2 Quick Reasons to Wait and See With This Year's Bobcats

This year's Bobcats are off to a 6-6 start, which is certainly better than expected for a team that was rated one step up from "intentionally tanking" by most people who follow the NBA. While there are any number of potential reasons for this start (Steve Clifford running a better defense, a year of maturation for a young core, injury luck), the real question is... should fans get excited about the Bobcats' season, and maybe hope for a playoff berth? At this point, probably not.

1. THE 2013 BOBCATS DON'T LOOK LIKE A PLAYOFF TEAM BASED ON POINT DIFFERENTIAL.

Over the last 12 seasons, there's a pretty strong relationship between a team's point differential per game (net points per game) and the number of regular season games they win. Just to prove this makes sense, the dot hanging around by itself in the lower left corner is the 2011-2012 Bobcats. So where do the 2013-2014 Bobcats stack up? Well, based on a -3.8 differential through 12 games, they'd project to about 31 wins over an 82 game season. 

Of course, there's nothing that says the Bobcats would simply stay at their current level of play all season. Which is a very stilted transition to...

2. LAST YEAR'S BOBCATS ACTUALLY LOOKED BETTER THROUGH 12 GAMES.

Most people know that the Bobcats started 7-5 last year. Most people also remember how they finished. The thing that gets forgotten? People liked the Mike Dunlap hire, and thought the team's start validated that hire. Through twelve games, his system and player development was showing through. The scary part? Through 12 games last year, the Bobcats point differential was actually better than this year's. In fact, last year's team looked like a 35 win team through 12 games. What happened over the last 70 games of that season? Frankly, a lot of things happened, and few of them were good.

LET'S JUST WAIT AND SEE.

There are so many variables to play out over the next several months, the truth is we haven't learned anything definitive yet. At the beginning of the season, most people would have pegged the Bobcats win total somewhere around 25, and the team is basically tracking somewhere in that neighborhood. Let's see how Al Jefferson integrates into the offense and defense on a full time basis. Let's see if Henderson can break out of his mini-slump. Let's see if Walker can continue to play through any nagging injury imaginable. We've got plenty of time to make bold proclamations we can't take back.