In a wide-ranging interview with Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer, Michael Jordan said a lot of things that may be of interest to fans of both the Bobcats and the NBA alike.
One of the more interesting notes to fans of the league in general was the fact that Jordan said he “made some calls” to inquire about the availability of James Harden, before the Thunder ended up trading him to Houston for Kevin Martin, Jeremy Lamb, and a bag of basketballs some draft picks.
The entire transcript of the interview is worth a read, if only because Jordan doesn’t often make himself available in this way. But there’s also a bullet-point version, which we’ll duplicate below along with some thoughts on each.
– Jordan said the franchise is open to a nickname switch should New Orleans Hornets owner Tom Benson follow through on changing that team’s name (and Hornets becomes available once again).
The team’s nickname, colors, and uniforms are the least of Charlotte’s problems. The Bobcats have been over .500 just once in the team’s eight years since moving to Charlotte, and a history of questionable draft picks and decisions (or non-decisions) in free agency have them poised to repeat the feat in season number nine. The correct answer here from Jordan should have been an angry one taling about how he’s focused on the product on the court, and not the product in the gift shop.
– Jordan told players to stop complaining about new coach Mike Dunlap’s lengthy practices. “You can’t sit here and look yourself in the mirror and say we don’t need this stuff. If that was the case, we shouldn’t have been a 7-59 team. So in essence when you’re a 7-59 team, you go back to the basics, you go back to try and figure out a way, OK, we need to do this thing the right way. Either you buy in or you’re not a part of this whole process.”
In today’s NBA — or realistically, even in today’s society — players aren’t going to be able to focus for practices that last for three-plus hours. They’re just not. It’s easy to talk about your eight- or nine-hour work day and try to relate it to twenty-something athletes trying to focus on improving their fundamentals for a few hours, but it isn’t the same thing. I’m with Jordan that in principle, players should suck it up and get on the page. But reality says that Dunlap should be an effective enough communicator to be able to condense his message so his players are able to digest it over a shorter period of time.
– Jordan said the Bobcats “made a couple of calls’’ about shooting guard James Harden’s availability before the Oklahoma City Thunder traded Harden to the Houston Rockets this week.
This sounds exciting if (for some sick, sick reason) you’re actually a Bobcats fan, but in reality, 25 of the 30 NBA teams likely made the obligatory phone call to Sam Presti before Harden was ultimately dealt to the Rockets. This is what NBA GMs do — they make calls to other teams, on a fairly consistent basis, to see who’s available and who isn’t to determine if there are any realistic deals to be made. Again, this sounds exciting, but these conversations take place constantly throughout the course of an NBA season.
– Jordan said he still believes the Bobcats could be an attractive destination for major free agents down the road, but “I also understand we’ve got to get our house in order, to make that attractive to people.’’
I’ve got nothing on this one. Truer words have never been spoken.
