The People You're Paying to Be in Shorts | Dorktown

(pensive music) - [Jon] We have a very fluid and fast-moving series of developments to report from Miami Beach. Mike is currently at La Gorce Country Club, golfing on the back nine. And it appears as though a club representative has just informed him that his shorts violate the club's dress code. This is a highly chaotic set of circumstances, we will pass on further details as they become known. Here in the meantime is a file photo of Mike playing golf in cargo shorts at another date. His shorts

perhaps look like these, and may in fact be these very shorts. More word coming in now: we have attained a copy of La Gorce Country Club's dress code. It would seem as though shorts are permitted, but Mike is wearing cargo shorts, which are specifically not allowed. And ... right now, they are saying they want him to go back to the clubhouse and buy some Bermuda shorts to wear. They say Bermuda shorts are permitted. Now it does appear that if Mike is intent on wearing his cargo shorts, if my in

terpretation of this document is in fact accurate, he could legally patronize the Cabana Cafe. This is, of course, speculation on my part, as I am not sure whether or not he is hungry ... We've got a new development here. Mike is refusing to change his shorts! He is in... He is instead walking back to the tee to finish his round while still wearing these dangerous and irresponsible shorts. He is likely facing a lifetime ban for this offense. If I know Mike like I think I do, he's just gonna go r

ight up the road and start his own golf course. Hell, he's Mike, he can do that. And I mean, we know the man loves golf. Which is funny, because he made his living in basketball, which is one of the highest-scoring sports around, dramatically higher than most sports. And he was one of the all-time most prolific scorers in that high-scoring sport. And of all the sports he could've taken on as a new obsession, he chose just about the only one in which the objective is to keep your score as low as

possible. But that's not even the funny part. This is the funny part. Recently, something strange happened to basketball: in a very real way, at least for Mike, he stood to gain by keeping the score down. Basketball had become golf, and the Mike we all know would've been the last person on Earth who would ever accept that. It's been a very strange year. (mellow music) - [Seth] George Shinn grew up poor outside Charlotte, North Carolina, then attended business school, then went into the business

school business and got rich. Shinn wanted more than anything to buy his basketball-loving hometown a team in the NBA, which was looking to expand. Charlotte didn't have as many people or televisions as other cities, but soon it would have a brand-new, 25,000-seat Coliseum, way bigger than any existing NBA arena. It worked. In 1988, George Shinn bought Charlotte its first NBA team. 75,000 people filled the streets to celebrate Shinn. He considered running for governor. The Charlotte Hornets look

ed cool. They drafted excellent players. They won playoff games. They sold out night after night. Shinn threatened to relocate almost immediately. He fired a coach whose brother had died that same day. He declined to chip in for a new arena. He drove away those excellent players. He was accused of sexual assault, his extramarital affairs made public before a civil trial found him not liable. The league encouraged him to sell and lined up the perfect local buyer. Shinn refused. The 2002 Charlotte

Hornets won and made the postseason, like usual. Before those playoffs ended, Shinn finalized a deal to move the Hornets to New Orleans. "Kiss my grits," said George Shinn to the city that once threw him a parade. But the NBA couldn't forsake the people and televisions of Charlotte to grit-kissing. The league immediately sought a new Charlotte franchisee, and chose Robert Johnson. Bob had just sold his creation, BET Networks, to become America's first Black billionaire. Now he'd be the first Bl

ack owner of an NBA team. But that team couldn't be the Hornets, obviously. Market testing suggested new potential names, which begot new potential logos: The Charlotte Flight. Appropriate. The Charlotte Dragons. Unique. But sometimes the boss is named Robert, so he thinks the team should be named Robert. And he attended the Universities of Illinois and Princeton, so he likes the color orange. And so, yeah, just two years after Charlotte lost the Hornets, here was their new NBA team, the Bobcats

. - [Jon] Oh, no. This looks like a fictional basketball team from the Law & Order universe. Very unfortunate. Then again, a lot of stuff designed in the aughts looked terrible, and you can at least understand the instinct to differentiate themselves from the Hornets as much as they possible could. They didn't want to look like leftovers, you know? In fact, maybe this aggressively generic branding offers Mike and company a blank canvas. Maybe it's perfect. In 2006, he returned to his home state

and bought a minority stake in the Bobcats, and before long he became majority owner. As part of the deal, he took full control of basketball operations, which, of course, is what he wanted in Charlotte all along. (upbeat music) - [Alex] The first seven seasons of Bobcats basketball don't stand out in any glaring way. They resemble a normal expansion team finding their footing. In their inaugural season, Charlotte was among the dregs of the league alongside the Hawks and those Hornets that had s

purned the city in defecting to New Orleans. But nothing unusual about plenty of losing in year one, and they did take a good step forward in year two, winning over 40% more games. Over the last five years, they've mostly been subpar, but still were at least decent enough to remain above the league's bottomfeeders in each of those seasons, and they even experienced their first playoff run a year ago. They could reasonably be considered to have overachieved in these nascent years, especially cons

idering their track record in the draft, where they simply could not catch a break. They were automatically assigned the fourth overall selection in their first-ever draft in 2004. But the top tier of that draft went two deep: Dwight Howard, a prep-to-pro phenom out of Atlanta, and Emeka Okafor, March Madness' Most Outstanding Player who'd just led UConn to a national title. Wanting to make a splash, they traded up from four to two, guaranteeing themselves one of them and perfectly content to ta

ke whoever the Orlando Magic didn't with the top spot. The Magic took the raw 18-year-old, leaving the Bobcats to choose the more polished 21-year-old who played three years of college ball under Jim Calhoun. And while that paid more immediate dividends with Okafor winning Rookie of the Year, Howard would develop into a guy who a few years down the road finished top-five in MVP voting for four straight seasons and was a runaway slam-dunk winner for Defensive Player of the Year in three straight

seasons. Okafor was a good player but didn't have that kind of ceiling, and chronic ankle issues didn't help matters, preventing him from ever building on that promising rookie year. The next season, they were dealt the fifth overall pick despite having the second-worst record, and again saw a similarly impactful player, the local Chris Paul, chosen one pick before Charlotte was set to go on the clock because they refused to sacrifice the 13th pick to move up for him. Instead, they settled for a

different local product: Raymond Felton, a UNC Tar Heel like Jordan who didn't exactly meet lofty expectations, especially given who they were so close to potentially landing. So instead of a top-five all-time point guard running the show with a three-time Defensive Player of the Year and perennial MVP candidate down low, they're building their franchise around Okafor and Felton, mere mortals who did enough to help keep them just treading water. In 2006, for the third consecutive draft they wat

ched a future star go just one spot prior, then they burned the third overall pick on Adam Morrison. In a forgettable, injury-riddled 2.5-year stint in Charlotte, they couldn't get even those water-treading contributions from him. Mired in mediocrity over the ensuing seasons, they were unable to secure any more premium draft picks, but did select several key players who will form much of the nucleus of this year's team. (mellow music) - [Jon] These are the 2011-2012 Charlotte Bobcats, and proud

we are of all of them. Jamario Moon will eventually join a cast of Derrick Brown, Matt Carroll, Reggie Williams, Byron Mullens, Bismack Biyombo, Gerald Henderson, D.J. Augustin, Cory Higgins, Kemba Walker, Boris Diaw, Corey Maggette, Tyrus Thomas, Eduardo Nájera, D.J. White, and DeSagana Diop. We unconditionally love each and every one of these guys, and we think you will too. Unfortunately, as we enter the 2011-12 season, there are not a whole lot of people who give a damn. - [Kofie] I lived in

Raleigh, North Carolina for 18 years. From 1995 to 2013, I lived about 2.5 hours away from Charlotte. So while I can't speak for the city of Charlotte, I can speak from a North Carolinian's perspective. When it comes to sports in North Carolina, the Bobcats were already in dead last with the deck stacked against them. In the NFL, we had the new Carolina Panthers, who had some fun years including making that Super Bowl where they lost to Tom Brady and absolutely nothing else happened that entire

time. There's also Charlotte Motor Speedway, with NASCAR being a huge draw throughout the Carolinas. In Durham we have the Durham Bulls, who you probably remember from the movie "Bull Durham." In Raleigh we have the Carolina Hurricanes, a team that won the Stanley Cup in 2006. Yeah, yeah, people want the Hartford Whalers back, but the city of Raleigh and the state of North Carolina freakin' love the Hurricanes. Myself included. But ask anyone in the state and they'll tell you that North Carolin

a revolves around college basketball. If you were born here, you have a college basketball team. Sometimes it depends on where your family went, but even then you might have family members that went to different schools. My dad went to Duke and my mom taught at NC State, so it was on me to hate UNC with all my might. I still do. With these fandoms, you'd argue with your classmates every day at school over Chris Paul, J.J. Redick, Tyler Hansbrough, Julius Hodge. Between Duke, NC State, UNC, and W

ake Forest alone, you had many fan bases throughout the state. My school even took us on field trips to movie theaters to watch the ACC Tournament during school. College basketball consumed so much of our time that we didn't have time to even think about an NBA team with an uninspired color scheme paired with a horrendous logo. If you wanted to go to a sporting event in Charlotte, it was probably to watch the Carolina Panthers or visit the NASCAR Hall of Fame. If I had to rank them all in terms

of popularity in North Carolina? I think this is my answer: In the year 2011, the Bobcats had a buzz level closer to the post-Steph Curry Davidson Wildcats. Yes, Davidson. A college that usually enrolls around 2,000 students at a time. (mellow music) - [Jon] Well, what do you know? Mike's at the links. Where else would he be? There's a lockout. This time we find him at the American Century Tournament in Lake Tahoe. And on the seventh hole, I shit you not, he places a side bet with a guy in the c

rowd. The guy tells him he can't hit the green in one shot. And Mike decides 500 bucks says he can make it to the green in one shot, and then he goes and does exactly that because he's Mike. And then he runs over to the crowd to go pick up those 500 bucks like it's the happiest day of his life. I mean, come on, let him have this little slice of instant gratification, because he sure as hell does not get any of that in his day job right now. While most multimillionaire tycoons around this point i

n history are shifting their money around trying to make a quick buck and then bail, Mike is attempting something very strange: he is trying to accomplish something with his money. He's trying to build something. The results, of course, indicate that he's not that great at it yet. But here in 2011 we find a guy who's finally reckoning with that. Turns out, the "win-now" attitude that used to bring him so much success only works when you're wearing shorts. "Now I've got to live vicariously throug

h the people I'm paying to be in shorts," he says. He's playing the long game now. He has to. This is not an "any given season" kind of league. From the 1980s 'til now, there have been 32 NBA championship trophies handed out. If they were magically handed out evenly, every single team would have one. But the divide is very stark between this small, four-team slice -- the Lakers, Bulls, Celtics, Spurs -- and the other 26 teams. That supermajority has won eight NBA titles. These four have won 24.

Many of the rest of these teams enter every single season knowing, and I mean knowing, that they will not win the title. Behaving otherwise is like shoving the joystick around and mashing the buttons while "INSERT COIN" is flashing on the screen. So Mike has to be something he is fundamentally not: patient. Believe it or not, he's making a lot of progress in this regard, and you can see that progress in his most recent hire. Last month he brought in Rich Cho, whose career path couldn't be any mo

re different than Mike's, as general manager. Rich was born in Burma, immigrated to the States when he was very young, and became both an engineer and a lawyer before eventually finding his way through NBA front offices and landing in Charlotte. Now, Rich is a sentimental guy. He'll later start his very own food blog called Big Time Bites in which he reviews meals he eats in the style of scouting reports and rates the price point on a scale of one to five basketballs. It's very, very endearing.

But his approach to the business of basketball is as sharp and analytical as anybody's. In Rich, Mike has found the calculating pragmatism that he himself has never had. These guys have formed a plan. They need to stay the course, avoid taking on big contracts, and preserve plenty of space between the payroll and salary cap so they can make big moves in free agency over the next year or two. The way Rich sees it, these Bobcats must escape this middle-of-the-road purgatory. In order to get to whe

re they want to be, they have to make peace with the possibility of being a bad basketball team. This is an attitude that, in his younger years, Mike simply could not afford to have. But at long last, he's getting there. A lot of things are new to Mike these days. See, given that this lockout is ongoing, and since he's an owner, he's prohibited by the league from talking to his players. He can't talk to any players. In fact, while he's on the course this weekend, he has to go out of his way to a

void the NBA players who happen to be out there golfing. The rules are so unforgiving that Mike probably isn't even allowed to wave hello. Can you believe that? He might be the most famous person in the entire world. Can't even wave. (funky music) - [Seth] The 2011 NBA lockout drags into October and November, meaning that for just the second time in history, the league must delay and truncate a basketball season -- 66 games per team instead of 82 -- opening on Christmas instead of around Hallowe

en. Why? What could possibly keep NBA team owners and NBA players from doing NBA basketball? Mostly, they can't agree on how to split BRI. That's basketball-related income, the cash received for tickets, TV rights, commercials, hats, shirts, chicken tenders, et cetera. The recently-expired collective bargaining agreement limited the players' portion of BRI to 57%. For the laborers, the people who are in shorts, performing in the TV show, donating their names and likenesses to the merchandise ...

