Bobcats Gone A-Boykin'

Nacho: All you folks jawing about my visit to Staples can pipe down for a short bit, I'll get to it as soon as I'm able. In other news, today the Bobcats signed Earl Boykins for the rest of the year. I, for one, greet our Boykin overlords and look forward to months of petty puns. I felt Herr Boykin got the shit end of the stick in the Allen Iverson trade, so it's good to see him land on his feet.

Besides, if Charlotte's gonna have professional basketball team, it damn well better have a diminutive point guard leading the squad. Can Earl be the second coming of Muggsy? We'll see. In the meantime, we'll just go ahead and ignore the fact that Brad freaking Miller put up 20+/20+ on us.

Brethren's thoughts a la carte, after...

Nacho cont'd: Thanks to our friend Doogz for the head's up that JJ's getting testy in Orlando.

Brethren: If we were going to fill that last open roster spot and it's not gonna be a big guy to help our thin front line, I'll take a 5'5 point guard any day of the week. Especially the Boynk. I mean, he's smaller than me! And he's in the NBA! What could possibly get better!?

Anyone who can invoke Muggsy is good in my book and helping mentor Ray Ray should be good, although I don't know if I want Earl's shoot-first mentality to rub off on Ray Ray. I do lurve me some Muggsy though. For a solid few years until I was about 16, I thought I could be a solid point guard despite the fact that I was 5'8 and a stiff wind could blow me over. I'm pretty sure Muggsy was the only reason I thought that. And if the Bobcats now have a diminutive point guard who inspires white suburban Charlotteans to think they too can have success in the game of basketball, well, that's just aces.



picture ht: SportsBastards. Nice name.
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Hell's Coming With Me!!!

Nacho: A quick reminder: Tomorrow night, Monday the 28th, "Charlotte is FREE." I'll be heading down to Staples Center, with some amazing seats.

My expressed, written goals include:

- A Bobcats win. (This will not be difficult; especially with The Caveman still injured.)

- Drink heavily. (This will be the only thing easier than beating the Clippers.)

- Get a picture with Adam Morrison. (I want this more than a Bobcats win.)

- To be Bill Simmons's huckleberry, and act like Daniel Plainview when his parenting is impugned. Simmons, if you don't recall, denies our existence like a Midwestern school board does evolution. Seriously, I'm gonna treat him like Kurt Russell does Billy Bob Thornton. You gonna do something, or just stand there and bleed?

Supercool video, after...

Nacho cont'd: I don't know who posted this, but god bless 'em. I'm fairly certain this is footage from the Hornets game I attended. I'll look over it a few more times to determine if my pixle-y ass is in there. (Update: nope. Opposite end of the court.)


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The Calm Before the Storm

Brethren: The Bobcats are not unlike Fievel at the beginning of his American Tail sequel, all anxious and ablaze about following the setting sun for the first time in the 2007-2008 NBA season. After taking care of the Bulls last night in Chicago (who were without their top two scorers), the Cats have pulled over .500 in their last 11 gaves, at a cool 6-5. The five losses came to teams at the top of league: New Orleans, San Antonio, Dallas, and bonus-basketball losses to Detroit and Cleveland.

The wins were of note, too. At Boston. Home versus Denver. Home versus Orlando. The other three were against teams they should be beating: New Jersey, Memphis, at Chicago.

So while I am enjoying the baby-steps success, and we're seeing some good things like quality wins at home, pulling out games on the road, the thing is I just think we've put ourselves in too deep a hole. We can dig ourselves out, we just have to prove that our recent stretch of play is more indicative than our season road record, a not-so-cool, 3-13.

A more in-depth look at the upcoming scheduel, and some Nacho toppings, desde

Brethren (cont'd): So while I'm uber-excited to see the ACC Tournament in its rightful home of Charlotte, NC, all the college basketball events we've got going on that take up Charlotte Bobcats Arena, it puts the team on the road for the majority of the rest of the season.

Of course, we start out tonight with a very winnable game at home versus Philly. The Sixers are actually worse than the Bobcats, sitting at 16-28 (versus the Cats' 17-26 record). Of course, winnable games and real wins are two different things, as if Philly hadn't played Charlotte this year, they'd only be 14-28 (clever way of saying the Bobcats haven't beaten the Sixers this year).

So after that, we have nine games before the All-Star break, six of them on the road (at Clips, Sacto, GS, PHO, Denver, and Detroit). And at the end of the day, we're 1 game out of the 8th spot in the Leastern Conference. So as we trek westward like young Fievel, which Bobcats team will we be bringing? The surging Cats, winners of 6 of their last 11, with wins over some quality opponents? Or the young team on the road who has amassed 3 road wins in 16 games away from home this year?

