Charlotte Bobcats Review: Allen Iverson Is the Answer to the Trouble

Layup Drill will be breaking down every team in the league with a brief review of the 2008-09 season, key personnel decisions, draft options, trade options, and overall state of the franchise. Consider this your favorite team's State of the Union. We continue with the Charlotte Bobcats, whom I GUARANTEE will make the NBA Playoffs next season. Really, they will.

2008-09 Highlights

This year’s Bobcats showed flashes of life at various stages of the season, and stuck around in playoff contention until the very end. Larry Brown’s first season at the helm in Charlotte yielded the best record in franchise history (35-47), but at the end of the day, making the playoffs is how this team will measure true success. The Eastern Conference is getting better, and deeper, so to sneak in the back door of the postseason certainly won’t happen next year. But there is hope.

Free Agents This Summer

Raymond Felton

Felton was rumored much of the regular season to be trade bait, but for one reason or another, a deal was never made. Felton will be a restricted free agent this summer, and will almost certainly not be around next fall.

Sean May

The Sean May Experiment will end, finally. As dominant as the Felton/May tandem looked in Chapel Hill four years ago, their transition into the league has been underwhelming.

Others (like Juwan Howard, Dontell Jefferson, Sean Singletary, and Cartier Martin) could easily be gone if they don’t agree to sign for minimum money.

First-Round Draft Picks

The Bobcats own the 12th pick in the NBA Draft, and in our latest Mock Draft, we have Charlotte selecting Syracuse guard, Jonny Flynn. That probably will change, as Charlotte’s draft selections have been some of the toughest to comprehend understand over the years.

Trade/Free-Agent Options

The trade made last season with the Suns to bring in Boris Diaw and Raja Bell improved the young Bobcats; and with Gerald Wallace, Emeka Okafor, and Augustin, they have a decent core group of players.

Their primary need this offseason will be to bring in a go-to guy who can also be “The Man” in the key moments of big games. While Wallace has held that title for the past season or so, he is more of a solid second option.

I don’t see Charlotte being able to address that issue via a trade, but there are two free agents out there that are very familiar with Larry Brown, and could also fit the description: Stephon Marbury and Allen Iverson.

The idea of bringing in BOTH A.I. and Starbury would certainly pick business up in the Queen City, as an Iverson/Marbury back court (at least on paper) would be one to contend with.

Of course, the numbers would have to work out (i.e. they would have to want to play in Charlotte, and together).

This offseason may be one that Michael Jordan truly has to dig in and do some selling to vets that turn down playing for a ring to go to a perennially losing franchise.

Good luck with that!

State of The Team

Even though reports out of Charlotte's state the team will be up for sale, they aren’t leaving the city, and the product on the floor will get better.

Larry Brown often takes two full seasons to have the fruits of his labor show up, and with a few more changes in personnel, Charlotte will be knocking on the postseason door.

Auhor's Note: Check out the New and Improved LayupDrill.com today. New look, new features, and more great basketball news like this right there!