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Cold Reality: Addition of Brown as coach sparked high expectations, but he says Bobcats still have a long way to go
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Published: October 30, 2008
CHARLOTTE -- When Larry Brown was named coach of the Charlotte Bobcats last April, it was one of the most positive moves the franchise has made in its five-year history.
The Bobcats were replacing a rookie coach, Sam Vincent, who turned out to be in far over his head, with a Hall of Famer with a proven track record of turning around struggling franchises.
At the time, it seemed realistic to think that Brown's presence alone would improve the team by as many as 10 wins over the 32 they won despite Vincent's blunders last season. It seemed realistic to think that Brown's teaching, experience and enthusiasm could turn the Bobcats into a playoff team.
But as the Bobcats head into their regular-season opener today at Cleveland (7 p.m., SportsSouth Ch. 71), the bar might need to be lowered a bit.
The Bobcats lost all eight preseason games, and while the preseason is meaningless in one sense, that is a bad, bad sign. It's hard to go winless in the preseason, even if you're not playing your regulars the whole time.
Beyond that, this is a roster with major gaps at positions Brown hoped would be addressed in the offseason, but weren't.
He seems resigned to the fact that the growing pains will continue, especially with the current makeup of the roster. The core -- Jason Richardson, Gerald Wallace, Emeka Okafor and Raymond Felton -- is intact, and rookie D.J. Augustin adds a new dynamic at point guard. But there's a big drop-off after that, especially until Adam Morrison and Sean May prove that they can bounce back from injuries.
"We're not ready," Brown said before the team flew to Cleveland. "Hopefully we've made some progress in the last three or four days, but we're not there right now. You know, it's a marathon. It's not a sprint. We've got to keep trying to get better. I think they're trying."
The effort was one of the trademarks of this team in its first three seasons under Bernie Bickerstaff, but it waned last season under Vincent.
"I think it's just taking some time," guard Matt Carroll said. "When we get everything down and understand and play the way he wants us to play, we'll be fine. I think the positive thing is we're all trying to do it. We're all trying to do it the way he wants to do it, the way he's won before. He's a Hall of Fame coach. That's what we're all buying into, because we have so much respect for him.
"I think it'll take a while, but eventually it will click. I think everyone is taking the attitude that we'll play better today than we did yesterday. The more we play together, the more we do it, the better we'll get."
Brown has been candid since the opening of training camp that the roster isn't constructed the way he wants. His basic request from Day One -- three point guards who could dribble through a press, two small forwards who can guard, and five athletic big men.
He has two point guards, not three, in Felton and Augustin, and even then Felton may be best suited as a combo guard. Wallace is far and away his best defensive small forward, but he is being forced to play power forward because of the lack of athletic big men. The dominoes fall from there because Okafor is stuck at center, rather than power forward.
Brown has lobbied management to beef up the frontcourt, to the point that he seems tired of talking about it. He doesn't mind talking about the reality that one deficiency leads to another, and that the problems can snowball.
"I looked at Detroit and Orlando and all of these veteran teams who've got guys coming back, and I expected those teams to be ahead of us, obviously," Brown said. "But it isn't about system. There is no system. We have not rebounded well, and obviously that's a huge concern for us after last year and the year before. Our defense hasn't been great, and that was a concern last year. A lot of that is because we haven't shot the ball well. And maybe we've turned the ball over too much.
"All those things -- rebounding, shot selection, turnovers -- that impacts the defense. Those are the things we've got to do to win, but we're not there right now."
It would help if May, who missed all of last season after knee surgery and has played in just 58 games in three seasons, and Morrison, the third pick in the 2006 NBA Draft who also missed all of last season after knee surgery, can become factors. But it's not a given that either will.
Brown said he underestimated the depth concerns when he took the job.
"I didn't realize Sean's situation," Brown said. "I didn't realize Adam's situation, and I didn't realize we'd have so many young kids on the bench. So from that perspective, it's a little different than I anticipated. But that said, every year is a challenge with whatever team you have. Your goal is, I want them to play up to their potential. And I don't know what that is."
Whatever it is, it probably won't add up to 10 more wins at this point.
That seemed realistic when Brown took the job, but now the bar is being lowered.
■ John Delong can be reached at jdelong@wsjournal.com.
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