NBA Draft 2012: Bobcats Must Win Lottery to Save Sputtering Franchise

The future (and, perhaps the continued existence) of the Charlotte Bobcats will be riding on the fortuitous bounces of ping-pong balls when the NBA stages its annual draft lottery on May 30.

The Bobcats will have the best chance of nabbing the No. 1 pick, presumably to select Kentucky's Anthony Davis, by virtue of their atrocious 7-59 record and the worst-ever .106 winning percentage constituted therein.

However, Charlotte's odds (25 percent) are only marginally better than those of the Washington Wizards (19.9 percent), who won nearly three times as many games this season as did the Bobcats.

Throw in the significant chances afforded the formerly-league-owned New Orleans Hornets (13.7 percent), the Cleveland Cavaliers (13.8 percent), the Sacramento Kings (7.6 percent) and the Brooklyn-bound Nets (7.5 percent), and it's clear that the Wildcats' one-browed wonder can hardly be considered a lock to suit up for Michael Jordan's band of misfits and Bismack Biyombos.

Which is as much a case for restructuring the draft lottery as it is for furiously slamming the panic button in the Queen City.

To be sure, there's no guarantee that Davis is or will be a franchise savior. Sure, he's already supremely gifted with the length and athleticism to dominate defensively and the guard-oriented skills (which he didn't have the opportunity to put on display at UK) to be a versatile offensive threat.

Not to mention the ridiculous upside that comes with attaining his current height (in the 6'9"-6'10" range) as recently as he has.

But, at the end of the day, the NBA Draft is a crapshoot, wherein failure and disappointment are far likelier outcomes than superstar success.

That being said, Davis is an uber-talented big man with a clean bill of health and, at the very least, offers a tremendous dose of hope to whoever is granted the privilege of picking him up.

Just the sort of hope that the hopeless Bobcats need so dearly.

According to Forbes, Charlotte ranks as the least profitable franchise in the entire NBA, with net losses of at least $15 million per season over the previous three, including a league-worst $26 million out the door in 2010-11.

Those figures are unlikely to improve this year, to say the least. The Bobcats ranked 25th in average home attendance this season and 28th in percentage capacity filled. As for the only teams worse off in both categories than Charlotte, the Nets are bound for bigger crowds and a brighter future in Brooklyn, while the Pistons sport a budding star in forward Greg Monroe.

At this point, the Bobcats have neither the luxury of a shiny, new building nor a borderline All-Star on which to pin their hopes. That also leaves the Bobcats without any way of luring prospective season ticket buyers into the fold, even in a basketball-crazy market like Charlotte.

Which likely leads to even more of a financial shortfall, which may give greater incentive to MJ to offload the team and (dare I say it?) the league to consider contracting the woebegone franchise.

But those are all cans that can be kicked down the road (if not off of it) with the "proper" bounce of a ping-pong ball, and with Anthony Davis suiting up the Bobcats' ghastly color palette as a result. The 19-year-old can't and won't single-handedly save the floundering franchise, but he would at least give the team a foundation of hope and budding stardom on which to build.

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