57% of the money. But especially to small-market owners, even 57% felt too high. Last year in New Orleans, a debt-saddled George Shinn desperately tried to offload his Hornets franchise. His buyer, a local ship tycoon, got cold feet because of a bad year on the water and a bad feeling about the impending lockout. The league itself had to step in and buy the Hornets from Shinn. Unusual, and alarming. A year later in the lockout, Michael Jordan fronts a group of small-market franchise owners who

are spooked. They want to shrink the players' portion of BRI from 57 to 50% at most, and they'll get pretty close to victory on that front. You'll find concessions therein, but also smaller victories: for instance, an amnesty clause allows each team to dump one onerous contract without much penalty. In Charlotte, everyone's looking at DeSagana Diop. I'm... I'm sorry, man. Diop's story is objectively one of success. He was born in Senegal, picked up basketball at 16, came to the U.S. for two high

school seasons, got drafted in the 2001 lottery, and has held a steady NBA job ever since. Good for Gana. If anyone says otherwise, it's not his fault. Gana didn't compare his teenaged self to Shaq and Hakeem Olajuwon. Skip Bayless did that. Gana didn't offer himself a lucrative five-year contract in 2008. The Dallas Mavericks did that, and then they traded him to Charlotte. But now Diop is coming off a couple unproductive seasons as a Bobcat and surgery to repair a ruptured Achilles earlier th

is year. The question of how Michael Jordan should use his hard-won amnesty clause is sadly easy to answer. Diop notwithstanding, center is the Bobcats' most pressing position of need, and they want Kwame Brown to fill it. Brown first signed with Charlotte last summer, an astonishing turn of events for both parties. Brown and Michael Jordan have histories bound together by failure. Jordan's first executive gig, as president of the Washington Wizards, was tainted from the outset by his decision t

o draft Brown number one overall in 2001. And Brown's early career in Washington was tainted from the outset by having Jordan as a boss and teammate. MJ placed immense expectations on the rookie, then ruthlessly bullied him for failing to meet them. After nearly a decade -- a decade pocked with professional disappointment for both Brown and Jordan -- they reunited here in Charlotte. Brown's agent called his client's move an "interesting story," a choice to embrace the shadow Jordan cast on his c

areer, rather than flee it. And, playing for his old boss and tormentor, Kwame registered one of his more productive seasons, eventually securing the starting center job. At season's end, he thanked Jordan publicly for reviving his career. In December, as the lockout wraps up and management is actually allowed to speak to players again, the Cats leave their meeting with Brown feeling good. A week later, he signs with Golden State. (smooth jazz music) - [Jon] During Mike's playing days, episodes

like these were typically spun not as negative personal traits, but as inevitable consequences of superseding positive traits. "Oh, he's just intense." "Oh, he's just such a competitor, it's what makes him a winner." I can't honestly tell you I'm impressed by that. Your mileage may vary. In any case, that's probably always gonna be some part of who he is. He still dutifully maintains his little greenhouse full of personal grudges and grievances that he spent decades cultivating. But there is rea

son to believe his heart has grown a size or two. There's the fact that Brown, a considerably proud and outspoken guy, would still want anything to do with him. And then there's the way these guys will talk about Mike as they live through this season that's ahead of them. You'll meet 'em all soon, but please be patient, because in large part they have barely even met each other. Remember, the players and coaches were forbidden from having any interaction with one another until December. No pract

ices, no phone calls, nothing. They should've had several months for coaching, for the team to develop chemistry on and off the court, for rookies to school up in summer-league ball. Instead, they have to cram all their preparation into a couple weeks and change, and then charge directly into a 66-game gauntlet. They're gonna need to fly the plane while they're building it, and they're gonna have to do it within a very compressed schedule. Sometimes there will be three games in three days. Nine

games in twelve days. Chartered flights all over the country to play elite teams and budding dynasties that got to sleep in their own beds the night before. Of course, every other team will also be subject to this, but the specific makeup of Charlotte's roster figures to leave them especially vulnerable. Who's to blame? Mike is to blame! The lockout was initiated by the owners, and it was Mike who led the hard-line coalition of owners who were determined to push the players' share below 50/50. T

here were plenty of owners around the league who were totally willing to cede a larger share to the players, and it's a safe bet that if it were not for Mike and his faction of hard-liners, the lockout would've ended a lot sooner. Throughout these months, many have pointed out an exchange had by Mike during the 1998 lockout, when he was still technically a player sitting on the other side of the table. Washington Wizards owner Abe Pollin told Mike that the players should trust the owners, all th

e players in the room laughed at him, Pollin did some pouting. Then Mike said, "listen, you're rich. If there's money trouble, how about you reach into your own pocket before you reach into ours?" Then Pollin said, "how am I supposed to live like that?" And then Mike said, "if you can't compete, sell the team." And then Pollin said, "fuck you." And now Mike is the one insisting that the players should trust the owners. Magnificent stuff here. Is he wrong? Well, I mean, yeah, but let's try to hum

or him for just a minute. Let's try to see things from the side of the humble small business owner. (pensive music) It's true that right now, Mike is kinda taking a bath on this whole venture, losing millions on the Bobcats every year. In part that's because they're a young franchise that isn't very good, and in part because nobody's buying their jerseys. Overall in 2011, the NBA will make $3.1 billion in apparel sales. The Lakers are the biggest seller, with nearly $700 million, and the Bobcats

are in dead last with $50 million, because nobody wants to walk around looking like a Sim. But the big factor is the size of their market. Charlotte's metropolitan area offers a small number of potential customers compared to the larger markets. There's actually not much correlation between market size and on-court success -- hello Spurs, hello Knicks -- but sitting in a market with a fraction of the customers a lot of teams enjoy certainly puts a team like the Bobcats in a tougher position to

succeed. Mike's solution to this, in part, is more revenue sharing. He believes the league should collectively do a lot more to fund small-market teams. He believes this so strongly, in fact, that in September he was willing to light 100,000 bucks on fire just for the pleasure of saying so out loud. You know what? He's absolutely right. Some Lakers or Knicks fans might not like to admit this, but they need the Bobcats. They need to play in Charlotte and Milwaukee and Memphis to maintain their st

atus, and the NBA's status, as a nationwide cultural power. So not only would a robust revenue-sharing system be fair, it would be good for everybody. Ultimately, Mike does get what he wants here to some extent. Now, the probably here is that Mike, who's probably concerned he won't be able to shake enough apples loose from that tree, wants the players to cough up more money of their own. Who did more than anybody, ever, to drive up the market value of those players? A younger Mike did, decades a

go. And who declared that the players, and not the organization, bring success to the organization? Mike did, during his Hall of Fame speech just a couple years ago. - He said, "Organization wins championships." I said, "I didn't see organization playing with the flu in Utah. I didn't see 'em playing with the bad ankle." - [Jon] These players grew up worshiping Mike, and to see him play hardball against them now kinda breaks their hearts. Many of them, from Klay Thompson to Paul George, call him

a hypocrite. This is new. As you'd expect with somebody who's accrued more fame than Alexander the Great, Mike has been the subject of a great deal of scrutiny over the years, ranging from more reasonable critiques like his disinterest in showing up for even the safest and most clear-cut of political movements, and the likes of Ralph Nader taking him to task for Nike's overseas labor practices, to all the entertaining and likely fictional conspiracy theories NBA fans are famous for. But this is

the first time any of his NBA successors, who almost without exception grew up idolizing him, have seen him as a traitor. It'll pass. These things always pass. Mike, for his part, rejects the idea that he's a sellout. He believes that in an economy reeling from the housing crisis, the players should accept a share of the losses. I don't agree. I don't think you should try to put the organization above the players, because at the end of the day... - Players still gotta go out there and perform.

You guys gotta pay us, but I still gotta go out and play. (audience laughs) - [Jon] In fairness to Mike, he is not the kind of obscenely rich guy we're used to, right? Those bankers who created those economic conditions in the first place? He's not them. This is a very low bar that he clears nonetheless: at least his long-term project is to build something real and tangible and successful that enriches people's lives in some way. And at least we never needed an economics degree to understand how

he amassed his capital in the first place. We watched him make his millions. We saw him earn every cent of every dollar, night after night. He was the one. And he's looking for the next one. (pensive music) Mike doesn't know this player just yet. Which is to say, he has seen him, as he's seen every college up-and-comer. But he doesn't yet know which one of them corresponds with this vision. This player will soon reveal himself. He is a guaranteed megastar waiting in the wings, so obviously so t

hat he'll be selected with the first pick no matter who holds that pick. There was Shaquille O'Neal, and then Tim Duncan, and then LeBron James, and very soon, there will be him. He is the unicorn. He will represent, and in fact help to precipitate, a revolution throughout the entire sport. His metrics will be unlike any seen before. He will present a combination of skills and size once thought impossible for any one player to possess. He is exactly the transformational figure the Charlotte Bobc

ats are looking for. Mike must find him. He may not know him. But he can see him. (tense music) - [Alex] The 2011-2012 Bobcats season starts against a Bucks team with whom they engaged in a significant draft night trade. Stephen Jackson -- who never encountered a shot he didn't like -- was the team's best, most accomplished player. They basically shipped out him, along with backup point guard Shaun Livingston and the draft rights to Tobias Harris, for Corey Maggette -- who never encountered a sh

ot he didn't like -- and the draft rights to center Bismack Biyombo. The trade cost them a piece of their soul as well as one of the final remnants of their first playoff team, the guy who had more postseason cache than anyone in the building who didn't sign the checks. With the pricey Maggette coming off a down year in Milwaukee, absorbing his contract in exchange for a lottery pick is the latest in a pattern of moves signaling a franchise clearly all-in on pivoting its direction. The Charlotte

Bobcats are sick and tired of picking one spot behind where a transcendent talent winds up getting chosen. No more half measures: they are hell-bent on finding their savior, their Jordan, through the draft. But if the goal is to stink this year, they don't do a very good job as the season kicks off. Despite blowout losses in their opening game each of the prior three seasons, now the Bobcats have decided to show up for this season's opener, and late in the first half against his old team, Magge

tte shows he's still got his hops by finishing a dazzling alley-oop. The Bobcats' deficit is cut from 13 to 11. Maggette's another Bobcat who went to college in the state, playing a year at Duke, hated rival of Jordan's Tar Heels. Throughout his eight-year stint in L.A. he established himself as one of the great Clippers ever, and he's still productive, but he's in the twilight of his career, and with a bloated contract, he's here mostly because of the top-10 pick that came along with him, and p

erhaps a little to provide a steady veteran presence for the youngsters. - [Seth] One of those youngsters is the guy who threw that alley-oop, 24-year-old D.J. Augustin. Augustin was born and raised in New Orleans, until Hurricane Katrina forced D.J.'s family to move to the Houston area for his senior year of high school. Augustin found comfort there -- a second home -- so much that he spurned LSU to play college ball at Texas, igniting tantrums across Louisiana. It went well. The 5'11" Augustin

made a name for himself as Kevin Durant's freshman table-setter, and then, in his sophomore season, as the nation's best point guard, winner of the Bob Cousy Award. Charlotte drafted Augustin in 2008, even though they already employed former Cousy Award winner Raymond Felton, who himself had recently replaced 5'10" Stanford legend Brevin Knight. Our Bobcats have a thing for stumpy point guards with sparkling college résumés. After a couple years backing up Felton, Augustin finally got his chanc

e to take over as chief ball handler last season, and he still holds that job. D.J. confidently calls his own number to pull ahead of Milwaukee in the final minute. But! The succession continues. The night's flashiest handles come from Kemba Walker in his Bobcats debut. Walker exploits a mismatch to shake ... and shake ... and finish with some English off the glass, enough to get MJ all riled up in beige. Everyone already knows this rookie, because -- you guessed it! -- Kemba's a diminutive poin

t guard who won the Cousy Award for his scintillating performance at UConn. Once again, the Bobcats host a surplus of "little guys, and hope they can bypass a logjam by letting those young speedsters share the floor. - [Alex] Entering this season, coach Paul Silas placed a heavy emphasis on upping their tempo and improving their transition offense, that an advantage of going small was being able to get out and run to create easy scoring opportunities. And here's an early example of that, with Ge

rald Henderson pushing the pace and smoothly finishing a fast break to extend their lead en route to squeaking out the game one win. Blossoming into the crown jewel of these Bobcats, Henderson's another Duke Blue Devil whose fearlessness and bravado truly earned him Jordan's respect. For the first season and change of his career, he was just a bit player under former coach Larry Brown. But upon Brown's December 2010 resignation, Henderson's playing time spiked way up as he became a focal point o

f the team. Now in year three, he is the direct protégé of Michael Jordan. In the boss' eyes, Henderson's a budding All-Star who he envisions becoming the type of player every contender needs, and who he himself used to be: a two-way wing who could go manufacture a bucket on his own in the cauldron of big games when defenses clamp down and sharp passing and off-ball movement aren't generating good looks. Teams have sniffed around trading for him, but Jordan was having none of that. He is their o

ne untouchable player, even if staying in Charlotte means Jordan will have to deal with not being the best member of the organization at his favorite sport. - [Seth] The Bobcats open their second game on an 11-0 run, and they're not facing the Bucks anymore. They're skunking the defending Eastern champs: LeBron, Wade, Bosh, and the Miami Heat. The Cats hold their edge, then extend it before halftime when Augustin banks in a deep buzzer-beater. The crowd is electric, and that includes Cam Newton,

seated courtside with MJ for the second game in a row. Good times at the Time Warner Cable Arena, aka "The Cable Box." - [Jon] Cool hat, Cam. (laughing) VERY cool hat, Mike. I'll take, uh... (coins clink) Uh, one copy of the Charlotte Observer, please. - [Seth] Well, I think the hat looks very handsome. - [Jon] Yeah it's... I'm sorry, that's not very nice of me. Sorry, Mike. - [Seth] Anyway, you gotta figure the Heat will come back, and they do, with typical full-court terror. LeBron literally

dunking on Gerald Henderson's head doesn't count, but Wade cooking Henderson off the dribble does, and it puts Miami ahead with three seconds to play. Wade and LeBron show Cam Newton who's Superman for tonight. Miami is so well-prepared for Augustin's last-ditch attempt, siccing LeBron on the little guy, that Coach Silas wonders if the Heat sniffed out his play call ahead of time. Visions of a 2-0 start slip away, but Silas can appreciate one line on the box score: for the second game in a row,

Charlotte has vastly out-rebounded their opponent, snagging 53 boards to Miami's 30. Silas has emphasized rebounding ever since an embarrassing preseason performance against Atlanta, an early exposure of Charlotte's lack of height since Kwame Brown left. Tonight's biggest starters were 6'9" D.J. White and 6'8" Boris Diaw. The Bobcats know they'll need effort and positioning to compete on the glass. So far, so good. Silas practiced what he's been preaching. He's 6'7", but made his money as a play

er by outmaneuvering taller guys under the basket. In 1963, Silas led the nation in rebounding for Creighton. He spent his NBA career bulldozing giants like Russell, Wilt, and Kareem, and won three championships as gritty sixth man for the Celtics and Sonics. So Silas has plenty of reason to believe in an undersized frontcourt, and he also doesn't have much choice. Even Charlotte's tantalizing rookie shot-blocker, Bismack Biyombo, stands just a hair taller than his coach. He makes the most of it

, though, thanks to an absurdly long wingspan. The Congolese teenager has already logged a couple pro seasons in Spain, and made himself a no-doubt lottery pick by embarrassing everyone at the Nike Hoop Summit last spring. That is a big putback dunk over a big defender. And here's Bismack swatting the taller Chris Bosh during the fun early part of tonight's loss to the Heat. Biyombo should enjoy more opportunities later, but for now, he's playing catch-up, still getting in shape and acquainted.

