The Bobcats will start from scratch for the third season in a row, as they have another new coach for this season. After Bernie Bickerstaff in 2006 and Sam Vincent in 2007, it's time for the experienced coach Larry Brown to take over in Charlotte.

Sam Vincent won't surely be missed, as he took the team when the Bobcats were coming from their best season ever (33 wins) and spent some money in the offseason by bringing Jason Richardson to the team, but still the team couldn't do better than 32 wins last seasons and with some options that were at least very weird, like putting Raymond Felton in the SG position.

With Larry Brown, we know the team will improve on defense, at least that will surely be Larry Brown's main target in the training camp. Even though he had an excellent career as a coach, he needs to prove to the NBA fans that his disastrous time as a Knicks coach was just a case of "being on the wrong place in the wrong time". I use to say that when a team doesn't have stars like their opponents, the way to success is put players helping each other and a great team spirit on defense. This was exactly what happened with Larry Brown and the Pistons when they defeated the Lakers in 2004 to win the NBA Championship.

Raymond Felton has enough ability to lead the team. If you remember, he was chosen as the 5th pick in the 2005 draft, in the same year Deron Williams and Chris Paul were also part of the draft (3rd and 4th) and even though he doesn't have the spotlight of these two players, the truth is that Felton is also a good player and he has been poorly used on Charlotte. He finished last season with 14.4 ppg and 7.4 apg, finishing the season with the 7th place of the league in terms of assists per game and he has conditions to do even better this season, as long as Larry Brown can take advantage of his talent. So, it's actually weird that the Bobcats drafted PG D.J. Augustin as their 9th selection. I don't question the talent of Augustin, who is a future superstar. He was a team mate of Kevin Durant two years ago and he finished last season with 19.2 ppg and 5.8 apg. Already this season on the Summer league, Augustin ended the league with 20 ppg, so it's not his quality that I put in question, but how he will co-exist with Felton and someone will need to sit on the bench. This "problem" will need to be solved by Larry Brown, in order to be have the best basketball of these two players at his disposal.

The backcourt of the Bobcats is the strongest part of the team, as it counts with starters Jason Richardson and Gerald Wallace, who are capable of giving some wins to the team. Jason Richardson had a great debut season in Charlotte, with 21.8 ppg, 5.4 rpg and 3.1 apg, with 44.1% FG. He has also converted 243 3pts shots last season, a franchise record for the team. On the other side, Gerald Wallace is one of the most underrated players on the league. His numbers probably would be more highlighted if he was on a bigger team: 19.4 ppg, 6.0 rpg, 3.5 apg and 2.1 spg. Besides that, we are talking about a versatile player and capable of executing several tasks on the field. However, Wallace is an injury-prone player and he has missed 69 games on the last 4 seasons! The backups for these two players are good options and they make the roster deeper. Matt Carrol is a dangerous player in the perimeter, finishing right at the top of this stat last season with 43.6%. However, Carrol has regressed from what he had done in 2006/2007, when he had 12.1 ppg, but J-Rich joining the team explains that.

For the SF position, Adam Morrison is back this season, after missing the whole season in 2007. On his rookie season, Morrison wasn't impressive and ended the season with 11.8 ppg and having almost as many turnovers as assists and just shooting 37.6% FG. He is a terrible defender and that doesn't help him at all to get minutes on a team coached by Larry Brown, so he will need to work a lot this season to convince his coach to give him a chance.

The frontcourt seems to be the weakest part of the game of the Bobcats. Okafor and Mohammed are good defenders, but neither can be a real offensive threat. They are two very similar players and Okafor managed to get last season 13.8 ppg and 10.7 rpg, but he isn't a player who can create opportunities in the offense in individual plays. Still as Larry Brown likes players with the profile of Okafor, this may be his breakout season.

Nazr Mohammed joined the Bobcats in the middle of the season and he had interesting numbers: 7.8 ppg and 6.0 rpg. He is the type of center the team needs, as the East has a lot of very powerful centers. The team drafted Alexis Ajinca and even though he is a naturally gifted player, with 7-0? and 220 pounds, the truth is that he has just averaged 5 ppg on a French team last season. He hasn't also impressed during the Summer league, by going scoreless in 3 of the games. He doesn't seem to be ready to make an impact on the NBA at least this season.

Come to this and in an Eastern conference which is getting stronger, it will be very hard for the Bobcats to manage this season what they have never reached during the franchise history: the playoffs! Larry Brown has a big challenge in front of him and anything better than last season's record will have to be considered as a positive season.

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