The Charlotte Bobcats Midseason: "A Room by the Sea"

From time to time, we tend to use Ed Hopper paintings as a magnifying glass for studying the ins and outs of the NBA. The Charlotte Bobcats' 2009-10 season is their best on record, and the team appears to finally be heading for the playoffs. A seemingly rag-tag cast of veteran talent is leading the 'Cats' groundswell, and Larry Brown appears to be putting his Midas touch to good use once again.

With his hand cupped over his grimaced brow, Gerald Wallace stood in the doorway, peering uneasily out into a wide, sweeping, and monochromatic landscape. Having never experienced anything like this, beads of sweat gathered on Gerald's forehead, his eyes desperate to make sense of the bluish-green mass stretching before him. He glanced uneasily back behind him into the once comfortable, yet depressing living room. Having once been starved for anything more than wall-to-wall carpet and uncomfortable furniture, Gerald was now feeling a bit foolhardy, as though his many years of sacrifice and effort to get to this point had been only the beginning, and not the journey.

Slowly backing away from the open door, Gerald glanced back into the hallway behind him. At once his old friends came piling out of the well-worn living room. Raymond Felton, Nazr Mohammed, and Boris Diaw came strolling out, glaring through Gerald, past the door frame and out into the mighty blue canvas behind him.

Nazr: "Gerald, what is that behind you?"

Ray: "Yeah Gerald, I haven't seen anything like that in years."

Gerald: "I dunno guys, but I can tell I've always wanted to be out there...."

With one sweeping motion, Gerald Wallace spun around and pointed directly into the mass of blue-green and translucent, white clouds.

Gerald: "Fellas, this is what we've been playing for all these years, the playoffs!"

Boris: "Oh yeas, le playouffes, I remembur doze from my tyme een Phoenix. Zut Allor! What eez dat?"

Gerald whipped around once more, and stared blankly through the open doorway. In the distance, barely a speck of a speck, was an inky-black dot. Without turning around, Gerald could tell the hallway behind him was filling with even more of his peers. D.J. Augustin, Flip Murray, Derrick Brown, and Gerald Henderson could be heard squeezing into the narrow space, staring with even more wide-eyed wonder than his veteran friends.

As they all stood in the beige hallway completely dumbstruck, a tottering and reeling boat gradually came lumbering over the horizon. No longer a mere speck, but a small Schooner, painted blue, orange and white, came fully into view. The boat itself was nothing special, it looked tattered and worn, from years of crashing through choppy, murky waters on its way to smoother sailing grounds and lush tropical islands. But like all things that have been put to good use, the Schooner appeared comforting and trustworthy.

As the vessel began to affix itself to the open doorway, a small bleary-eyed man popped his head over the side of the stern. Wearing a dark suit and thin glasses, with barely a wisp of white thinning hair covering his head, the man donned a captains hat and shoved a ladder down into the hallway.

Larry Brown: "Hello, are you guys going my way?"

Gerald: "What way is that?"

Larry Brown, slowly lowered his glasses down the bridge of his nose and peered over them towards Gerald: "Why son, if you don't know, then I can't tell you. But let me ask you this, will you play solid defense and nearly 40 minutes a game?

Gerald: "Yes."

Larry Brown: "Will you be a rebounding machine and the epicenter of efficiency?"

Gerald: "Yeah, I can do that."

Larry Brown: "Then climb aboard. Oh and by the way, let me also introduce you to my first mate, Stephen Jackson."

Just then Stephen Jackson's head popped up over the side, flashing a toothy grin and wild, unwavering eyes. Stephen gave Gerald a simple nod, affirming everything Gerald had suspected about him and what he was capable of as a player and a person.

Turning towards the crowd in the hallway Gerald calmly spoke: "I'm climbing this ladder and going off with Larry Brown, and you're coming too, even if I have to drag every last one of you with me. We've worked too long and hard to miss this ride. And I'm not sitting on that couch again now that I know what's out there."

The group that lined the hallway could not refuse Gerald, and gradually each member got on board, Raymond leading the way, followed closely by Boris, Nazr, and a limping Tyson Chandler (though everyone was eyeing him with displeasure). Finally, Gerald turned to Larry with one final question.

Gerald: "Larry, where does this ship lead us?"

Larry: "Well the whole point is to sail through shark infested waters to the beautiful tropical island at the other end of the sea. This island holds for each of it's owners a golden sphere atop a cylinder and the lavish rewards of immortality and an interview with Charles Barkley. But along the way every vessel will encounter dangers it has never seen and gruesome monsters that will try to sink the Schooner. If they do, and we crash into the sharp rocks laid before us, we'll have to swim back to whatever land we can find."

Gerald: "Okay, well let's go Larry, because I've never been afraid of the Rock."