He missed a bunch of training camp while navigating a complex buyout from his Spanish league contract. Charlotte was only allowed to cover part of that, and Biyombo lost a lawsuit against his old club, so he ended up having to cover the rest of the buyout himself. Bismack paid over a million dollars to be here. Now he's gotta impress one of the toughest guys ever to play his position. - [Jon] The 19-year-old Biyombo is the very youngest player in the NBA, but he's lived on three continents, spea

ks five languages, and has already seen a lot of the world. He has a lot to say about it, too. Thumbs down to the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, which he finds so inherently stupid that it makes him mad. Thumbs up to NASCAR, which he became a fan of by way of a video game he played as a kid, thereby representing probably the entirety of NASCAR's Congolese fan base. He's in the right place. Mike, you've got one hell of a bunch here. I thought this was gonna be a rebuilding year. But here we ar

e, probably just one overheard assignment away from knocking off one of the greatest NBA superteams ever assembled and starting 2-0. Know what I think? I think you were right not to rule out the playoffs this year. I know you're not shooting for a championship yet, but... Listen, the East is really top-heavy these days. Maybe you surprise people, you kinda cruise into the five or six-seed and make some noise. Plant your flag and players all over the league say, "Look at that! They're building a

winner in Charlotte! They've got a plan, and they're gonna free up the money to pay guys like me. I wanna go play for Mike." You never know, right? How many years did it take you to break through in Chicago? Seven, right? - [Alex] Things go a bit sideways the next game when they welcome the Orlando Magic to town, and Dwight Howard completely obliterates all Charlotte's rebounding progress by single-handedly gobbling up 24 boards. Really he just toys with the Cats all around, nonchalantly snaggin

g a Gerald Henderson layup out of the air in the most disrespectful, demoralizing kind of block that exists in the sport of basketball. They simply have zero answers to combat a dominant big man. This is a tough situation for Paul Silas to handle; he's torn. In the 2011 offseason, trying to have players reach peak conditioning was something very important to him, and he planned to work his squad to the bone to accomplish that. But the lockout threw a wrench in those plans, and in the wake of thi

s 21-point loss, at a time when his young team was struggling amid the rigors of the shortened season after just three games, he feels compelled to pull back the reins a bit, and cancels practice so they can recharge their batteries. Something was wrong with those chargers, though. As the calendar flips to 2012, more getting toyed with on a trip to South Beach where LeBron James and Dwyane Wade connect for not one, not two, but three touchdown passes. The experienced, sage leader of the Bobcats

doesn't mince words when talking about the 39-point rout. Up next is a bad Cavs team coming off a 63-loss season, but even they cruise right along and don't even need to play any of their starters for a single second of the fourth quarter of a deflating 14-point Bobcats loss in which their effort was lacking all throughout. And now they're about to play the next night in the first of many back-to-backs this season. - [Jon] Welcome to January 3rd through 14th, 2012, arguably the most brutal stret

ch of the most brutally-compressed season in NBA history to date. These guys just flew from Miami to Cleveland. Less than 24 hours later, they're due to play in New York. They fly back home to Charlotte for an off day, then host the Hawks, then play in Indianapolis the next day, then have to go to New York again the day after that, then go back home to play the Rockets the day after that. One more off day before they go play in Atlanta, then immediately back to Charlotte a third time to host the

Pistons and the Warriors back to back. That's nine games, and eight flights, in just 12 days. - [Alex] The next destination for Jordan's team is the storied Madison Square Garden to face a Knicks team he dispatched on each of his first four championship runs as a player. He had more success there than any other non-Chicago arena of his career, a place where he dropped 50 twice before any other visiting player ever had once, including with a 4 and a 5 on his chest on the first Tuesday he spent p

laying an NBA game in 22 months. It's quite possible no player has ever owned a road venue the way Michael Jordan has owned MSG. So even though the chips are down for the exhausted Bobcats, it's fitting that for the man who's said on multiple occasions how he lives vicariously through these guys, the team summons an extra pep in their step. Like when Byron Mullens soars over Tyson Chandler, the league's top rim protector, for a rim-rattling putback. Or when D.J. Augustin easily slithers through

the Knicks defense into the paint for the artful layup. And in what had to be a thing of beauty for Jordan to witness, Gerald Henderson was an absolute machine, near-automatic all game whether he was putting his head down, attacking the cup, and finishing strong, going iso and not being fazed by Chandler right in his grill, curling around screens and decisively rising up to nail J after J, or stepping back way downtown at the end of the shot clock to put the nail in New York's coffin. But right

when Charlotte's gotten its act together with a sorely needed win, it's also bittersweet. Corey Maggette hurt his hamstring, which is set to sideline him for a month. A quick look at the injury report tells us that with Maggette out, Paul Silas will be forced to go even younger by inserting Derrick Brown into his starting lineup. Brown was their second-round pick in '09, and around last trade deadline, Charlotte waived him with intentions to re-sign him, but the Knicks complicated those plans. A

month ago, he ultimately found his way back, motivated by the prospect of heavy playing time. Game seven marks the season debut of Tyrus Thomas, who rounds out their young core and in whom they've bet big on reaching his potential with a change of scenery after Jordan swung a 2010 trade with the Bulls for the former top-five pick who was talented, but who'd failed to meet expectations during a rocky tenure in Chicago. - [Jon] A long time ago I wrote for a Chicago-based sports blog. It was fun.

Although we never spoke, Tyrus Thomas maintained a regular column on the blog while playing for the Bulls. Thing is, the further the season went on, the less time he could spare. So by the end, his posts went like, "What's up, y'all? We're going to the playoffs. Here's my charity. Here's my Twitter. Alright, later." Such brevity. I'm not being facetious when I say he had a lot to teach about the craft of writing. I learned nothing. - [Alex] Thomas helps them force overtime against a Hawks team t

hat played a triple-overtime game the night before. Doesn't matter. Needing a stop in the closing seconds to have a chance, Augustin falls asleep and lets Joe Johnson get completely loose for a 16-footer he'll be hitting in his sleep when he's 137 years old. Ballgame. They immediately hop on a plane for Indianapolis, where the next night they build a surprising six-point halftime lead against the emerging contender Pacers before getting outscored four TDs to two TDs in each of the final two quar

ters. This loss cuts deep for Silas, who's basically been broken by how soft his team's been playing, and who's unable to detect a single silver lining in his team's play with their record falling to 2-6. Back at Madison Square Garden to kick off a five-game-in-six-night scheduling onslaught. D.J. Augustin hits one of the shots of the season with 10 seconds left to pull 'em within one, though those are ultimately their final points of another loss. But Silas was at least pleased just to see his

team scratch and claw 'til the end. The next night against Houston, they were in it late, until Rockets rookie second-round pick Chandler Parsons proved too overwhelming down the stretch. In Atlanta they revert to their playing dead ways, further exasperating their coach by failing to take to heart his constant emphasis on getting out in transition and running. They're playing small with none of its inherent advantages and all of its inherent disadvantages. The middle game of their back-to-back-

to-back is a 17-point loss to an awful Pistons team that drops the Bobcats to 2-10. Even worse has been their point differential during this funk. They've been outscored by 157 points over their last 10 games. No one else in the same period of time can even dream of reaching such depths. (mellow music) - [Jon] (exhales) Boy. Mike's in the locker room now, and he is not happy. He is lighting into those guys. I can't really make out what he's saying. Maybe that's for the best. You know, one time M

ike's Bulls dropped three in a row to start the 1990-91 season. it was technically a four-game losing streak if you want to count the loss that knocked them out of the playoffs the year before. And people said, "oh God, what's the matter with this team? The Bulls are going nowhere! We're gonna collapse like the Soviets did!" And after that, as long as Mike was on the floor, the Chicago Bulls never even lost as many as three in a row ever again. He just wouldn't allow it. Now, his guys have lost

six in a row. One of the many things wrong with this team right now is that they just cannot shoot three-pointers. Over these last three games they've shot 3-for-29. They've shot 1-for-8 or worse from beyond the arc in three straight games, and they are only the second team in NBA history to ever do that. This means not only that they're losing out on points and throwing away possessions, but they're also compromising their ability to set up other scorers. Coach Silas has his predecessor to than

k for this, at least to some degree. Larry Brown was a legendary Hall of Fame coach who'd won titles in both college and the NBA, but he was not a good fit here. He kinda alienated everyone on his way out the door last season, openly telling his players before the season even began that they were a bad team that was going nowhere. More specifically, he never bothered stocking the roster with reliable three-point shooters because he personally hated three-pointers. Which is kinda like refusing to

use your knights in a chess match because you think horses are weird. This meant that the three-point shooting cupboard was left bare for poor Coach Silas. Around this time he's waiting with bated breath for Reggie Williams to return from knee surgery. Reggie is a very skilled three-point shooter, but we're talking about a guy who, on last season's three-point leaderboard, finished ... 57th. This will be the Bobcats' three-point savior. This is where they're at right now. Hmm. (clucks) You know

, Mike, you're gonna have a lot of cap room freed up over the next couple years, right? I wonder if you could go get one of these guys ... Hmm. You remember who we're playing tomorrow, right? Mark my words: this young guy Steph Curry can shoot. And his dad played in Charlotte, you know that. Steph grew up here in town and became a legend at Davidson. You think he'd wanna come back here? (chuckles) Oh yeah, he would. He's said so multiple times. I mean, look where's he's playing now! The Warriors

are one of the most rudderless sports franchises in the entire country. Losing is almost all they've ever done since the '80s. They're going nowhere, they're bad this year too, and they are never, ever gonna win a damn thing. I mean, does Curry wanna spend the next decade going 22-60 or does he want to come home and play for the greatest of all time? Mike, you gotta get him outta there. And who knows how this season is gonna go ... but if you could find a way to put him together with this other

player, you know, the one you're imagining ... if he really is the next great one ... then there's no telling what this team could be. You've spent so many years here watching everyone else have their turn. Maybe now, it's your turn. - [Seth] On January 14th, the Cats finally collect win number three against the Warriors, who were playing without Curry and his worrisome sore ankle. Coach Silas grants Kemba Walker his first-ever NBA start, and Kemba delivers a season-high 23 points in the double

-digit victory. Splendid outing for that "little guy" backcourt of Kemba and D.J. Augustin. To accommodate Kemba's promotion, someone had to sit, and that was Boris Diaw, breaking his looong streak of starts. Benching a 29-year-old veteran in a contract year raises flags -- did Coach Silas give up on his power forward? Is Boris too nice, too passionless a player? Will Charlotte trade him? And what does Boris have to say about this change? He doesn't give a shit. (mellow music) I need to be up fr

ont here and admit Diaw is one of my favorite athletes ever, so it is with the utmost fondness that I tell you Boris Diaw is a basketball snob. His mother is Elisabeth Riffiod, a French basketball legend who became a biology professor. His father is Issa Diaw, a Senegalese high jump champion who became a lawyer. Boris grew to 6'9" as a teenager and attended the same French sports academy as his parents. Boris and his roommate, Tony Parker, helped lead their home country to a gold medal in the 20

00 European U18 Championship. He played a few seasons in France, winning two titles, and in 2003, a league MVP award, despite scoring just seven points per game. Players voted for that honor, and they appreciated Diaw's sensational passing. Then Boris got drafted by the butt-ass Atlanta Hawks, a stagnant environment of disinterested teammates. Atlanta coaches puzzled over a kid who seemed to have it, seemed to get it, but didn't apply himself -- Rookie Boris displayed skill but not much fitness,

a sound shot but no interest in shooting, the sense to defend anyone, but not always the will. The Hawks knew they had a weird, talented guy -- they saw him in practice -- but they didn't know what to do with him. Diaw wouldn't follow instructions, wouldn't seize opportunities. I believe Boris was bored. In 2005, Diaw got what he wanted: a trade to the Phoenix Suns, coach Mike D'Antoni's game-changing, hyperkinetic basketball laboratory. Boris had to replace Phoenix's high-flying superstar, Ama

r'e Stoudemire, while he recovered from injury -- an inauspicious task, but Boris dazzled everyone. He would defend any opponent, and his clever passing made him like a tall, satellite version of the Suns' maestro ballhandler, Steve Nash. This is exemplary Boris in his first Suns season: he's a big attacking a mismatch, posting, faking, pivoting, and then -- just when you think he's created his own shot -- boom he's suddenly a point guard delivering a slick pocket pass. Nash is one of many to de

scribe Boris with a sort of mythic reverence, like he's Chuck Norris' sophisticated French cousin. Boris supposedly got chastised for passing up shots his teammates insisted were wide open, and responded by telling them, "that's what you think." Boris got that unselfish play style from his mom, and also his astoundingly slow resting heart rate of 35 beats per minute. Boris was the best man at Tony Parker's wedding to Eva Longoria. And then there's the Vertec story. One day Boris walked into the