Nacho: I'm agree and empathize with Brethren: while our Cats are improving at the usual incremental place, I still don't see any leaps and bounds being taken any time soon. They've put together some impressive wins, but I don' have the confidence in them night after night. They're Jekyll and Hyde, and only one of those personalities wins games.

I will go out on a limb and gaurantee a Bobcats victory this upcoming Monday against the Clippers. The reason: I will be intimidating the eff out of every Clippers player. Riddle me this: the Bobcats are an even .500 when I witness games, and with that kind of science and statistics behind, they're sure to win. Take it to the bank.

As for the Bobcats, don't expect any post-season action any time soon, but as Simmons perpetually prophesizes, one of the years, the Bobcats are going to be a team to be reckoned with.
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Primary Pants Party: Now With Video

Nacho: Just a quick update, because our friend Alexis made up this video for a party entirely unrelated to the Primary Pants Party coming up in a few weeks. It's sports related because it's got the MNF music all up in it.

Don't forget to vote, now, kids. February 5th is Super Tuesday.



Pretty sw33t, right? Anyway, just a reminder: Pants Party's two weeks from tonight. Get yer salsa on, after....




I feel like I've been duped into a Jennifer Lopez basketball movie.
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We Are All Giants Fans

Brethren: The greatest weekend of the NFL season is over, and a great thing has happened. We have the battle lines drawn, the sand has been kicked away by a dragging ankle, the war paint has been applied. Good. Versus. Evil.

In the early afternoon game, Momma and I shared a table at a nearby sports bar with some North Kakkalak kindred. They were NC State/Meredith grads and therefore were rooting for Marmalard. I was okay with that, because I was obviously rooting against the Pats. We also enjoyed their company, because all North Carolinians know each other, we of course had several mutual friends. In fact, my mom's god-daughter (my god-sister?) was the Meredith grad's "role model" in college. So we had that going for us.

Beyond that, Evil set the table. They didn't allow a touchdown, and they weathered a bad Tom Brady day. And so doucheness marches on to Glendale.

In the second game, either team would have easily sidled into the "Good" role for me. We had either the most statistically relevant QB of all time or Elisha.

I went into the game thinking I was going to root for Fav-re no matter what. Brett Favre was gonna make Brett Favre plays all day and that was going to be good enough for me to be happy for the Packers to assume the "Good" role against the Evil Pats.

Little did I know Elisha would steal my heart.


Brethren (cont'd): Dear Lord, am I really an Eli Manning fan now? I didn't want to be. Not at all. But I couldn't help but find myself rooting for him as the game went on.

He played better. He made smart decisions. He didn't throw his girly, wobbly, non-spirals. He lead his team, his receivers, his defense, the New York Giants. He weathered two missed FGs and was the quarterback, the leader, of a team that pulled together a true team effort in -4 degree weather.

It was one of the most emotionally invested I've ever been in a playoff game that didn't involve the Panthers. Holy fuck.

So Elisha's our representative of Good. Dreamboat is the representative of Evil. Like I said, the battle lines are drawn.

Fuckin A. As Lt. Pete Webb told me tonight, "Here. We. Go."

We Are All Giants Fans.

Nacho: With four seconds remaining, I turned to Jersey, the resident Giant fan on Big Wangs staff and announced with assured aplomb, "Game over, Tynes's got this." When Larry shanked it, I remembered I had money on the Packers, and thus, this was a good thing. I was happy. And drunk.

I'm not as gung-ho about Elisha as Brethren, though. He still reminds me of every kid I ever played against in JV football, and not in a good way. It's his nose, it's just way too fucking big. I want to punch it. The way he moves his mouth in post-game interviews makes me want to slap him. You can tell he breathes primarily through his mouth. But damnit, the guys 9-1 on the road, and that loss was Week 1 to the Cowboys, in which, if I remember correctly, it was a pretty close game.

So while I'm not sure I would've survived two weeks of Brady/Favre lovefests, I'll watch with mild amusement at the shellacking the Pats will give the Giants in Glendale next month. I'm still not as filled with vitriol as most folks are with the Pats, I'd admire them even if I don't like them. We're watching a historic team, and that's pretty cool.

Well, the streets of LA were pretty barren this morning because of MLK Day, and the sky's looking dreary, a perfect setting for the saddest day of the year, in my opinion. I always hate the Conference Championship weekend, because it means football, and my reason for getting up in the morning, is going away. The season's too short, the offseason too long, and damnit, I'm not ready for it to be over.
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The Bobcat Deb Ball

Nacho: Since the Associated Press is totally bias when it comes to photos of tonight's 119-116 win by the Bobcats, I'll just post this nice picture of Charlotte Bobcat Arena.

