The Bobcats, who last season won their fourth game in mid-February, have provided all a reasonable fan can ask – good times, clutch performances and hope.

  The Charlotte Bobcats are 4-3. Four and three is a winning record. The last time a major league team from Charlotte had one of those seven games into a season was 2009-10.

    The Bobcats won three of their first five that season, then lost seven straight.  On Jan. 18, 2010, they had a chance to again surpass .500. All they had to do was beat the Sacramento Kings at Time Warner Cable Arena. Perhaps you remember the evening. Plenty of good seats were available.

     The temperature reached 64 degrees that afternoon before falling to 39. Also falling was the jump shot of Gerald Wallace. Behind Wallace’s 28 points and Raymond Felton’s 10 assists and nine rebounds, Charlotte won 105-103.

     The victory pushed the Bobcats to 20-19, and they went on to make a guest appearance in the playoffs.

      The last time the Carolina Panthers were above .500 was 2008. They won their first two games, four of their first five and eight of their first 10. They, of course, made the playoffs.

     Although the Panthers finished the 2009 season 8-8, they never broke .500. They were 5-8 with three games to go.

     So, since the last time the Panthers or Bobcats had a winning record after seven games, a kid could have: been born; learned to walk; learned to say no; and perhaps applied for a learner’s permit.

       I like looking at the standings in the NBA's Southeast Division. There the Bobcats are (going into Thursday’s games) a mere game behind Miami and tied with the Heat in the all-important loss column.

     The Bobcats, who last season won their fourth game in mid-February, have provided all a reasonable fan can ask – good times, clutch performances and hope.

      The margin between victory and defeat is fragile. They're above .500 because Indiana point guard D.J. Augustin, a former Bobcat, missed a three at the buzzer in Charlotte’s opener and because point guard Kemba Walker did not miss Wednesday at Minnesota.

     Walker hit a 19-foot jump shot with 0.7 seconds to beat the Timberwolves 89-87.  Watch Walker’s New York City footwork. Back and forth, side to side, you don’t know where he’s going. Minnesota’s 6-6 Alexey Shved, who defended him on the game's final possession, didn’t. 

      Walker gave away at least 7 inches to Shved. But he has more vowels. 

      Dribbling with his right hand, Walker went straight at Shved and moved left with a quick lateral move left. He was free and the ball was in and the Bobcats were 4-3. 

      In a seven-day stretch beginning Saturday they play four games at home – against underrated Memphis and then Milwaukee, Toronto and Atlanta.

       Small-market NBA teams start the season below .500. Only those that acquire a major star, and pack talent around him, go deep in the playoffs. Perhaps Walker will be a star. Perhaps rookie Michael Kidd-Gilchrist will be.

      But I promise this: Friends and acquaintances I see at games, some of whom have been away for more than a year, say they're having a good time.

      Small-market NFL teams start the season with the same record as the New York Giants. I have no idea how close the Panthers are to winning. They have pieces. Their 2-7 record suggests those pieces don’t fit.

     The Panthers won’t characterize what they’re about to do as rebuilding. But they’ll bring in a new GM with a new philosophy and a new staff and probably new coaches.

     Teams can win immediately with new leadership, as this season’s 5-4 Tampa Bay Buccaneers and, especially, last season’s San Francisco 49ers, attest. But the best teams find leaders and commit to them.

      The Bobcats, interestingly, have a new coach, five new players and four victories.

      I thought about trying to make a quick buck by commemorating the occasion with T-shirts.

But City of Champions is taken, and One of our Teams is One Game Above .500 probably won't work.