Phoenix gym and noticed a Vertec machine. He'd never seen one before and asked, "what's that?" A Vertec is a device used to measure an athlete's leaping ability, the idea being that you jump from a standing position and swat as much of the rack as you can. Anyway, Boris set down his cappuccino, kicked off his flip-flops, and cleared the entire rack. He CAN do stuff like that. Phoenix teammates mocked Boris for his relatively doughy physique, but swear that Boris dusted them in footraces whenever

he cared to do so. Boris just didn't always care. He probably stopped caring when coach D'Antoni left Phoenix, and took the excellent "7 Seconds or Less" offense with him. The next coach, Terry Porter, objected to Boris' choice in shots, so Boris protested by refusing to shoot. The Suns punted Boris to Charlotte, where he found an appreciative soul in former coach Larry Brown, who had him figured out from day one. Boris started every game en route to the 2010 playoffs. When coach Silas took ove

r for Brown, he asked Boris if he wanted to become an All-Star. Boris said nah, not really. During the lockout, Boris interned for a National Geographic photographer in India. He played a couple months with a French club, but skipped practice on Mondays, which Boris could get away with, because Boris owns the team. Now the Bobcats' season is slipping away, and coach Silas finds himself ever more flummoxed with Boris. Boris showed up this season looking heavier, and coach Silas recalled how losin

g weight helped him get the most out of his own 6'8" frame. Boris won't lose weight. On a team lacking offensive firepower, Silas wants Boris to shoot more. Boris won't shoot more. So yeah, bench Boris. He doesn't care. He's bored. I'm sorry, but I love this man. - [Jon] Bad news, Mike. Coach Silas just got thrown out of the game. He, uh, got mad about some call or another, threw a fit, kicked the ball, and the refs said, that's it for you today. Holy shit. Your team really, really sucks. I don'

t mean anything by that. I like your players, you know that. It's just a statement of fact, that's all. To their credit, they came pretty close to beating Dwight and a very good Magic team in their own building. And then they went to Chicago, and for a while they threatened to do the same thing to a Bulls team that owned the best record in the NBA. But for every one of those, there's a clobbering, including a 111-78 home loss to the Knicks. Kemba Walker was openly embarrassed about that one. Poo

r Kemba, man. This rookie was already having to learn the NBA game as he went along, and now fellow point guard Augustin is out with a foot injury, so Kemba has to play more minutes. This kid has gone straight from national champ at UConn to a guy whose job it is to run all up and down the floor for a 3-18 team. And for what? Not to win, clearly. Just to lose by less embarrassing margins. Ideally, a silver lining for seasons like this one is that your rookies get quality time to develop as playe

rs, but Kemba is too busy frantically plugging the holes in the boat to even do that. This guy's gonna be 38 years old by the time this season's over. Anyway, this one's still in progress. Back to the action. Looks like we're about halfway through the third quarter, let's see what they're up to. And DeSagana Diop is headed to the free throw line. Wait. Wait a sec. Gana Diop's still here? I thought you were gonna amnesty him and get his salary off the books. Your team, Mike. Anyways. Looks like t

he Bobcats can cut the deficit down to seven if Diop can knock down these two. Wait, wait. Sorry, hold on another sec. Did you know that Gana Diop is one of the worst free throw shooters of all time? It's really not that big a deal, his value never lied in scoring. He's more of a defensive specialist, and he's gonna end up with a 12-year career he should be really proud of. Still, he's a career .467 shooter from the free throw line. There have been 1,995 players who have attempted at least 300 c

areer free throws, and if you plot them by free throw percentage, Diop ranks 1,989th. So out of a group of about 2,000 guys, he's seventh-worst ever. But, hey. .467 still means almost a 50/50 coin flip, right? Every point counts. Let's go! Wait, wait, wait, wait. Mike, hold on a sec. Did you notice where you were on that chart? Let's take a look. Oh wow. You shot from the line nearly 9,000 times, making you one of the most prolific free throw shooters ever. Even across that huge sample, you main

tained a percentage of .835. On top of everything else, you were one of the best free throw shooters in NBA history. Yeah, okay. Well, I'm sure you did know that. Well, I didn't know that. Alright. Anyway, back to the action, for real this time. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait a second. Mike, do you remember when you used to do this with your eyes closed? No, I mean literally. Literally with your eyes closed. Most famously, you did it to taunt Dikembe Mutombo, but you also d

id it plenty of other times too. You did it in MSG that one time, did it against the Warriors. And every single one of those times, you made it. You knew that if you missed just one of those, you'd never hear the end of it. But you had no fear. You know you would not fail. Amazing. Okay. Anyways. Gana Diop on the line to shoot two. (bloodcurdling music) Mike. This means something, man. You... This is the Bat Signal. You gotta put your shorts back on. You gotta get back out there, man. I know, I

know. You're 48 years old. Just give me a second, hear me out. The season's lost, right? We're not going to the playoffs. We're cooked. At the same time, you gotta get this organization out of the red if it's gonna be successful, right? So you need to move some tickets. And nothing will move nearly as many tickets as Michael Jordan, Charlotte Bobcats shooting guard. I mean, do you remember the scene just a few weeks ago? People mobbed the arena because a rumor spread that the team shop had the n

ew Jordan 11s in stock? And team officials were so desperate the disperse the crowd that they offered everybody free Bobcats tickets if they would just leave? And a bunch of people said we don't want your tickets, we want the Jordan 11s, and they would not leave until they got 'em? It's all about you, Mike. It's... It always has been. Do you not think this team could use you right now? Look, Corey Maggette is hurt, and Gerald Henderson is hurt, and Boris Diaw is French. They have almost no veter

an shooters. No leadership out there. Maybe in normal circumstances, you would address that problem by trading for somebody. But you can't do that, right? You don't wanna do that. Because the whole long-term project with this franchise has been to create cap space, and taking on a big new contract throws a wrench into all of that. Calling your own number here is a special ability that you and only you possess. It's your secret weapon. Remember when you left the front office of the Wizards -- who

, by the way, we're playing right now, there's another sign from God -- to go take the floor, and you just paid yourself the minimum to save some dough? Do that! Can't you see how perfect this is? What, are you worried that people are gonna laugh at you? First of all, that doesn't sound like the Mike I know. Second of all, look, you built a 3-18 team, everybody is laughing at you already. I know you can still physically play. I know it. You know how I know? Let's take a look at the Charlotte Obs

erver from just a few months ago. July 19th, 2011, page 1C. (gasps) Who's that? That's you! That's a 48-year-old you throwing down a dunk. If your body can do that, your body can do basketball things. You know I'm making sense. Maybe you're not at your playing weight anymore. That's fine, it's not like you'd have to start. Like, Paul could give you 5 or 10 minutes a game, enough to pack the house, enough to get the team through the occasional lean stretch, enough to provide some leadership out t

here and make a real difference. Don't tell me that you can't do a better job than that. And hey. Listen, you know I wouldn't be trying to draft you into service if I knew you just plain didn't want to. That wouldn't be respectful of me, would it? It wouldn't. But see ... there's something I know about you. - One day you might look up and see me playing the game at 50. (audience laughs) - [Jon] When you said that during your Hall of Fame speech a couple years ago, people thought you were joking.

- Oh, don't laugh. Don't laugh. - [Jon] You were not joking. People didn't understand it then and they don't now, because you won't end up saying so until later. A year from now, you're gonna talk to Wright Thompson. And you know what you're gonna tell him? That you are consumed by this idea of going back out there and playing. Even now. It's not just a fleeting fantasy. It's not a fun hypothetical. It's something you think about all the time. You can do it, Mike. Come on, guys. Tell him. - [Al

ex] Well, if anyone approaching age 50, even the great Michael Jordan, would be a roster upgrade over whoever'd be the alternative to absorb those minutes, I'm not sure I'd want that fact broadcast to the world. - [Kofie] I'm gonna be honest, Jon. That is a... That's an awful idea. - [Seth] Sorry. Sorry, what are you guys talking about? I was in the bathroom. (Jon sighs) - [Jon] Gana Diop ultimately misses three of his four free throw attempts. The Bobcats lose by three. (smooth jazz music) - [S

eth] At the beginning of this streak, coach Silas insisted his team would pick it up by midseason. It's not happening, and Silas is dejected, at odds with a roster of players who strike him as soft and fragile. At low moments, he lashes out. After scrapping to become a great player, Silas has withstood plenty of bullshit as a coach. His first post-playing job brought him into close quarters with the notorious Donald Sterling. After a couple seasons away from the league, it took Silas over 15 yea

rs to get another head coaching gig -- and it was here, in Charlotte, with George Shinn's Hornets. That young, perpetually overshadowed squad viewed Silas as a father figure, for better and worse. Silas was the leader who soothed the Hornets after the shocking death of their teammate, Bobby Phills. Silas was also the guy lecturing his players about economics with a mouthful of ham, and snarling at their love of rap music. The Hornets fired Silas not long after they left Charlotte. George Shinn l

ived next door to his coach in New Orleans, but sent someone else to deliver the pink slip. Silas walked over to his neighbor's house for an explanation, and Shinn hid from him. Silas got this job with the Bobcats by just attending games as a fan. MJ kept chatting with Paul in the stands, and took a liking to him. Basically everyone does. Paul's a likable guy. But he's losing touch, losing patience. This might explain why he's grooming a replacement. Paul's son, Stephen Silas, served as an assis

tant during his dad's first Charlotte gig, and again when Paul became LeBron's first coach in Cleveland. The younger Silas scouted in Washington, then spent years with the developing Warriors before returning to his father's side here in Charlotte. Maybe he'll take over for his dad someday. Maybe soon. - [Alex] And if he does, hopefully there will have been cultivated some interior defense that provides more resistance than a piece of tissue paper at Niagara Falls, which is what we see in their

next game in Los Angeles. That one was their fourth 30-point loss of the season. Let me now take the opportunity to revisit this chart. Tracking the season-long point differential of the 2011-12 Bobcats after every game they played, and comparing it at each point to the worst mark otherwise seen in the 21st century up through 2022, we see after this, their 22nd game, they are the very best at being the very worst. And they don't have to wait long for 30-point loss number five. In Portland the ne

xt night to face the Blazers and Gerald Wallace, their former star and last remaining original Bobcat who they gave away a year earlier with an eye on the future, they suffered their worst loss in franchise history. But if Wallace had his druthers, he would've ensured even more of a smackdown. Meanwhile the Gerald they refused to trade, Henderson, is humiliated by the product put forth on the court, and now won't even be able to aid in the effort to turn things around, as a hamstring injury has

landed him on the shelf alongside Maggette and Augustin. - [Jon] Hey, look, It's a basketball g- Oh. Um... Hey, would you look at that? The New York Football Giants won the Super Bowl! ("Monday Night Football" theme music) Congratulations to now TWO-time Super Bowl champion Todd Flanders. This has been the year of the underdog, hasn't it? The Dallas Mavericks managed to win the NBA Finals and break through as the ultra-rare non-dynasty champion, the Cardinals won the World Series despite having

the worst record of any playoff team, and now the Giants, who were a pretty middle-of-the-road team in the regular season, just kinda threw on a lanyard, wandered into the playoffs and walked off with the Lombardi Trophy before anybody could check their credentials. Mike, I get the feeling that for a while there, you were trying to New York Giants this thing. You were just hoping to build a solid team, get into the playoffs, and hope your guys could grit their way through the Eastern Conference.

I think you were right to at least try that, and I think you were also right to recognize that these guys can't do what you did and will their way to a title. Gerald Wallace was the most beloved Charlotte Bobcat of all time. People loved him. But you saw the fork in the road for what it was. You could either keep the fan favorites and be kinda good forever, or you could start upon the long road to title contention. You chose the latter. The most important difference between the NBA and some of

these others sports is that in the NBA, it always comes out in the wash. Football is largely made up of events that might eventually culminate in an actual scoring event. A tipped pass or a fumble are inherently meaningless, they only drive up the probability of a future change on the scoreboard. Throughout the Giants' entire playoff run, they encountered a total of 47 scoring events. Just 47. And the Cardinals experienced 135 plays in which one or more runs were scored. These are scantrons that

you can cheat. You cannot cheat this one. Last year, the Dallas Mavericks weaved their way through a labyrinth of well over 2,000 scoring events. Luck evaporates here. In the NBA, simply getting to the playoffs, that's the easy part. The team that wins the NBA Finals is always the best team. It's a process that's scientific in its accuracy. Which, of course, in the short term is what makes all this such a drag. As a wise man once said, ball don't lie. (pensive music) - [Alex] After a couple rel

atively competitive losses in Phoenix and Boston extend their losing streak to 12, they return home to hit lucky number 13. In that game, another loss by over 30, they don't have a single player score more than 10 points. That had to sting for Jordan, a man who once did so in 740 consecutive games, at the moment holding the record for the longest such streak by over 40%, a space that will only ever be entered by LeBron. To twist the knife just a little bit more, it was against his old team too.

