Charlotte Bobcats: Expectations Should Be High Next Season

(Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)

For the casual NBA fan, the Bobcats improvement from season four (32 wins) to season five (35 wins) may seem minimal, but for the Bobcats, it was a season defined by more than just the final win/loss record. 

The season started terribly. After the first 23 games of the season, the Bobcats had a record of 7-16 with no sense of a turnaround coming, and then quite possibly the best trade in Bobcats history went down.

The Bobcats shipped out Jason Richardson, Jared Dudley, and a second-round pick to the Phoenix Suns for Boris Diaw and Raja Bell. The second the trade went down, the Bobcats were laughed at by many fans and writers, who saw the trade as a dumb move on the Bobcats part, but looking back, how wrong they were.

After two more losses gave the Bobcats a record of 7-18, the Bobcats began to turn things around. The team finished the rest of the season with a 28-29 record, which included a franchise-record six-game winning streak. Although a great turn around, this may not equate to high expectations for next season until we make a deeper analysis.

Before the trade, the Bobcats were 7-16, as mentioned before, while post-trade the Bobcats were 28-31. However, of those 23 games before the trade, 14 were home games. That comes out to 60.9 percent of their games up to that point being home games. Post-trade, of the 59 games, 27 were home games. That comes out to 45.8 percent.

Next, taking a look at the Bobcats' win/loss record, we can see that they were 23-18 at home and 12-29 on the road. In the 14 home games before the trade, the Bobcats were 6-8. Meaning, they were 17-10 in their home games post-trade. This tells us before the trade the Bobcats were a terrible 1-8 on the road, while post-trade the Bobcats were 11-21. Not great, but a substantial improvement.

Based on the math in front of us, had this post-trade team been able to play those first 23 games, they would have won nine home games (17x14/27) and three road games (11x9/32). That equals a total of five more wins, which would have been just enough to squeeze the Bobcats into eighth place in the playoffs over the Detroit Pistons, who won 39 games.

There were other factors that could have improved this hypothetical record, as well. Gerald Wallace, D.J. Augustin, and Bell all missed significant time throughout the season. Not that injuries don't happen to all teams, but it is noteworthy that they all missed time post-trade, not before. This is obvious for Bell, not so much for Augustin and Wallace, so I'd like to point that out.

In addition, making trades leaves a team short-handed for a game or two -- between bringing in Boris Diaw, Raja Bell, DeSagana Diop, and Vladimir Radmanovic, the Bobcats were short-handed quite a bit. Also, in the final two games of the season, Brown played the bench just as much, if not more, than the starters.

Not that other teams may not have done this, but the Nets' starters played throughout, and Stan Van Gundy played his starters more than Larry Brown did his, as well.

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