Charlotte
Philip Maymin
Basketball News Services
Emeka Okafor is not getting very many minutes in Athens. He is representing his country mainly by warming the Olympic bench. Yet barring injury he will probably average more minutes than any other Bobcat next season. What is keeping Okafor on the pine given the dearth of big men on the Olympic roster?
Perhaps the answer is that size is not as a big an issue in the international game as it is in the States. The wider lane, the zone defenses, and the constant double-teaming of the low-post requires players either like Tim Duncan who are adept at breaking the double-team or smaller guys like Lamar Odom who can spread the floor by shooting threes.
Okafor can't shoot threes like a guard. But he should be fairly familiar with breaking double-teams. If he isn't yet, he better get familiar really quickly, since opponents will quickly realize the Bobcats will not have many offensive options beyond their prized rookie.
Christian Laettner and Grant Hill had similar experiences of being young players on an Olympic team, and having a lot of luminaries to learn from. Okafor may be one of the smartest players in the NBA so we can be sure he is not passing up this opportunity to learn from Duncan et al.
This could be the best thing that happened to Okafor and GM/coach Bernie Bickerstaff. How often can a GM send his franchise player to learn from among the best players in the world, with virtually zero risk of injury?
TEAM NOTES
The Charlotte Bobcats will unveil their new team uniforms in a live event that fans can attend on Saturday, August 21, 2004, at 12 noon at SouthPark Mall.
Robert MacLeod ofThe Globe and Mailwrites: Desperate in their need to beef up a questionable front line, the Toronto Raptors went out and signed questionable Loren Woods to a free-agent contract yesterday. Woods, a slender 7-foot-1, 255-pound centre, has done little to recommend himself during his first three years in the National Basketball League, with a meagre career average of 2.6 rebounds and 2.3 points in 136 games with the Minnesota Timberwolves and Miami Heat... At June's expansion draft, Woods was selected from the Heat roster by the Charlotte Bobcats.Because he was a restricted free agent at the end of the 2003-04 season, Woods was automatically declared an unrestricted free agent as of July 1 under the NBA's expansion draft rules.
Battinto Batts ofThe Virginia Pilotwrites: ... negotiations continue with representatives of Robert Johnson, the billionaire founder of Black Entertainment Television and owner of the NBA’s newest basketball team, the Charlotte Bobcats, to construct a Hilton hotel that would stretch across the properties.It is unknown how close the city is to a deal with Johnson.