More embarrassment emanates from Charlotte's locker room. Led by Chris Paul, the one who got away, the Clippers dunk all over Charlotte in another blowout Bobcat loss, officially marking the franchise's longest all-time losing streak. But at least Corey Maggette provides a valuable lesson on sharing when he simply wants to make sure the Clippers get a chance to play with the ball. They do show some more fight against the Sixers, but are ultimately doomed by what constantly dooms 'em. Then on a t

rip to Minnesota, it gets a little worse. More competitive hoops, more losing. The streak stands at 16. The Cats remain unable to catch a break. - [Kofie] Let's back up for a minute. On February 11th, the Bobcats sold out a home game! How did that hap... Ah, yes. The arena packed out to watch not Kemba Walker, not Corey Maggette, but a guy on the other team, Chris Paul. It makes total sense, too. Chris Paul was born in Winston-Salem, a little over an hour away from Charlotte, where he became a N

orth Carolina high school legend. In 2002, Paul's grandfather was tragically murdered at the age of 61. The next day, Paul dropped 61 points. When he had the chance to get 62, he airballed the free throw on purpose. Before he'd even left high school, he'd achieved something far more legendary than anything these Bobcats have ever done. He stayed in Winston-Salem and played basketball at Wake Forest, and was the most exciting Demon Deacon since Tim Duncan (sorry, Josh Howard). Now, in a perfect w

orld, Paul would be drafted by a Charlotte basketball team. That wasn't in the cards, however, as the Hornets team drafted Paul and the Charlotte team drafted UNC's Raymond Felton. I'm not a Bobcats fan or a Wake Forest fan, but there's still something so sad about seeing Chris Paul become a perennial All-Star in a jersey that donned the Hornets' iconic logo with the words "New Orleans" on it, while Bobcats fans got treated to Raymond Felton. Felton was fine in Charlotte, but he was no CP3. It o

nly makes sense that every time Chris Paul came to town, people came to say hello. - [Jon] Mike. Mike! C'mon, you know what day it is, right? You know what day it is, don't you? IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY, MIKE! C'mon, big guy! Up and at 'em, let's go. Let's celebrate your birthday, buddy. Listen, I know that, uh ... birthdays are not always the, uh, easiest thing for you. But hey, it's your day, and I hope number 49's a great one. We do have a game to play. I would love to be able to tell you that they

snapped their 16-game skid by winning on your birthday. So ... that is exactly what I'll do. ("Happy Birthday to You") Can you believe it? They broke the longest losing streak in franchise history, and they did it on your birthday. What do you think of that? Huh? Get a load of Reggie Williams, who's finally back from injury and who led the team with 22 points. And Bismack Biyombo, who stepped up with seven blocks to provide rim defense they've been desperately looking for. In a season like this

, a lot of guys wouldn't have played so hard for you, but they did, Mike. You know they love you, even if things aren't really working out right now. Despite everything, the culture is good here. Your guys are sticking together. I think one day in the future, the day everything finally works out the way you want it to, you'll look back on it and you'll be proud. You will. Speaking of the future. Mike ... there is someone we'd like you to meet. (pensive music) - [Seth] In 2012, NBA fans aren't ca

lling people "unicorns" yet, but the concept is out there. Basketball orthodoxy assumes the biggest players are the least refined, but every once in a while, there emerges a 7-foot-tall prospect who can perform the traditional big man tasks: dunks, post-ups, blocks and boards -- while ALSO flourishing the skill and dexterity of a smaller player. Like unicorns, versatile bigs are rare and alluring. Like unicorns, sometimes you think you saw one, but you didn't. Anthony Davis looks like the real d

eal, and he comes by it honestly. Davis began high school as a 6'2" guard, with the requisite ball skills and footwork, and then sprouted to 6'10" by the time he graduated, which is how you go from unrecruited to number one recruit very quickly. Since his very first college game, Davis has realized fantasies: that night, Davis reminded us what it looks like when a near-7-footer can handle and dish, and when he shuffles his feet fast enough to contain a guard. A couple weeks ago against Alabama,

he gave us the otherworldly vision of a big guy hunting in the backcourt, then covering 50 feet with one dribble. He's been dabbling with self-creation, like this sweet pull-up the other day against Florida. And if you like your bigs old-school, here's a gorgeous post move vs. Vanderbilt this month. These are glimpses of infinity between Davis' steady, scintillating display of tall guy stuff: dunks, blocks, and boards. When Michael Kidd-Gilchrist bricks a jumper, you can be sure Davis is there t

o slam it home. Anthony Davis is the player of our dreams, logging one of the best freshman seasons in memory. - [Alex] With the ability to do just about everything, and do it awesomely, Davis' freshman season in Lexington launched him into rarefied air: that of a slam dunk, no-brainer first overall pick, regardless of which team would be fortunate enough to land it. Not one of the 30 teams would invest even one iota of energy into considering someone else. That's not a dynamic we see very much.

In the '80s, there was no doubt that Patrick Ewing, Danny Manning, and David Robinson were the ultimate prize of their draft classes. Ditto for Shaq in '92. But in the two decades since, we've really only seen this happen twice: once in 1997 with Wake Forest big man Tim Duncan, and again in 2003 with the chosen one, LeBron James. Safe to say those two lived up to the hype. So how is it determined who exactly will be lucky enough to have their entire trajectory as a franchise turned around by a

single eyebrow? Well, you gotta win the lottery. Initially instituted in the first post-MJ draft of 1985, the lottery replaced a system where a coin flip between the worst team in each conference determined who got the top overall selection. It was an attempt to curb teams tanking to the bottom of the league for a 50% shot at the number one pick. Now every team that fell short of the playoffs would have a chance for luck to strike, and the worst team could stumble out of the first couple spots e

ntirely. And in 2012, the likelihood of the team that finished with the worst record ending up with the silverest of linings is 25%. A one-in-four shot at securing the ultimate franchise facelift. - [Jon] I gotta go get some more grapes. Mike ran outta grapes, so he's having to give out cookies instead. That's not good. Oh yeah, the Bobcats lost by 40 million points again. Anyways, this is part of a whole thing he's doing around town. He's spent the last year or so trying to make the Bobcats a "

responsible corporate citizen," I guess you'd call it. Every so often, team employees fan out all over town to donate money to shelters, volunteer at the Y, the whole deal. You might want to write this off as a cynical gesture to drum up public support, and who knows, maybe you'd be right on some level. I mean, this kind of thing has got the newspaper talking about it, and it's got me talking about it too. Mike did come out and say that if he wanted the city of Charlotte to buy into the Bobcats,

the Bobcats needed to buy into the community too. So to some extent, this is transactional. But the guy does regularly cut seven-figure checks for everything from hurricane relief to food banks. Maybe he really is just doing this for the PR and I'm carrying his water like some kind of sucker. Should be noted, though, that during the height of his powers in the '90s, he had this big shiny charity called the Michael Jordan Foundation. Uh, that's his full name, by the way, Michael Jordan. He could

've just coasted on that goodwill forever and nobody would've noticed that it was growing increasingly ineffective and bureaucratic. Celebrities do this all the time and get away with it. But Mike was not having it. He shut the entire thing down and opted to give his money directly to pre-existing foundations instead. That's what you do if you care more about actually helping people than you care about PR. And he does love Charlotte. He likes to bring up the fact that the old Hornets led the NBA

in attendance for 10 straight years. They were an even bigger draw than Mike's Bulls. That's what he's after. Nobody really likes these colors or this name, but he's determined to make them mean something. In the present moment, this does seem impossible. It's funny, though. Whether it's this or hitting .202 in Birmingham or whatever else, as much as he hates failing itself, it's like he's in love with the struggle. (wistful music) Thanks to some combination of the All-Star Break and the Charlo

tte Bobcats being a considerably bad basketball team, the Charlotte Bobcats are once again enduring a weeks-long stretch without a single win. After the Pacers, Pistons, and Spurs treat these guys like a practice squad, they finally break above the clouds for a few precious minutes against the Nets. Although they ultimately lose, they do hold a double-digit lead for five blessed minutes and 29 blessed seconds in the second quarter. Your average NBA team experiences this constantly, both in games

they win and in games they lose. But the Bobcats haven't led by 10 points since January 16th. It's March 4th. They went 20 entire games -- that's about 1,000 minutes of Basketball -- without holding a double-digit lead for even a single second. That's an outcome that's even more discouraging than their 4-31 record. That record only tells us that they don't win. This suggests that they can't win. That they just don't have it in 'em. (funky music) - [Seth] At home against the Magic on March 6th,

down 16 in the second quarter, coach Silas unloads on referee Tony Brown, who ejects Silas with a quick two technicals. Paul now leads the league with six techs on the season. And Paul's son now leads the Bobcats. While the two technical free throws boost Orlando's lead to 18, Stephen Silas assumes the head coach duties of standing and pointing at stuff, and sheesh, he must be really good at it. Charlotte immediately rattles off a 14-1 run to finish the half. Corey Maggette spearheads an 8-0 run

to open the third quarter. The Magic go almost 7 game minutes without a field goal and just fold in the second half. You can attribute plenty of that to Biyombo, who damn near neutralized Orlando superstar Dwight Howard down low. But if you ask Maggette, the game ball goes to Stephen Silas, who helped the Bobcats focus on that comeback, and pushed them toward a favorable mismatch: Gerald Henderson preying on the smaller J.J. Redick. Young Stephen knows his stuff. - [Jon] Paul wants this so badl

y for his son. This is, in fact, what the Charlotte Bobcats are all about at this point in their history: they're a love letter to the future, a desire to build something real for those who are coming. There's also team president Rod Higgins, an old friend of Mike's. The two former teammates and fellow go-kart enthusiasts had shared a more old-school approach to building a team, and to their credit, they realized they needed a guy like Rich Cho in the room to pull them in a new direction. Rod wa

s involved in a number of personnel decisions, including the question of who should fill the roster spot of the departed Kwame Brown at the start of the season. I imagine Rod's process went something like this: he sat around like, "Uh..." Then he sat around some more and went like, "Uh..." And then all of a sudden it was the day before the season opener and they still hadn't signed a 15th player. And then he sat down to Christmas dinner, looked around at his family, pointed at the tallest one, a

nd said, "You!" Listen, later on I'm gonna do my best to make the case that y'all are not doing the T-word. And this is one of those things that are not gonna make that any easier for me. But the 15th guy on an NBA roster is almost never a guy you've heard of, and Cory, a rookie with genuine potential who shares Colorado's all-time scoring record, is about as deserving as anybody heading into the season. Beyond the multiple father-son dynamics at play within this team, there is, of course, Mike'

s determination to bring the next Mike to Charlotte. Someone who can carry a team, write a franchise's history, and make everyone forget that seasons like this one ever happened. And even this franchise itself, of course, is struggling to escape the shadow of its predecessor. This is anecdotal, and something we really can't back up with data, but I'm willing to bet that in the year 2012, the average person probably remembers the Charlotte Hornets. Either they played NBA Jam, or they recall the e

lectrifying uniforms, or they remember Alonzo Mourning. But people aren't really even aware of the Bobcats. They are something that shouldn't be possible: a nearly decade-old NBA franchise, owned by the greatest player in NBA history, that people have not heard of. Even casual NBA fans tend to forget they even exist. I mean, you hear the word "Bobcat" and the first thing... Oh, no. Here it is. Here is the moment that I realize that they share both their name and their colorway with an industrial

skid loader. Did nobody in the room point this out? The slowest and least glamorous of vehicles. A thing that is typically not owned, but rented. The Bobcats dutifully truck themselves down to New Orleans, and in keeping with this theme, the former Charlotte team and current Charlotte team combine to produce a variety of lethargic, plodding basketball that hasn't been seen since the NBA's stone age. The Bobcats win, 73-71, but it feels like a miracle that anyone won this game at all. This is th

e first 73-71 final score the NBA has seen since 1953, when the Minneapolis Lakers beat the New York, uh, "Knocks," apparently. Now, coincidentally, on this very same court in New Orleans, Anthony Davis just led Kentucky through the SEC Tournament. The Kentucky Wildcats are truly something to behold this year. They'd lost only once, to Indiana by just a single point, and even then in large part because Davis got into foul trouble. This is arguably one of the greatest college teams ever, and it's

led by a freshman. Kentucky brought a 22-game winning streak to town, then made it 23, then made it 24 to reach the conference final. And then, on the same day the Bobcats' plane touches down here, Anthony Davis shocks the world ... and loses. Mike? Are we bad luck? If we are, that seems like something we should know. Huh. Charlotte's one-game winning streak is decisively ended a couple nights later in Houston. They show a little more fight against Dallas before running out of gas, and it's aro

und this time that people around the league are beginning to notice something: these losses are beginning to add up to something kinda special. The 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers finished with nine wins and 73 losses. That was good for a winning percentage of .110, the worst in NBA history. At 6-36, the Bobcats are just a little above that with a winning percentage of .143. This has led some writers around the NBA to take notice lately. While this is just another example of sportswriters like me hav

ing some alarmist fun, it is remarkable that they're even in the same neighborhood as those Sixers. With 24 games left to play, the Bobcats only need to win two more to avoid sinking below these depths. Make that one more! On the 17th, they beat Toronto again to notch their seventh win. And what do you know? It's another Stephen Silas special, with Paul letting his son step in and coach another one. He actually also let him guest-coach during their competitive loss to the Nets on the 9th, meanin

g that Stephen is now effectively 2-1 coaching a team that's otherwise gone 5-35. The guy's a magician. Dad's plan seems to be working. - [Seth] Boris Diaw has done it. One of the most talented Bobcats has rendered himself unplayable. Let's back up just a bit and get ourselves all caught up with the adventures of Boris. On March 4th, he attempts just four shots in 40 minutes, a feat of abstinence that stands out on a night when New Jersey's Deron Williams scores 57 points on 29 shots, almost sin

gle-handedly preventing Charlotte's fifth win. Coach Silas has made it clear that he views Diaw's play as destructive, not selfless. He knows what Boris is up to. It's civil disobedience, and it's working. During win number five against the Magic, Boris plays zero minutes -- that's zero from Paul Silas AND zero from Stephen after his dad's ejection. No love, even from the substitute teacher. The next day, Rick Bonnell reports that Diaw wants Charlotte to trade or release him. While the front off

ice weighs its options, Boris keeps showing up -- he commutes to work on a Segway -- and, except for a couple desperate nights, he keeps riding the bench. With or without Boris, the Bobcats can't beat anyone -- well, anyone but the Hornets on March 12th. After getting bought by the league, trading away Chris Paul, then letting multiple players linger on the injured list, New Orleans seems to be ... let's say ... allowing nature to take its course. Some would say tanking. The Bobcats aren't tanki

