Tom Talks

I'm open minded; Coples or Blackmon are fine

    I still think Carolina will and should take North Carolina defensive end Quinton Coples in tonight's NFL draft, unless wide receiver Justin Blackmon falls to them.

    But I don't know, and I don't claim to know, what the Panthers will do.

    Their greatest need is a pass rusher, and Coples is the most talented pass rusher in the draft. True, Coples has a lot of critics, many in the media. So did Cam Newton, and many of his loudest critics were in the media, too.

     Whomever your pick is, enjoy the evening. Maybe see you at Bank of America Stadium. The draft party the Panthers sponsored, for the first time, last season was superb.

Bobcats or Panthers? What would you do?

    Interesting call tonight: Do I go to Time Warner Cable Arena and watch the Bobcats probably set an all-time record for futility, or go to Bank of America Stadium for the NFL draft?

     I'd love to do both. But there is so much pre-pick jockeying that I'd have to leave the Bobcats-New York Knicks game a few minutes after it began.

     The draft is annual. What the Bobcats could be doing, setting an all-time NBA record for lowest winning percentage, ought to be once in a lifetime.

      The decision isn't difficult. Interest from readers in the draft dwarfs interest in Charlotte's winning percentage.The NFL is by far the most popular sport in the country, and it adds to the margin every year.

     So I'll be at the stadium, monitoring draft gossip, trades and potential trades and checking for updates from the Charlotte-New York game.

      I suspect I'll return to the arena this week. When a team has the worst record in the league, there is always post-season drama, and it usually begins right away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Larry Brown and Michael Jordan are both wrong

    Interesting interview Michael Jordan gave to Rick Bonnell.

    Larry Brown, his former head coach, ripped Jordan in a radio interview.  Brown knows basketball as well as almost anybody. But he had to go. He ripped his players, publicly, as severely as any coach I've ever heard. There might be a business model for this. But if a leader repeatedly criticizes his employees, what's the incentive for employees to play hard for him? Brown lost the team.

    Jordan, in turn, lost credibility this week by showing up in Chicago to watch the Blackhawks and the Cubs. While his own team was getting drilled by the Washington Wizards, Jordan was watching teams that belong to somebody else. 

     It was a horrendous PR move. If you're going on the road to watch a team, it ought to be yours.

    Maybe Jordan is embarrassed by the product. But it's his product.

 

 

Panthers should draft UNC's Quinton Coples

   If I'm the Carolina Panthers, and a surprise - Kalil, Claiborne, Blackmon - don't trickle down to No. 9, I take Quinton Coples. The NFL is a passing league, and the best way to stop a passer is to get him. Nobody in the draft rushes the passer as effectively as Coples, a defensive end out of North Carolina. If Coples isn't available, and there are no surprises, I trade down.

    - Charlotte's Tyrus Thomas can't hit a jump shot, but he can land an elbow. A day after Metta World Peace lands a devastating elbow, Thomas follows with elbows of his own. He hit Washington's James Singleton Monday and was ejected. He played fewer than three minutes. Has anybody in the NBA had a less productive season than Thomas? I don't dislike the guy. I talked to him for the lone extensive interview he's done all season, and he was gracious and honest. But what a perplexing player. What's wrong?

     - Mickey Loomis, the New Orleans general manager, is alleged by ESPN to have had a device in his office that enabled him to listen to opposing coaches. The Saints deny the allegations. If Loomis is guilty, he should be run out of football. Man, every time I talk on my cell phone, and hear a click, I'm going to think, "Saints."

     - If the Bobcats lose to Orlando on the road and New York at home they'll finish the season with 23 consecutive losses. That would be an interesting jersey number, 23.

Metta World Peace of

   Metta World Peace should change his name or add two words, the first of which would be "of", to the end.

    The elbow he threw at Oklahoma City's James Harden was UFC quality, and knocked Harden to the court. He was down for a minute late in the first half, and did not play again.

     World Peace claims the elbow was inadvertant, the culmination of a celebration, and he looked surprised when Oklahoma City players came charging at him. But how could the elbow have accidental or incidental? Even though celebrating in front of everybody is important to so many, isn't an athlete obligated to exert some control over his body parts?

     World Peace has to be suspended, and the suspension has to include playoff games.

      Harden is the best third wheel in basketball. As good as Oklahoma City is, Kevin Durant is primarily a shooter (a great shooter) and while an amazing athlete Russell Westbrook is a shoot-first (and second) point guard.

     Harden is the smart, savvy and unselfish talent that keeps that team together, which can be difficult with your head bashed in.

 

 

I was wrong, you were right: Go Charlotte Hornets!

Tom Benson, owner of the New Orleans Saints, is now the owner of the Hornets. But he probably won't be for long. He'll keep the team but dump the name. He wants something that fits his town and region.

     This means the name will be available, and the Charlotte Bobcats could claim it. I'm on record saying that I prefer Hornets to Bobcats, but not for $2.5 million. That's what the name change will cost.

 

    Here's what I think: The draft will be the most important development in Bobcats' history. If Kentucky freshman Anthony Davis comes out, he will be a transcendent player. He could be as good a basketball player as Cam Newton is a football player.

 

     Landing him would be, then, a transcendent moment. A new start. To make the new start official, maybe the Bobcats should change to a new/old name.