It's time people: our breasts are budding, our dresses show off our onion booties, and we're winning games against tough opponents. Heck, even when we don't win, we come damn close. It's time for the Charlotte Bobcats to attend the Deb Ball..



Nacho cont'd: Bill Macy describes his occupation in David Mamet's "Things Change" by calling himself "the guy behind the guy, behind the guy." That's what this team feels like. We're not gonna make any noise in the post-season this year, but we've put together more quality wins in 37 games to call this season a success. I'm not sure who the Don Ameche is in this analogy, maybe the Heat. They seem pretty lost every night.

Anyway, this squad seems to be welcoming itself into society, like a dolled up Southern belle. We're asking the big scary guys (Detroit, Boston, etc.) to boogie, then showing them dances Daddy doesn't know about. That's right, we gots moves:



Brethren: This team is finally resembling some of those Bernie Bickerstaff teams from the first three years, with one major difference: playmakers at the end of the game.

A staple of those first three years is that we could sneak up on superior teams (read: nearly everyone) and hang with them through three and a half quarters. Most nights, we'd fail in the end and bemoan that we didn't know how to win. And believe you me, that's still a problem these days.

But last night showed that on an off-night, Jason Richardson is not afraid to take big shots. Gerald Wallace has the confidence to hit a 3 with the game under two minutes, as well as play at an All-Star level. And the defense shut them down when it was needed.

Sure, it's a long trek even to make it back to .500. But this stretch in 2008 has certainly been their best basketball to date.
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It's the Primary Pants Party Y'all!

Nacho: Tuesday, February 5th will be a day that lives in famy. It's the biggest day of Primary Season, Super Tuesday, it's the night Will Leitch will be in town, and best of all, since it's Tuesday that means one thing:

Presidential politics and Star Power,
a winning combination.

Details, after...


The editor of Deadspin and Ron Paul need no introduction, so here's the skinny:

Payin' the Billz

Starting at 7pm on Tuesday Mr. Leitch will be earnin' dem ducats at Book Soup bringing joy and wonder to the ennui-ridden sports fans of Los Angeles.

After the Show, It's the After-Party

Head over to Big Wangs Wings in Hollywood. It's one block North of the Arclight Cinerama dome and Good Tunes Haven, Ameoba Music. The tvs will be showing exit poll results, Andrew Bynum recovery updates, and, on the big screen by the bar, the ever-growing, ever-impressive Guitar Hero tournament. Watch, as the country starts down either a dark, sullen path or blazes a new trail to change....while absolutely owning some jerk playing "Sweet Child of Mine".

So c'mon down and join us. Wangs is the epicenter for all your sporting entertainment needs in LA, with HD TVs o' plenty, a big ass Wheel of Booze, and we might even break out the Beer Battleship board. The Royal We is coming: mother's hide your daughters.


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Herculean Bobcats Efforts

You're so pretty when you're angry. (Photo by Chuck Burton, AP.)
Brethren: The Bobcats don't have a healthy point guard on the roster (Ray Ray, McInnis (aka me), and DAnderson are all injured), and yet this team has taken the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Detroit Piston to double OT and OT, respectively, since their win over the Celtics on Wednesday.

That takes cajones. And since it's past time for "moral victories" to be accepted by this team, I like that head coach Sam Vincent is taking the latest loss (103-100 to Detroit at home) personally.

Here's how the game went down: The 'Cats dressed only 8, with rookie Jared Dudley and sharp-shooter-who-hasn't-done-that-so-far-this-year Matt Carroll as the starting backcourt. Despite the seemingly-outrageous obstacles, the Bobcats took the Pistons to OT. Here's where it gets tricky. Down one, J-Rich takes a fall-away jumper that looks like it's going to fall short. Seeing this, Mek tips the ball to the other side of the rim, and Nazr tips it in for the win!

Or wait, the refs, in their infinite wisdom, decide that Mek was goaltending, and the Bobcats turn the ball over to Pistons. Two made free throws later, another Bobcat loss.

Like I said, Sam Vincent is pissed. He wants the same treatment the Heat got against the Hawks in their loss from back in December. I'm with him. Video evidence, plus general musings, desde:

Brethren (cont'd): Well, ESPN won't let you embed their videos, and I can't get the file I downloaded from NBA.com to upload to YouTube, so here's the link to the video at the WWL. Visit them, watch the video, then come back.

Back? Yea, it definitely was a legal tip.