ng, though. Coach Silas publicly laments the team they could have been if Diaw gave a shit, which doesn't exactly make it easier for the Bobcats to trade the guy. Indeed, the trade deadline passes without a deal for Diaw, so the Bobcats give Boris his wish and buy out his contract on March 21st. During this stretch, coach Silas accuses players, not just Diaw, of mailing it in, but clearly wonders about his own role in their doldrums. - [Jon] That's probably what all this is about, this occasiona

l deputizing of Stephen as head coach. The time of old-school guys like Paul is passing, and he seems to know it. He knows just as certainly that Stephen is the perfect answer for what comes next. But as badly as Stephen wants the job, he's surely cherishing every game he gets to spend with his dad. Five years ago, he nearly lost his father following complications with a medical procedure. Stephen was a young assistant with the Warriors and worked closely with Steph Curry during his rookie seaso

n. His career certainly seemed to be on the fast track. And then last season, when Paul was elevated to interim head coach here in Charlotte, he called his son and said, "I can't do this without you." Without a second thought, Stephen left Golden State and joined the Bobcats midseason. A year later, he finds himself trying to squeeze every possible win, usually in vain, out of the NBA's laughingstock. There's nowhere else he'd rather be. (suspenseful music) - [Alex] In the wake of win number sev

en, let's take a swing back over to where their point differential now stands. Ever since taking over the mantle for worst 21st century point differential after 22 games, they've maintained a tight grip on the title following each of their 20 subsequent games. Yikes. But hey! After beating the Raptors they are no longer rock bottom, usurped by the 2010 Nets who'd been outscored through 43 games by 560 points compared to 551 for these Cats. There is indeed at least one cherry-pickable point well

into the season in which Charlotte can proudly bask in not having the worst point differential. Not the worst after 43 games! They should hang a banner up in the rafters for that. Now, can they maintain this momentum for any period of time? No. They just can't stop enduring beatdowns inside in back-to-back blowout losses marred by getting outrebounded by 20 in one and allowing an astronomical 72 points in the paint in the other. Paul Silas is incredulous. With bigs Eduardo Nájera and Gana Diop o

ut with injuries, they're running out of bodies down low, and he's running out of answers. Turns out Mike's not the only suit in Charlotte who harbors a desire to re-take the court to stop the bleeding. But nothing can. The losses keep snowballing, and by the time March comes to a close, they've authored a brand-new losing streak of seven games and counting. - [Jon] Oh no! Mike! You're gonna give up! You're throwing in the towel! You're gonna sell the team! April Fool's, no you're not. Of all th

e things people have ever said about you, this is one I'm happy I can categorically refute. You're not going anywhere, and neither is your team, and of course, that might not be such a bad thing at the moment. With only 16 games left to play, the Bobcats are separated from the next-worst team by a margin of five losses, making it increasingly more likely that you're gonna end up snagging the pole position in the lottery. That would give you a one-in-four shot. The same odds as flipping a coin he

ads twice in a row for the right to draft Anthony Davis. Who, would you look at that, just won the national title! This is the level he's at right now: he shot just 1-for-10 in the final, which is terrible shooting, and yet nobody cares. He makes such a colossal impact everywhere else, from rebounding to passing to blocking to less tangible stuff like scaring his opponents off open looks, that it doesn't even matter. In his worst game, he still absolutely ruins his opponents. So, not only is he

analytically magnificent in the eyes of a guy like Rich Cho, he's also a quintessential Mike pick, a college hoops legend who simply knows how to win, and does win. He's perfect. Mike, there's no way you'd think about leaving, especially not right now. Besides, what would you even do all day without basketball? That's a fun question, Mike. What would the life of Mike have looked like without this game? Really! A meteorologist! You even went back and got your degree, huh? Hmm. I wonder if there a

re any inherent advantages to being a 6'6" weatherman. Maybe you could give the Canadian weather forecast. I mean, yeah, I've been to Canada. I know that they center Canada in the middle of the screen up there. I mean, like, maybe you could be an American weatherman who reaches up there every, you know, so often and says like, "Oh, it's snowing in Calgary," or whatever. I don't know, people might think that's interesting. I don't know, I mean, maybe not. Maybe not. Look, I'm just trying to make

conversation, Mike. I'll be honest with you, um... I've read ahead, and I know what Seth's about to talk about and I'm just trying to kinda stall, because I don't wanna hear about it. Alright. Alright, fine. Brace yourself, Mike. (pensive music) - [Seth] Okay, I will start with the good news. The good news is that if someone elbows you in the forehead so hard that it dents your skull, a doctor can fix you right up. They just need some screws, some titanium mesh, and, um, a moment to "open your h

ead, pull your face out, and fix it," and you're good to go. Again, this has been the good news. The bad news, I guess, is that you got elbowed in the forehead so hard that it dented your fucking skull. That, on April 6th, is the end of Eduardo Nájera's 12th NBA season. Nájera is the oldest Bobcat. He'll turn 36 in July. So when Milwaukee's Jon Brockman inadvertently sends one of these meat-powered spike mauls through Eduardo's frontal bone, you can understand why he might count his blessings --

no brain injury, no long-term damage, not even a haircut -- and look ahead to a future of ... I dunno, maybe something else. I suspect Nájera was already pondering retirement. Eduardo hasn't dogged it, hasn't complained -- coach Silas has nothing but praise for the forward's work ethic -- but this is not his scene. Eduardo is a legend -- one of the greatest athletes in University of Oklahoma history, perhaps the most successful Mexican basketball player ever, the super-tough veteran of several

NBA contenders. Nájera delivered plenty of bumps and bruises in his day, although nothing to warrant a shattered skull in return. He'll be okay, though, and he gets the silver lining of not playing for the Bobcats anymore. After Nájera hits the injured list, Corey Maggette tries to give it a go. Maggette has missed a bunch of games this year -- first it was his hamstring, then his back, then his Achilles -- but he returns in early April, limps his way through three straight defeats by a combined

61 points, then calls it a season. Corey tried. These last, few, lingering Bobcats ... they all tried. - [Alex] What they're trying so damn hard for is to end this latest losing streak they're in the midst of, one that now sits at 13 games after earlier having a 16-gamer. That is their sole focus as their record sits at 7-49. As soon as they do break through and end it, it will at least ensure they won't end up with the worst record by a team the NBA has ever seen. They have 10 chances remainin

g. Four are against real bad teams in the Pistons, Hornets, Kings, and Wizards. Then again, their two most recent games were decisive losses to arguably the next-worst teams in the league: those Wizards as well as the Cavs. After a 24-point Pistons win, the Cats are on the wrong end of another three blowouts in a row against terrible squads. So it goes without saying they don't stand much of a chance in South Beach against a LeBron-led team. The streak hits 15. But, help is on the way. The kind

of help a fork provides to someone eating soup: Jamario Moon. (upbeat, funky music) Signed out of the NBA's Development League and tossed aboard this sinking ship for the stretch run to replenish wing depth, many know Moon from the prior season as the Cav who technically got first crack at replacing LeBron once he bolted to Miami. But LeBron James he is not. - [Jon] Jamario Moon is a very nice man from Goodwater, Alabama who cannot be destroyed. In 2001, there was a long, long list of underclass

men and high school grads who declared themselves eligible for the NBA Draft. And nestled among the names of guys from Miami and Notre Dame and Michigan State was Jamario, who played at a small Mississippi community college. He wasn't drafted. It crushed him. Then he re-assembled himself and played everywhere he could -- the D-League, Globetrotters, every team in between. Many birthdays passed, and the odds of him ever landing in the NBA grew increasingly remote with each one. Then at age 27, al

l the work he put in improving his defense paid off, and the Toronto Raptors gave him a shot. There have been a number of 27-year-old NBA rookies throughout history, but Jamario Moon is the only one ever to play himself into a starting role and start 75 games in his rookie season. He made an immediate impact as a key contributor, not for some basement-dweller, but for a playoff team. His thunderous dunks made him a cult hero, and the next year he was invited to the Slam Dunk Contest, where he da

mn near threw it down from the free throw line. His career plateaued after this. His minutes fell, and after a few seasons he was out of the league entirely. Didn't matter. The now-30something headed back to the D-League, hoping against hope that the phone would ring once again, and then it did. He's using this as an opportunity to try to scratch and claw back into this league for good. He has no issue playing for a team this bad. This is what he does. He loses for a living, and he cannot be def

eated. However, few seem to notice or care that Jamario Moon is here at all, because a much, much larger celebrity is now in town. Anthony Davis has made a trip to the Cable Box to watch the Jordan Brand Classic, a high school all-star game he himself played in a year ago, and this city can barely contain itself. Observer columnist Scott Fowler is practically begging the universe to put Davis in a Bobcats jersey, even attempting to divine significance in the orange-ish shirt Davis wears to the g

ame. I really want this for him, and for everyone who covers these Bobcats. We've read all the Charlotte Observer columns this season, every last one. These writers have been an absolute delight, faithfully and engagingly chronicling a fascinating team that would've otherwise faded into history as a trivia question. Lesser journalists would've mailed it in this season. They didn't. They did great work. (bittersweet music) - [Seth] Paul Silas does not back down from a fight. He didn't as a player

, he doesn't as a coach. As an assistant with the old Charlotte Hornets, he once stood up to Anthony Mason. As Cavaliers coach, he once chased Ira Newble down a hallway, calling him a "hip-hop motherfucker." Coming from a man who is on the record mocking the name "P. Diddy," that is not a compliment. Well, coach Silas is in a particularly foul mood after a loss to the Celtics. He HATES losing to his old team, and this one was especially sour. Boston didn't bring any of their stars to Charlotte -

- Garnett, Pierce, Allen ... they're all resting. The Cable Box baits fans with an in-game ticket giveaway and delivers that crowd a big, fat L. The Celtics record a feel-good, 12-point victory on the backs of their bench players. Silas needs an outlet, and finds one in Tyrus Thomas. Since the fed-up Bulls traded Thomas to Charlotte, he's signed a big contract extension, making him one of the highest-paid players on the roster ... ... which is something people remembered when he showed up to tra

ining camp severely underweight, fresh out of the hospital for stomach ulcers caused by poor eating habits during the lockout. And it's something coach Silas remembers when he spots Thomas palling around with Boston players after those undermanned Celtics thumped Charlotte on their home court. Silas confronts Thomas about his chumminess in defeat and his salary. Thomas snaps back, so 68-year-old Paul Silas tries to stuff his power forward into a locker. Everyone seems cool afterward. Heat of the

moment. - [Alex] When they host the Hornets the next day, it's a game so ugly that even the free tickets they'd offered for this one turned out to be too expensive. Not only do the two teams produce the lowest-scoring quarter in seven years, but neither team had more than 47 points entering the fourth quarter. Here's a look at every time an NBA team has brought this few points into the fourth. It's happened plenty throughout history, but since the calendar flipped to 2017, up through the 2021-2

2 season, not a single team has done so, making it all the more delectable for two teams to suffer this fate against each other in the same game. For the second time in a row, the Bobcats and Hornets have combined to play a style of basketball that belongs in another century. Majestic. Nothing the younger Silas throws at the wall as acting coach sticks except for just giving Gerald Henderson the ball and letting him cook, but in the end that's not enough, and they come up short for the second ni

ght in a row against a squad's B-team. Which means a few things. One, they've just broken the two-month-old franchise record for longest losing streak. Two, they are now down to six chances at besting the '73 Sixers, something that by this point is weighing heavily on the men grinding and fighting to avoid infamy. And finally -- and most importantly for the organization's long-term future -- they have officially clinched the league's worst record, and with that honor the most Anthony Davis-based

ping pong balls in the following month's Draft Lottery. (pensive music) The very same day, sweeping changes are occurring down in New Orleans within the team that used to play in Charlotte. They're in the throes of an ownership change with Saints owner Tom Benson also buying the city's NBA club, and, in conjunction with that, a potential name change away from Hornets. Benson yearns for something more relevant that specifically reflects the local area. And we already know Jordan has longed to re

-implement the dynamic connection formerly held between the city of Charlotte and its first NBA squad, so it's not hard to put two and two together. - [Jon] I don't know about this one, Mike. I mean, look, we both know this looks stupid. I've gotten my share of licks in here, but despite everything I've said about it, there are multiple baseball teams named after different colors of socks. That's the stupidest thing in the world, right? But they normalized it by winning and by sticking around. E

veryone should always be laughing at the dumbass sock teams, but nobody does. I don't think you can brand your way out of this. I mean, if you go back and throw on the hand-me-downs, that feels to me like an admission that none of this even counted. That all the guys who threw on these shirts, and played in those shorts, all played in a pilot episode. Look at the guys you have now. They're wearing 'em out there night after night, dutifully getting laughed at and getting the shit beat out of them

, because that is the job. Keeping the lights on so other guys they'll never meet can bring about the good times. Let 'em at least do it for a reason. - [Alex] For the still-suboptimally named team in Charlotte, there is no longer any incentive whatsoever to lose. The best lottery situation they could've dreamed to secure is in the bag, and even winning out won't change that. Desperation is running rampant among the players, it's running rampant among the coaching staff, and, with zero silver li

nings to losing anymore, even management. They know they just blew a golden opportunity against those Hornets, and there aren't many of those remaining on the horizon. On deck are the Chicago Bulls. Even without reigning MVP Derrick Rose and sidekick Luol Deng, the Bobcats still can't even keep it within 30. 18 losses in a row. Five chances remaining to win just one game. But let's take a quick moment to fully soak in and appreciate the magnificence of their last eight games: a 20-point loss to

the Hawks, a 28-point loss to the atrocious Wizards, a 13-point loss to an atrocious Cavs team missing Kyrie Irving, a 24-point loss to the merely very bad Pistons, a 23-point loss to a Heat team missing Dwyane Wade, a 12-point loss to a top-3 heavy Celtics team missing that entire trio, an 8-point loss to an atrocious Hornets team missing arguably their five best players, and then this 32-point loss to a Roseless, Dengless Bulls team. They need a hug in Charlotte. (tranquil music) - [Seth] Apri

l 20th is the anniversary of Michael Jordan scoring an NBA playoff-record 63 points against the Knicks. On this April 20th, the Bobcats nearly win their eighth game, but collapse down the stretch against the playoff-bound Memphis Grizzlies, who at least tip their cap to an opponent they could tell was "playing for pride." It's just tough when you've got nine healthy bodies. Bismack Biyombo has to play 41 minutes, his season-high by a long shot. In the last of those minutes, a frustrated Biyombo

gets into it with Memphis' Rudy Gay, shouting, "this is my house," to which Gay responds, "you have seven wins. This is everybody's house." Fair point, Rudy, but I'll remind you that Bismack paid to be here ... in this house ... so, ya know, at least he has equity. (suspenseful music) - [Alex] After that 19th straight loss comes a glimmer of hope: even though there are only four games left, the next two are against bottom feeders. Primo opportunities, with the worn-down Sacramento Kings up first

