I think the obvious thing for Charlotte to do would be to trade some of those bigs to a soft team with a bunch of extra scorers like, uh, us. Nick Young, Mike James (who played for Larry Brown in Detroit), and maybe Andray Blatche for some combination of bigs and wing defenders would make sense for both teams. Other good trade partners are as follows:
—Detroit (maybe Rip Hamilton? Gordon would actually be even better for Charlotte)
—Portland (maybe they trade Fernandez?)
—Indiana
—Phoenix
—LA Clippers

Also, Iverson makes so much sense here that it’s not even funny. They ought to sign and trade Felton (maybe to Portland? Andre Miller isn’t really a long-term solution at point guard) and use some of the money they can save to sign AI. Granted, he’s not the most efficient scorer in the world, but he’s going to be a better first or second option than Raymond Felton or Gerald Wallace.

Charlotte was still 7th in defensive efficiency last year, a monumental increase from the 20th-ranked defense they had a year earlier. It really does make perfect sense for them to add Iverson though — they need some source of offense to lift what was the fourth-worst offense in the league last year, and the adverse effects from Iverson’s ball-dominance and defensive-hawking will be minimized in Brown’s system, especially because he’s had experience coaching Iverson. If Iverson doesn’t sign with Charlotte, though, their offense might actually get worse, considering that Okafor was at least good for double-digit points a game, whereas Chandler relies strictly on moving without the ball.

I don’t see why the ownership group wouldn’t sign off on this, even with an impending sale. Iverson would come cheap for one year, is a ticket draw, and would restore some semblance of media attention to an otherwise dismal team. Hell, they’d even have a shot at the playoffs if Iverson and Brown keep their heads on.

I don’t think that Charlotte is employing a defense-only Moneyball strategy so much as they’re just putting together a bad squad.

larry brown will want to trade half his team by half way through the season.

He’s already traded away half the team… and the other half, no one wants…

Larry Brown has finished re-making the Bobcats in his image: “Defense, defense, defense….. and Oh yeah, sometimes we’ll have to score the ball.”

Raymond Felton will probably return, considering that all the Free Agent money has dried up. If Allen Iverson can’t get a mid-Level deal, then certainly Raymond Felton will have a difficult time signing anywhere else. Felton will be the starter at the beginning of the year but I believe the team will probably make the transition to D. J. Audustin as the starting PG by the end of the year. Raja Bell will be the starting SG, and even though he’ll be 33 this September, Larry Brown will play him 34-36 minutes a game again this year. Gerald Wallace is a fixture at SF. Boris Diaw seemed to play much better after he was released from his Phoenix prison cell.

This offseason, the Bobcats made a very strange trade in my view. They swapped Emeka Okafor for Tyson Chandler. I understand that Larry Brown values defense over offense…. but there’s not really much difference between Okafor and Chandler defensively. Okafor is a very good defender in the post and a slightly better rebounder than Chandler (Rebound rate: 19 vs 16.4). Okafor also blocks more shots, he’s a much better Offensive player and he turns the ball over less than Chandler..

So, unless Okafor has a long term injury problem that I’ve not heard about (and that New Orleans didn’t catch), or there was a locker room problem – I don’t get it. They save the last three years of Okafor’s salary, but they actually took on more salary this year as a result of the trade. Is it possible they just wanted to rent a center for a couple of years until Ajinca develops?

They drafted Gerald Henderson, a 6’5" shooting guard from Duke, known for his defense and a budding but versatile Offensive game. Neither Ajinca nor Henderson will get enough minutes this year to make a difference.

I agree with pantslessyoda1 – bringing in Allen Iverson would make a lot of sense for Charlotte – unfortunately (for the Bobcats), it looks like Iverson will be signing with the Memphis Grizzlies – so where does Charlotte go to get some scoring? They traded away their only real low post threat in Okafor. As Mike Prada mentioned, Raymond Felton cannot shoot…Gerald Wallace is better when someone else creates space (ie: a knock down shooter). I just don’t see how Charlotte is going to score enough points to win consistently.

What does all this mean? Even with the development of Augustin, and the improved Diaw, and a sticky Defense, I don’t see a chance for Charlotte to improve their record this year. They are stuck in NBA mediocrity hell – just bad enough to miss the playoffs; just good enough to miss out on the high Lottery picks,

I predict: 34-48

The Bobcats played just under .500 ball (27-29 W-L) after a poor start (first 25 games or so) last season.

They have enough talent to repeat that over a full season. Their defense will carry them that far.

What exactly Charlotte is doing with that team is a quite baffling … the same fans who seemed to be so passionate about the Hornets are being severely turned off by the inept management of their new team. They’re almost like the Washington Nationals of the NBA.

When looking at the other teams of the East, I only really see the Bobcats being better than the Nets, who will be pretty terrible. Defense is great, but when your crappy offense is constantly giving the other team more offensive chances, all of that D will eventually break down.

Felton and the team are still at odds, Larry Brown is likely “getting too old for this ish”, and I would not be surprised if Gerald Wallace was finally traded.

Win Prediction: 29 games

And with NBR’s comment. This is definitely taking the shape of a Larry Brown sort of team. The big question is which version of Tyson Chandler they are getting. If he is healthy, but lacking a Chris Paul to help him on offense, then based on his Chicago days I’m thinking 5.5 wins versus the 7.9 they got from Okafor last year. With that dropoff applied to their post-trade record, I’ll go with 37-45.