For a town that likes to brag (“We’re the second-biggest financial center!” “We’ve got the tallest building between Atlanta and Salisbury!”), we’re 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. It’s such a big deal, it’s going to be nationally televised.
That’s because people like to see history made and with the closing game of the season against the Knicks, we’ll not only achieve a 23-game losing streak but we’ll finish with the lowest winning percentage of any team since the NBA was formed in 1946.
History-wise, we’re like the Great Pyramid of Bad.
We’ll 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 don’t land Anthony Davis in the first round, we’ll 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 year’s ‘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 year’s Miracle ‘Cats, after being mathematically eliminated from the playoffs during the preseason, also won their season opener, roaring past Milwaukee by a whisker. It’s 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, “It’ll 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 year’s 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 shouldn’t 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 can’t get any worse.