. The Bobcats score 88 points; the Kings score 78 points ... in the paint. It's another demolition at the hands of an atrocious team as the streak hits 20. Comparing them to a dilapidated automobile that might just fall completely apart at any given moment? Truer words have never been spoken. It feels inevitable for these guys. It really does. But remember, they do have another opportunity against an NBA punching bag, this time the Wizards. All the Cats do is emphatically cement their place as t

he punching bag of the punching bags. Now down to just two games left, both against teams headed to the playoffs, Augustin's the latest to speak up about getting the one win that would provide an oasis of relief for the entire organization. In Orlando, they do get to face the Magic without their star, continuing a recent theme for Charlotte. And also continuing a recent theme, they just can't take advantage. Despite fighting their way back from down 17 to eventually make it just a one-point game

, the Magic pull away late, sending the Bobcats spiraling toward consecutive loss number 22 -- a full third of the season. And then there was one. - [Jon] What do you wanna watch tonight, Mike? Ooh. Oh, come on, you always wanna watch Westerns, I knew you'd say that. Let's just... Let's just see what else is on before we commit. Um... "Moneyball." Yeah, alright, a two-hour movie about running a team that doesn't have any money, sounds like a blast. Noooo thank you. Ooh! King of Queens! Very unde

rappreciated show, right? Alright, tell you what. We start with King of Queens, and then since Magnificent Seven starts 15 minutes after the top of the hour, we can catch the first few minutes of Sein ... Oh. Oh god, Mike. They put us on national TV. I guess we're the biggest story in the league right now, huh? Everybody wants to tune in and see if the Bobcats are really the worst team in history. Maybe there's no suspense to it. Maybe they're just rubbernecking. They just wanna watch it happen.

Before the game, Gerald Henderson does something I've never seen anyone else do in any sport. He takes the mic and talks to all the fans in the building, promising to figure out some way to turn it around next season. He's practically apologizing. Of all these players, Mike, Gerald seems the most like you. I bet you took a liking to him partly because of that, partly because his dad, Gerald Sr., was that old-school type of player you have so much respect for, a guy who broke his jaw and kept on

playing with a neck brace because he just didn't want to miss any playing time. A different sort of toughness has been required of Gerald Jr. We saw it all season. When they got blown out to open February and he was already talking about not wanting to continue, and then continuing anyway for months. Later, when he lamented the misery of engineering his entire life around this work, from what he eats to what he does all day to all the scout tapes he watches just to try to gain that edge, only f

or none of it to ever matter. It was hard for everybody, but Gerald felt it all. People noticed. He might be the only one taking it as hard as you and coach Silas have. You couldn't really help him through that, it's an experience you yourself never had as a player. But you were there however you could be. Remember a few months ago when you wanted to coach him on how to draw more fouls, so you fired up iMovie and edited a video just for him? A lot has changed from the Kwame Brown days, Mike. A l

ot has changed about you. I know you probably don't give a shit what I think. It's just that ... you're gonna get booed by your own fans tonight when your face shows up on the big screen. It's gotta be the first time ever for you. Baron Davis is gonna be stunned, he never imagined it would be possible that Michael Jordan would get booed in his own building. There have been a lot of firsts for you this year. A lot. I just want to let you know that we see it. (mellow music) Charlotte Bobcats losse

s have come in two primary varietals. Either they stay agonizingly close throughout and just can't unlock the last couple of buckets, or they immolate immediately and the game is functionally over in the second quarter. This is neither. Against the Knicks, their determination to win number eight can be seen and felt, even in the footprints left by the play-by-play. They stave off defeat for as long as they can, which is somewhere around halftime, and then the thing that always happens happens. A

Knicks team missing Davis, Carmelo Anthony, and Tyson Chandler beats 'em by 20. The 2011-2012 Charlotte Bobcats are the worst team in NBA history. - [Alex] They did it. They officially let the '73 Sixers pop the proverbial champagne. 7 wins, 59 losses. Victory in 10.6% of their games. All they had to do was go 1-22 across their final 23 games to avoid it, and they couldn't. Instead, they became just the fourth team to record a losing streak that hit 23, following the expansion '96 Grizzlies, th

e '98 Nuggets, and the 2011 Cavs. And don't forget about the 16-game losing streak, the one they snapped on Jordan's birthday. That's two losing streaks of at least 16 games in one season. Over a quarter of NBA teams have never in their whole existence had one such streak, including the Sacramento Kings. In a 66-game season, the Charlotte Bobcats managed to produce two losing streaks longer than any in the entire history of the Sacramento Kings. I never could've conceived such wonders possible.

They had the NBA's worst defense complemented by an offense that was outcast from the rest of the league to allow over 15 points more than they scored on a per-100 possession basis. That net rating matched the 1992-93 Mavericks for worst ever, and no one else is even in their solar system. And it translates as beautifully as you'd expect into point differential. With the full painting now finished, we can take a final look at our progressive chart, and what do ya know, after a moment of relief f

ollowing their 43rd game, they took back control immediately thereafter, and maintained that control the rest of the way. Along the journey to 66 games, the separation they managed to generate from the 21st century runner-up, the 2000 Clippers, is truly stunning. Those Clippers, after getting to play an additional 16 games, did use that to propel their submarine to even further depths, but up through 2022, even with teams playing nearly a quarter more games most years, that is the only team that

did so. If we eliminate that built-in volume advantage and look at it on a per-game rate, that's where you can really see 'em shine, especially since the turn of the century. No one, not even the 2000 Clippers, can hold a candle to these Cats. And I can say with absolute certainty that the smaller season sample holds exactly 0.0% of the responsibility for these spectacular rate metrics. And I know this because we calibrated every all-time season played by every team and isolated just the first

66 games of each and every one to match 'em alongside the 2012 Bobcats. The results are pretty close to identical. Those '92-'93 Mavericks are the only team ever to register worse in the category of point differential per game. But then again, those Mavs still found a way to push their winning percentage to .134. To top this, the Bobcats would've had to find a way to win two more games than they did. Down the stretch, winning even one game, even against bad teams that were often lacking their be

st players, seemed impossible. There's little room for argument here: this is the worst NBA team ever seen. - [Seth] Here is a list of things the 2011-2012 Charlotte Bobcats were good at: the Bobcats blocked shots. They didn't commit a lot of fouls. That is the end of the list. Those statistics represent desirable qualities, but they are marginal. In terms of big stuff, stuff that matters, stuff that amounts to victory, the Bobcats ... didn't. They didn't meaningfully contest shots their opponen

ts took inside or outside the arc, and they didn't cover that foundational hole by rebounding or forcing turnovers. Above all else, the Bobcats missed. They did not pass to the open man, and if they did, he missed. The Bobcats did not make twos, and they did not make threes. They didn't even make ones. Charlotte management knew they didn't employ many guys who could make shots, and the few Bobcats who might have made shots either refused or got hurt or left. - [Alex] That is zero exaggeration. T

he average NBA player made a shade under 35% of his threes this year. But let's examine every Bobcat who attempted multiple threes on the season. Just one -- Corey Maggette, by a little over a percentage point -- topped that mark. And he missed the majority of this hellscape. For the season as a team, they failed to make even 30% of their threes, the first team in nine years to be that frigid from distance, and the last team to do so for 10 years and counting. As for interior defense? Ehh, prote

cting the paint for Charlotte was more of an abstract concept than anything. All year long this hospitable bunch cultivated an inviting environment, rolling out a red carpet going directly to the rim, gifting both more dunks than any other NBA team and more layups than any other NBA team. - [Jon] The Bobcats couldn't get the ball, they couldn't shoot the ball, they couldn't stop the opponent from shooting the ball. There was no one factor that prevented 'em from picking up win number eight and a

voiding the title of worst team ever. The finger could be pointed in a hundred different directions ... and I'm gonna choose this one, Mike, because it's the most poetic. (smooth jazz music) Way back when, you alienated Kwame Brown out of frustration that he didn't live up to the massive expectations that were heaped upon the teenager. And then a lot of life happened, both of you grew a little bit older, and last season you stuck your neck out to re-acquire him in Charlotte. People made their jo

kes, and then Kwame silenced 'em by proving you right. So right that he made himself too expensive for your liking and landed a $7 million payday elsewhere just two weeks prior to this season's opener. By league standards, he was pretty average for you last season, but he was a totally capable starting center. Every team needs a big who can play solid defense, and he was that: 6'11" and fourth on the team in defensive win shares. You only won 34 games that season, but his interior defense was ab

solutely crucial toward getting even that many. How do we know? This is how we know. That final, miserable, 23-game stretch was arguably the most winnable stretch of games you could possibly ask for. During this lockout-compressed season, the bad teams were more bad than usual, but the same was true of the good teams. They were especially desperate to give their best players as much rest as possible before the playoffs, and when Charlotte came up on the calendar, it was the free space on the bin

go card. The Celtics wouldn't even fly their big three to town. Even with the most cake schedule imaginable in the NBA, the Bobcats rarely even made a contest of these final 23. Now let's revisit the last one in which they did. April 20th against the Grizzlies, the "this is everybody's house" game. The Grizz didn't get to the line a whole lot. They only made 15 free throws. And they only hit three buckets outside the paint. Just three, all game. And they won. And this is where they went and got

the overwhelming majority of their points. Not just in the paint, but right at the rim. They just walked right up to it like it was an ATM machine. Right where Kwame Brown used to take care of business. Between this and all the other winnable games you lost this way, I can almost guarantee the Bobcats would've found the one extra win they needed to avoid this fate if he was on the floor. Mike, even you have to find this funny, right? You, of all people on Earth, became the architect of the worst

team in NBA history because you lacked, of all people on Earth, Kwame Brown. Knowing this, would you have ponied up back in December to retain him? I wanna think so, I really do. But there is a word that people have been muttering at their screens for the last hour, and I think it's finally time for us to talk about it. (smooth jazz music) Former coach and current NBA analyst Jeff Van Gundy, who you referred to as a "little guy" in your Hall of Fame speech, leads the charge of people accusing y

ou of tanking. In other words, the practice of intentionally assembling a bad team for the purpose of securing better odds in the upcoming draft lottery. The incentive was obviously there this season, with the most can't-miss prospect to come around in nearly a decade. Look, if you did tank, you're not gonna get any judgment from me. I don't care either way. It's not my team, it's your team. And it's not against the rules, although it is generally thought of as tasteless and discouraged by the l

ottery. Which, in another poetic twist, was instituted after the 1983-84 season specifically to address tanking by teams like the Bulls, who were accused of throwing games in the pursuit of the pick that ultimately became you. Were you tanking this season, Mike? Mike says no. Seth, what do you think? - [Seth] Jordan and Rich Cho signing almost no one, filling none of the glaring rotational holes, barely clearing the salary floor ... that, to me, is tanking, even if the first steps happened by ac

cident. The players, though, were definitely not tanking. Players rarely tank, but this squad in particular strikes me as an earnest, dignified group of professionals. It's just that some of them were Byron Mullens. - [Jon] Totally agree. Tanking on the coaching level, and even the player level, has happened and will happen elsewhere. But when you look at things like a 32-year-old, soon-to-retire Corey Maggette trying to tough it out through an Achilles injury at the end, you know the people in

shorts were giving it all they had. On the coaching level, the Silas family was playing all the guys they had and trying everything they could think of, with Paul absolutely beside himself, unable to accept all this losing. Which leaves the front office. I think this was a passive, circumstantial tank. You, Rich, and Rod were being really thrifty entering this season, and openly said as much, but rebuilding is not tanking. I think that at full strength, with healthy players and a motivated Boris

Diaw, you sure as hell don't have a contender, but you have an okay-ish team. A team that might finish with a record that looked like your last few records. And in fact, entering this season, sportswriter Art Garcia even forecasted a playoff appearance as the best-case scenario. So, tanking the entire season? I don't really buy that. What I would buy is that you guys saw the writing on the wall, and around February witnessed the emergence of AD. And then, as your team bumbled through the season

with numerous missing parts, you could use your stated goal of long-term building as cover to not make any moves that would put more contracts on the books. You had to hold the line. And if by doing so you could be a little bit slick and kinda lean into one of those juicy lottery positions, well that wouldn't be so bad at all, would it? So yes, to some degree, this was a tank, but if you ask me, not one that betrayed the spirit of competition or the integrity of the game. In the years to come w

e're gonna see tank jobs way more transparent than this one. One thing is very clear: nobody in the building wanted this. Nobody wanted it to be nearly this bad. (dramatic music) Here we go. 5,000 anxious Bobcats fans are in attendance at Time Warner Cable Arena. The lottery isn't taking place there, they're just gonna watch a live broadcast from New York City. And they won't even be watching the actual drawing of the ping pong balls, which happens behind closed doors. Instead they'll be watchin

g as deputy commissioner Adam Silver announces the results with a stack of glorified cue cards. Even still, I wouldn't be surprised if the Bobcats didn't draw this much attendance from some of their actual basketball games this season. Rich Cho has headed up there to serve as the team's representative. Of all the people to choose as a good-luck charm, they sent the one guy who's more rational and analytical than anyone else in the building. Basketball's funny. It's almost like a laboratory in it

s effectiveness at ensuring that the best teams win and the worst teams lose. And yet, those teams' futures hinge on the complete opposite: a literal carnival game. Silver will be announcing the results one at a time, from the lowest pick to the highest. Naturally, the odds will change after each selection, but at the outset, our chances stand at exactly 25%. High enough to hope, but not nearly high enough to be confident. You nervous, Mike? Of course you're not nervous, you're you. Well, I'm ne

rvous. - [Alex] The Rockets, Suns, Bucks, and Blazers each have over a 90% chance of securing pick numbers 14, 13, 12, and 11 respectively, and that's exactly how it shakes out as the lottery moves into the top-10. There, we see more chalk. Having previously acquired the Timberwolves' first-rounder, the New Orleans Hornets land the 10th pick and the eventual draft rights to Duke guard Austin Rivers. Then it's the Pistons predictably getting number nine, which they'll spend on UConn center Andre