So even if David Stern continues his hate on the Bobcats and we don't get the same treatment as the Miami Heat, I like that Vincent is standing up for this team. Getting no respect from the officials was one of the staples of the first three years under good ole' Bernie Bickerstaff, and it seems to still be an issue under Sam Vincent.

That said, maybe if we had shot better than 65.6% from the free throw line, the game wouldn't have gone to OT. Just a thought.

Keep fightin, Cats. Bring on the Nuggets!

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The Most Un-Typical Bobcats Game Ever

Brethren: I'm just really excited they won.

Yes, J-Rich, you can score at will for us.

Bobcats 95, Celtics 83.

Not at what I was expecting after this. So after completing their second win in a row over a probable playoff team from the Eastern Conference, I can only believe that the Bobcats took to heart my dejection from them losing so pitifully on my birthday.

Other reasons, you ask? Go on.

Brethren (cont'd): Well, let's see what we can't think of:

- Ray Allen was hurt and didn't play. You might remember him from their first meeting in Charlotte, where he hit a last-second 3 pointer to beat the Bobcats.

- The boss showed up before yesterday's game and lit a fire under their collective arses.

Nacho: I think it's fairly clear why the scrappy 'Cats beat out the pre-eminent East Conference Leaders: They've been spending too much time with Silky Garrard. It just makes sense.

- Glen Davis sat out as well. I'd imagine he's just getting the hang of boxers. Needed a night to try it out on New England women.

- They feel real bad for the hometown feller whose in "really, really tough shape" after his spanking in New Hampshire. (Help my boy out.)

- Since we have Jordan, we can't disregard the idea that it could be The Shoes:


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Take It To The Bank: The Offseason

Nacho: So here we are, it's January and the Panthers, not unlike the Sports Brethren, are twiddling their thumbs. Now, here's your middle of the week re-cap of everything that will happen between now and the start of next season:

- The Panthers will address several of their many weaknesses in the draft, and lay low during free agency.

- The Bobcats will beat the Clippers on January 28th in Staples Center. While they might not voice it specifically, the majority of the team will attribute their victory to the crazed lunatic that kept distracting the Clips.

- The Bobcats will miss the playoffs.

- The Patriots will win the Super Bowl.

- Will Leitch will rock out at the Guitar Hero tournament.

- Vegas will never be the same.

For more check-in-the-mail certainties, join us desde

Nacho cont'd: I will find another job.

- LOST will be amazing.

- Scrubs will never get to shoot their finale.

Brethren: And for that, Brethren will probably cry for hours in the dark while wearing his Scrubs scrubs.

Some more absolutes in our world of uncertainity:

- The Panthers will take a defensive player in the first round of the NFL draft.

- I will dominate whomever I take on in the "NBA Equivalent Game," a spin-off of our "MLB Equivalent Game"

- I'll get a little sad (as I am right now) whenever I see Walter Herrmann in a Pistons uniform.

- The world of professional sand soccer will never be the same.

- The Panthers don't fire Jeff Davidson then hire Cam Cameron as Offensive Coordinator, even though Nacho just got a boner for me mentioning it. Ha ha, boner.

- JLew will continue to turn to blowing cocaine off stripper's tits as he has graduated from Clemson and moved to DC. It is, after all, DC.


- Nacho will care much more about POTUS '08 than Brethren will, but we'll both be sorely disappointed Ron Paul doesn't get a nomination.

- We'll make enough insightful posts about the Panthers to ensure young William selects us to write Deadspin's NFL Preview '08

- We'll rock out. Both with and without our cocks out.
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The Most Typical Bobcats Game Ever

Brethren: Last night for my birfday, a buddy of mine* from home bought four tickets to the Bobcats-Nets game in The Meadowlands. Section 239, row 24.

The last row in the arena. Still, it's an NBA game; it must cost thousands of dollars per year to purchase those regular season tickets.

$13.50. He bought the four tickets for a total of $13.50. Total. $3.38 (rounding up) per ticket. The most outrageous deal I'd ever heard of.

So we gathered two other friends from home who live in/near the city, hopped on the bus, and we made it to the Izod Center (my sisterin and I had a funny discussion on why Izod chose to spend its marketing dollars on an arena in East Rutherford, NJ -- seriously, why?). We bought beer and headed up the steep incline to our seats.

The full game story, desde

* Friend not Steve Nash, but the writer of that post

Brethren (cont'd) Of course, there was a large family sitting in our seats. Not willing to get into a confrontation when so many open terrible seats were available, we plopped ourselves in the second to last row of a neighboring section. After a smoking hot 16-year-old chick sang the National Anthem, the game was ready to go.

