perfectly.  Maybe I'm wrong and the whole thing blows up (wouldn't be the first time I was wrong), but I don't think I will be on this one.  I actually think that Cho and company are about to put something incredible back in Charlotte.  We're going to have a team that we can be proud of, a team that will turn heads, and a team that will even make some Beelievers drop the notion and get on board with us.  It's coming Bobcats fans!  We even have mainstream sports media writing articles about us.  The articles aren't just fluff pieces that contain information that would be observed by a passer-by.  These articles are sound, and are written by authors that are paying attention.  Authors are taking notes and actually researching.  Why?  Well...everyone compares really good teams to the 72-win Bulls, so everyone is watching the 7-win Bobcats to see what happens down on Trade Street.  Good publicity or bad publicity...it's all publicity.  Fans are curious.  People are talking.  They will watch to see what happens.  We are in the spotlight.  It might have taken the lowest win percentage to get that attention, but now we have the spotlight to show the world what we WILL become.  I've done a BUNCH of reading on Facebook and Twitter to defend our fighting felines because I believe in this team.  If people take time to make a smart comment about the team, then they are at least curious.  All it will take is the team proving the naysayers wrong, and we will become something special.

I got my ringside seat; some nights with the Cats Crazies, some nights watching SportSouth...I'd suggest that everyone else get theirs.  This is going to be awesome to see!