A moment of silence for our Bobcat supporting brethren over at Rufus on Fire...

If you haven't already heard, the Charlotte Bobcats will not be joining the Panthers in landing a franchise defining player in the NBA draft. Despite finishing with a comical seven wins the cross-town cats finished with the 2nd pick in the draft, missing out on unanimous future superstar Anthony Davis.

Obviously you'd head over to RoF for Bobcats news, but tonight punctuated just how important getting a true franchise player is, and it made me reflect a lot on Cam Newton. It's a real tossup whether then 2010 Panthers, or 2011 Bobcats are in a worse place in the community, and as an organization. On the one hand Panthers fans remembered some semblance of success, whereas Bobcats fans never experienced any form of it. However, the folks with the round ball just got two promising looking players last year in Kemba Walker and Bismack Biyombo, which the Panthers got Jimmy Clausen and Armanti Edwards.

It's a lot harder to project NFL players from college to the pros- which causes people to shy away from bandying about the term 'can't miss', but in the NBA it's far easier. Barring some insane injury, or complete collapse the #1 pick tends to be pretty good, and Davis was seen as better than most #1 picks. How you scout them is irrelevant, what's important is that the Bobcats will miss out on the transitive player they need.

Carolina Panthers fans know what it's like to find that one player whose talent is so great that he brings up everyone around him, and sadly it's a reality that the Charlotte Bobcats won't know... at least not yet.