(Can I say that she was smoking hot? Now that I'm officially 7 years older than her, is that ok? I mean, she was. Fuck that high school football player that's taking her down. Fuck him, seriously.)

The view from our seats. That court is far away.

And the Bobcats came out gunning. J-Rich came out on fire. Felton and McInnis were controlling the tempo. GWallace was flying all over the place. We built a 13 point lead. Even with that lead, a sense of doom was all our group of Bobcats fans could feel. We had the lead, and yet we knew that wasn't going to be maintained.

The Nets lurve them some old-school amenities in the Izod Center. Such as this crystal-clear, high-def scoreboard.

It didn't. The lead shrank to six points by halftime. Our group moved down to seats still in our section that were about ten rows from the bottom to see if that could help the inevitable. It didn't. We were down two going into the fourth. Suddenly, we couldn't do anything right. Turnovers, turnovers, turnovers, turnovers. They started a lay-up line. Darrell Armstrong was hitting 3s. At one point in the fourth, we were down 12. It ended up as a six point loss.

The view from our second half seats. The view was better, our team was not.

Ultimately, that's the thing about being a Bobcats fan right now; the team just can't maintain a lead, they can't close a team out. It's really like the other team goes on cruise control then turns it on and we can't do anything about it. At some point, it's our fourth season and I'm ready for this team to become a winner.

Until then, drunk faces!


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Week 17: Our Inevitable March to 7-9

If the MJD can post a Smorgasbord on Wednesday, we can post our Week 17 thoughts on a Wednesday night.

SportsBrethren: Godspeed, Vinny.


Brethren: I believe I read something before Sunday's game that said if we won and finished 7-9, it would be the 6th time in the Carolina Panthers' 13 year history that we vanquished a season with that record.

Boom, bitches.

7-9. Pretty sweet fuckin record if you ask me. Think about all the sweet shit you get with a 7-9 record:

- A midrange first round draft pick, probably somewhere from #13 to 16. Pretty sure we can pick up a fast linebacker from Miami or an SEC school. Aaaaand we will.
- Just enough optimism to think about how, man, if two games had gone our way, we'd be sitting pretty in a wild card spot.
- The knowledge that the Panthers went 7-9 in John Fox's first year; we went to the Super Bowl the next year.

Like I said, boom, bitches. More general cogitations on Week 17, including Nacho's crazy antics and my patented bulleted thoughts:

Brethren (cont'd): My patented bulleted thoughts:

- This week, instead of the usual bar we attend, I instead went with two of my buddies who are twins at ESPNZone. That's right; it was the twins' birthdays and they had Mommy's credit card. High priced cheap beer and appetizers: fuck yea.

- The Panthers were on a tiny screen in the top left corner; in the sea of meaningless Week 17 games, ESPN in NYC considered ours to be one of the least deserving of a prime real estate TV. Sweet.

- Is our QB situation kinda figured out? With a season like this where Chris Weineke is starting games, a healthy Jake is certainly one of the top 10-15 starters out there. Young guns Matt Moore and Brett Basanez certainly can be serviceable in back-up roles. And after watching Colt Brennan shit the bed, if he's the best college has to offer, I'll stick with Jake, Doc Holliday, and BB Gunz.

- BB Gunz. Yea, I just made up a nickname for Brett Basanez. Canuck would be proud.

- Well besides the beauty of the 7-9 finish, there's not much memorable about this game. Tampa didn't really play their good players; when they did earlier this year, they dominated us. So I can't really conclude we're better than them. But like I said, time has proven that 7-9 fits the Panthers franchise just fine.

Nacho: First things last: how the fuck have we had commercial air travel for nigh over half a century, and there's still no "sick bays"? Ships have 'em, I'm pretty trains have 'em (if I remember Under Seige 2: Dark Territory correctly.) Hell, I bet stagecoaches had 'em. But we let some woman carrying some strain of Bavarian Bubonic Plague just sit there in seat 18D on the 8am cross-country flight from Charlotte to San Francisco. Just sit there and cough. A lot. And give me the plague. Thanks, dipshit industry.

Now, onto the Panthers. Despite me earlier feelings I'm ok with us barely missing the playoffs with a bunch of fourth stringers. I think we should give Foxy one more year with a healthy starting QB en route to a career year again, then see how interested Cowher is.

Julius, congratulations, you're the Antoine Walker of the NFL: you got paid, then took the year off. On the bright side, you won't have to spend a week in Hawaii this spring, unlike some people

Mr. Steve Smith, I have but one thing to say to you:



I look forward to a healthy team with fresher biscuit, in 2008. If it's not too much trouble, I'd like to get healthy too.
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