Drummond. Still no surprises as Silver goes on to announce the Raptors and Warriors, who'll add wings Terrence Ross and Harrison Barnes. The Nets are the next team in line, only this is another selection shipped elsewhere. The Blazers will draft arguably the greatest player in franchise history, a point guard out of Weber State destined to be alongside Davis in the Hall of Fame: Damian Lillard. The Kings as expected get the fifth selection, which they'll use on Kansas' Thomas Robinson. Now as we

move into the top four, not only do they become in play, but pick four specifically was always their most likely single outcome. If they can clear that hurdle, all of a sudden number one -- the transcendent Anthony Davis -- becomes their most likely reality. They do. In the first real drama of the lottery, Silver unseals the envelope to reveal a Cavaliers logo. Cleveland surely had their own high hopes of landing Davis, but have to settle for Syracuse guard Dion Waiters. For Charlotte, huge bul

let dodged. On to the top three. The representatives of the three remaining teams are summoned together for the moment of truth. Another exhale: the Wizards draw the third pick, but their sting will be lessened with a hell of a consolation prize in franchise cornerstone Bradley Beal. Down to two. - [Seth] If you've been calling Anthony Davis a sure thing, you made the right call. He will rapidly become one of the NBA's foremost talents, and, as seasons pass, establish himself as one of the best

to ever play. The long arms, the quick feet, the instincts and timing ... they'll make Davis as nightmarish a defensive presence as you hope. The years Davis spent sharpening his skills as a 6'0" guard will make him a rare offensive Swiss Army Knife -- one of the generation's top scorers because he can create plays AND finish them, beating opponents from any position, in any format, with or without the ball in his hands. Davis is a superstar. He'll sell shoes, he'll collect medals, he'll launch

charities, he'll win the NBA championship. Even with some prime seasons lost to injury, Davis will go down as a Hall of Famer. No question whatsoever. People like to re-do drafts with hindsight, and when they re-do 2012 someday, number 1 will stay the same. We are right about Anthony Davis. (dramatic music) - [Jon] For months, ever since it became clear that the top position would belong to Charlotte, these odds have been frozen at 25%. Months of being beat down, beat up, laughed at, insulted, a

nd humiliated have finally, in the last 30 seconds, bore fruit. These are the first 30 seconds ever in which the Charlotte Bobcats, in the entire history of the Charlotte Bobcats, are allowed to feel like winners. All we need now is for Silver to bring this thing the rest of the way home and announce that the next pick belongs to the Hornets. He cannot call Bobcats. He cannot pick up that Bobcats card. So this one's gotta be Hornets. Got it. Got it. (exhales) Okay, Mike. Just look at Rich. He'll

see it a split-second before we do. His face will tell us everything we need to know. (pensive music) (somber music) It was hopeless. The words "Charlotte Bobcats" would never mean anything to anybody. Two years after that fateful night in May, after the New Orleans Hornets renamed themselves the Pelicans, Mike and company had seen enough. They waved the white flag and rebranded as the new Charlotte Hornets. In modern times, the list of major sports franchises renaming themselves without moving

to another city is a short one. The Cleveland Guardians, Washington Football Team, and Washington Wizards did so after their original names were found to be problematic. The Bobcats' name, logo, and colorway were all completely benign. They just sucked in the regular way most things do. We do get a little bit of fun "I can't operate on this boy, he's my son" style comedy out of this. The Hornets drafted Anthony Davis, but he never played for the Hornets, because the Hornets didn't draft Anthony

Davis. The Hornets did. If it's any consolation, the New Orleans team couldn't capitalize on their enormous fortune. Davis absolutely lived up to the hype. He was phenomenal. And yet, in their seven seasons with AD, they lost far more games than they won. Actually, if you can believe it, the New Orleans team won slightly fewer games than the Charlotte team did in that span. They made the playoffs just twice and won a total of five playoff games. In 2019 they flipped him to L.A., and he immediat

ely won a championship with the Lakers. As for the Bobcats ... - [Kofie] When it comes to the Bobcats' legacy ... they they don't have one. Compared to NBA basketball and North Carolina sports, the team didn't accomplish shit. They just lost. It's not like anyone outside of North Carolina even noticed while other teams were getting nationally televised games. The Bobcats were wasting time slots on our local television networks. Nothing was worse than turning the TV on expecting the Carolina Hurr

icanes and ending up with the Charlotte Bobcats. You only tuned in if you wanted to see how many points the other team's star could rack up on them. From the time the Bobcats were announced in June 2003 to their last game in 2014, Duke and UNC each won national championships in basketball, the Panthers went to the Super Bowl, the Carolina Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup, Steph Curry led Davidson on that magical run, John Wall took the nation by storm as a high schooler, followed by other future N

BA talents like T.J. Warren, Montrezl Harrell, and the Martin twins. Hell, even if you saw a Durham Bulls game there was a chance you would see future Rookie of the Year Evan Longoria. In 10 years, the Bobcats gave us eight playoff games and lost all eight. What's left? Well, there's Kemba Walker's three All-Star years in Charlotte, but actually, no, because those all happened when he was in a Hornets jersey. Honestly, I cannot remember the last time I've seen someone wearing a Bobcats jersey ..

. or at all, for that matter. I've asked many of my friends if they were Bobcats fans, and most of them laughed at me, or said that they liked this player when he was on the team because they either went to UNC or Duke. It often feels like now that the Hornets are back, the entire state looked around and agreed that the Bobcats just didn't happen. And you know what? I'm cool with that. - [Alex] The season after winning 7 of 66 games, the Bobcats won 7 of their first 12 games. They somehow stumbl

ed into something appearing to resemble hope. There was even precedent for such hope. Those '73 Sixers, the previous standard-bearer for ineptitude, had climbed their way all the way up to a conference title within just four years of their rock bottom. But after their 7-5 start, the 2012-13 Bobcats immediately kicked off their third losing streak of at least 16 games in a single calendar year, this one reaching 18. So for those scoring at home, that means reaching a level of futility three diffe

rent times within 12 months that the Sacramento Kings have never reached once in their seven-plus decade illustrious history. In the lottery after they wrapped up another miserable season where they lost three-quarters of their games and didn't find the savior they were desperate for in the draft, they entered the very same purgatory they inhabited before Rich Cho decided that was no way for an NBA franchise to operate. From the 2013-14 season, their final as felines, up through the 2021-22 seas

on, they never won less than 35% of their games. But they also never won more than 58.5% of their games. They missed the playoffs seven out of nine years, with first-round exits at the hands of the Heat in the other two. - [Seth] Gerald Henderson and Byron Mullens will both serve stints in a more brazen, open-air tank laboratory: the Philadelphia 76ers. Henderson will retire a couple years later because of injuries. Mullens will spend the rest of his career abroad in Asia, Europe, and the Middle

East. I think he must cross paths with D.J. White sometimes. They have a lot to talk about. Matt Carroll will play one more game next season -- six minutes -- before Charlotte trades him. He'll come work for the franchise in retirement, and I bet he still accidentally calls them the Bobcats. Eduardo Nájera's final NBA game was indeed the one where his head caved in. He's okay, but he'll retire to take a coaching job. Corey Maggette calls it a career not long after. Charlotte will eventually use

its amnesty clause -- not on DeSagana Diop, but on Tyrus Thomas, whose NBA career will conclude soon thereafter, while he's still in his 20s. Bismack Biyombo will build a long and lucrative career as a defensive specialist. He'll leave Charlotte in 2015, but come back later. D.J. Augustin's future wife has been pregnant all season. Their first child will be born right before D.J. asks the Bobcats to release him so he can sign with Indiana, his second stop in a long, itinerant, very solid NBA ca

reer. D.J. wants out in 2012 because he sees what's coming: Kemba Walker, the actual point guard of the future, the next Charlotte All-Star, although not until they're called the Hornets again. Kemba will lead Charlotte back to the playoffs and pile on enough excellent seasons to rank among the best players in franchise history ... before a lowball contract offer drives him away in 2019. And then there's Boris. Two days after he convinces the Bobcats to release him, Boris signs with the San Anto

nio Spurs, reuniting with his old roommate and longtime friend, Tony Parker. In a smaller role on a far superior team, Diaw's numbers improve immensely. Boris is a key contributor in the Spurs' 2012 playoff run, and he'll win a championship with San Antonio in 2014. Then he'll release a children's book about safari photography. I love you, Boris. - [Jon] Rich Cho stayed in Charlotte until 2018. After many seasons of this franchise remaining hopelessly stuck in the exact place he did not want to

be, he joined the Memphis Grizzlies in 2019. Reggie Williams remained in Charlotte after the season and remained in the NBA for a little while longer. Derrick Brown was so quiet in his effectiveness that to this day, Derrick himself might not realize that by at least one standard, he was MVP of the 2011-2012 Bobcats. His 2.3 total win shares more than doubled those of runner-up Gerald Henderson. And yet, the 24-year-old never appeared in the NBA again. After spending both their picks on small fo

rwards, they no longer needed depth at the position, and from there, Brown embarked on a long, impressive career in Russia and Turkey, but never caught on with another NBA team. Let this stand as the legacy of the 2011-12 Charlotte Bobcats: their top contributor could not find work as even the 15th-best player on any other team in the NBA. Many passions, ambitions, and designs on the future were alive within this team, and all of 'em died. Although Jamario Moon continued playing for many years i

n Greece and Uruguay, this wasn't the springboard back into the league he hoped it might be, and he never played in the NBA again. Their quest to acquire a once-in-a-generation player, of course, fell just short. The eternal project to imbue the brand of the Charlotte Bobcats with some kind of meaning was completely abandoned. Steph Curry, the hometown hero they were hoping to acquire one day, very abruptly stopped hinting at a return to Charlotte during this season. He evolved into the greatest

pure shooter the NBA has ever seen. The once-pitiful Warriors locked him down, and together they've won at least four NBA titles. And then there were Paul and Stephen Silas. The 68-year-old had headed into the season with the hopes of coaching for a couple more years, and toward the end, when the writing was on the wall, he hoped that his career wouldn't end with the worst team in history, but it sounded like he knew it would. Paul Silas' head coaching career, which began in 1980, was over. Ste

phen Silas was among those interviewed to replace his father. There were several points throughout this season when that felt like a sure thing. Instead, the Bobcats hired first-time head coach Mike Dunlap, who himself only held the job for a year after a 21-61 season. Stephen did finally get his big break in 2020, when he was hired as head coach of a rebuilding, injury-depleted, cellar-dwelling Rockets squad. But that wasn't all he found familiar. In Houston, he worked with assistant coach Rick

Higgins, another son of Rod, and he reunited with both seasoned point guard D.J. Augustin ... and assistant coach DeSagana Diop. (pensive music) White, off-white, red, blue, black, doesn't matter. Mike can wear the loudest, baggiest, most pocketed shorts he pleases. About seven years after he was banned from La Gorce Country Club, he opened his very own golf course about two hours north. It's called Grove XXIII, and in a remarkable break from tradition, there is no dress code. Eat shit, La Gorc

e Country Club. Don't worry, though. He's still here. It doesn't matter that the Hornets just missed the postseason for the sixth year in a row, or that Mike still has never built a team in Charlotte that could make it past the first round of the playoffs. Or that every last one of these people is now long gone. Charlotte, he hasn't left you. The name change did seem to work. Even though this 7-59 season, the worst season of all time, is only 10 years old, nobody really talks about it that much.

Many casual fans likely don't even remember that the Charlotte Bobcats existed at all. I'm sure Mike remembers every last one of these people and every last one of these stories. Stories he probably never tells, because no one ever asks him. Mike, you're still doing your damnedest, trying to make it happen, trying to build a winner in Charlotte against all odds. You've tried it your way, and you've tried it other peoples' way. You tried one name, then another. Your coaching hires have been both

conventional and outside-the-box. Maybe your concerns about small-market NBA teams are warranted. Maybe it's not possible here. But you've never stopped trying. Why? You could buy a private island. You could learn how to paint. You could produce Western movies all day. You could live on the golf course if you wanted to. You could do anything you want, or you could do as much nothing as you want. You're not like the rest of us stiffs, Mike. You don't have to keep pencil-pushing and budget-balanc

ing and all this other bullshit the rest of us have to do. You're free. You're free, man! Just retire! Just leave! You can leave, can't you? - The game of basketball's been everything to me. My refuge. My place I've always gone when I needed to find comfort and peace. - [Jon] ... Maybe you can't. I just hope you're not doing this because you feel like you have something to prove. That somehow you have to atone for all these years, particularly this one. You have already shown us what you're all

about. I saw it. We all saw it. We all saw you. We know exactly who you are. Do you really think we're ever going to forget? (wistful music)