ESPN's Sports Guy Takes Aim on Bobcats

ESPN's Sports Guy, Bill Simmons, used his forum to publicly lampoon Charlotte's NBA team.

He referred to Mek's contract as "The Worst in the League." Is Mek overpaid? Slightly, but he's one of the faces of the franchise and with the prior regime's tendency to not re-sign the team's best players, it was important for the Bobcats to re-sign the team's first major free agent. Rashard Lewis will be making almost $10 million per year more than Mek for the entire duration, and he's nowhere near that much more of a player.

Simmons would continue, "With Isiah finally gone from the Knicks, Charlotte will assume the mantle as the most frustrated franchise in the NBA." Full Story<

He contends that Charlotte has no potential stars or franchise players. Jason Richardson is not in the upper echelon of stars, but there are only a handful of these players and the rest of the teams that think they have one are lying to themselves. Most teams have at best a 2nd tier star (not an insult, just not potential HOFers) and JRich fits in that category. People nationally have forgotten about him, but this year should serve to remind them.


The other NBA experts from ESPN weighed in with only one (John Hollinger) of the ten predicting the team will make the playoffs. Two had them finishing dead last in the east. In their blurbs, nine chose to focus on Larry Brown instead of the players on the floor and virtually all forgot that Brown coached other places before New York. Ric Bucher's was of particular note, "The damage of the New York debacle on Larry Brown's reputation is reflected in the Bobcats already complaining about his system. Never seen that happen to him this quickly before. That is usually followed by Larry demanding new players, and it's usually downhill from there." Already complaining? That's the first I've heard of it. Full Story