 

     If the Bobcats don't get Davis, and they have a 25% chance, they lose, big. Will changing the name to Hornets lessen the pain?

 

     Michael Jordan has to win fans.

 

     But will a name change be enough? The team's winning percentage this season is .123. If the Hornets have a .123 winning percentage next season, will you buy tickets?

Easy as 1-2-3, right?

 

     If I were the Bobcats, and I wanted to show fans I cared, I'd change my name to Hornets.

 

     I've changed my mind.

 

     I'm not on the bandwagon - I don't do bandwagons - but I'm running beside it.

 

      You were right. I was wrong.

 

       Keep pushing.

 

     

Save a spot in the NASCAR Hall for Wendell Scott

    Two names I expected to see among the candidates for the NASCAR Hall of Fame were Humpy Wheeler and Bruton Smith. I didn't.

    A name I needed to see was Wendell Scott. For the first time, he was included.

    Scott came out of Danville, Va., cotton mill country, and the mill life was not for him. Racing was, racing other drivers and before that racing revenuers and running moonshine.

    He won only one race. He never had superior equipment. He did what he did with what he had.

     He did it on tracks that did not welcome black drivers. This was before diversity. His car regularly was jolted and banged into by competitors and he couldn't retaliate because he was not on his turf and he wanted to prove he belonged by beating them. Although he didn't make a lot of money or win a lot of races, he did over time win the respect of the other drivers.

     I've read what Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron went through in baseball, the voices they heard, the taunts and the hate. I have no idea what it would be like to step onto a field, or strap into a race car, and know I was disliked not because of who I was but what I was. Man, the courage that must take.

     Scott won in Jacksonville in 1963, the first and only black driver to win a major NASCAR race. He ran 495 races in 13 years.

     Five nominees will be selected. I hope, and suspect, that Scott will be one of them.

 

 

 

Panthers locking up Steve Smith is a good thing

      In 2010 I wrote that Carolina should trade Steve Smith.  This was before he went to the home of Jerry Richardson to ask for a trade and after he publicly undermined rookie quarterback Jimmy Clausen. Richardson asked: Are you sure? Smith was sure.

    I was ahead of my time.

    The Panthers tried to trade Smith to his teams of choice, Baltimore and San Diego, and also tried two others. They couldn't get what they wanted.

    So Smith returned last season and everybody started over. Quarterback Cam Newton and offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski came, the offense became unpredictable and exciting and Smith again became a star.

  

     From the first quarter of the first game of the season, when Smith ran deep along the left sideline in Arizona and Newton found him for a touchdown, they were special together. Everybody needs somebody, and Newton consistently had Smith, and Smith had Newton.

      Smith apparently is about to sign a three-year extension that probably will make him a Panther for life. Some of you prefer the New England method, where the Patriots consistently trade players with some value and a few good seasons left. But don't you wish your employers were as loyal to you as the Panthers are to theirs?

      I can't imagine this franchise, or offense, without Smith. He's not easy. But, he can play.

Masters cell phone ban is a beautiful thing

   Walk into the press center at Augusta National and before you get a credential you get a warning: no cell phones on the golf course. 

     I wanted to drop to my knees and say thanks.

     I wish more institutions banned cell phones. In restaurants, I'd restrict cell phone conversations to the lobby. There's always some loud guy two tables down talking in his outside voice, probably to a girlfriend with an 800 number.

    At the Dowd YMCA, I'd limit cell phones to the lobby and hallways. I worked out next to a woman who talked on her cell phone for 45 minutes while she used an elliptical machine. She would have burned more calories shopping for double fudge cookies at Harris-Teeter. If you have enough energy to talk for 45 minutes, you aren't trying, and if you aren't trying, you ought to stay home.

     I even heard a woman on a cell phone at a book store. I guess, for some people, cell phone conversations prove that you're alive.

     Augusta National will confiscate cell phones if they detect one on the golf course and kick you out.

    For this, I really should drop to my knees.

Bet you'd love Calipari if he coached your team

If I were an athletic director, and I wanted to win, and I could hire any basketball coach in the country, I'd hire John Calipari. 

    He is a master recruiter who exploits a system he didn't create. He also is a much better coach than detractors want to admit.

    An NBA head coach once told me that his mission was to convince his players to believe in his philosophy, and go out and play like it. Calipari's players do.

    He has coaxed his stars, who have been told since middle school how special they are, to play relentlessly and unselfishly. That's superior coaching.

    For two straight years Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski has lost his top recruit after they played one season. Should he not have recruited them?

    Last week Roy Williams lost sophomores Harrison Barnes and Kendall Marshall and junior John Henson and he could lose freshman Michael McAdoo. Does this make him a bad coach or does this make them bad guys?

    C.J. Leslie might leave N.C. State after two seasons. Is that wrong, too?

    The star four-year player becomes increasingly mythical every season. And that's OK. We all go to college with different aspirations, and the idea is to get out of it what we need. Are tennis players or golfers evil because they turn pro before they reach 19?

    Calipari has an interesting, and extremely tainted, past. But nothing he's done at Kentucky has been outside the rules. 

    Wildcat Nation loves him.

     If he coached your team, you would, too.