For a town that likes to brag (Were the second-biggest financial center! Weve got the tallest building between Atlanta and Salisbury!), were not making enough of a fuss about the 2012 Bobcats.
After we lose Wednesday to Orlando, the Bobcats will return Thursday for a home loss to New York. Its such a big deal, its going to be nationally televised.
Thats because people like to see history made and with the closing game of the season against the Knicks, well not only achieve a 23-game losing streak but well finish with the lowest winning percentage of any team since the NBA was formed in 1946.
History-wise, were like the Great Pyramid of Bad.
Well long remember the 2012 Miracle Cats, a team:
• So miserable that it spawned nostalgia about the Hornets of old, who were in some seasons so criminally bad that half the bench played with ankle bracelets.
• So wretched that if we dont land Anthony Davis in the first round, well probably draft an exorcist.
• So ghastly that the high point of spring sports here was that monkey riding a dog at the Speedway.
Charlotte sports fans can be expected to long debate which was worse: this years Cats or the 2001 Panthers. Our NFL squad won their first game then lost 15 straight, some creatively. It would take years for their achievement to be surpassed, by the 2008 Detroit Lions who still get all the attention.
This years Miracle Cats, after being mathematically eliminated from the playoffs during the preseason, also won their season opener, roaring past Milwaukee by a whisker. Its been all meow since.
We are the NBA equivalent of connecting through Atlanta, of the Greek debt, of being invited down to Human Resources with the promise, Itll only take a minute.
Our civic pride is at stake. Will we be enshrined with the 1962 Mets, the 1972 76ers and the 1976 Bucs as epically dreadful? Or will we be merely classed as another anomaly in this years lockout-shortened NBA season?
True fans still attend the games. They beat the traffic by staying until the end.
They know sports is all about maybes, with a little superstition mixed in. Maybe we shouldnt have built the arena on the site of the old Confederate Navy Yard. Maybe we should have insisted on a mascot not on the endangered-species list (Charlotte Catfish seems somehow appropriate).
Maybe, maybe. A dozen maybes. But no maybe here: We cant get any worse.














