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Rod Higgins has one of the toughest jobs in the NBA. It’s probably the most challenging.
When you’re President of Basketball Operations for the Charlotte Bobcats, you don’t attend many victory parties. You spend more time trying to figure out what it’s going to take to make this team a winner.
Obviously, no one in Charlotte has figured that question out yet — not that it’s an easy question, mind you.
His firing of coach Mike Dunlap was surprising to some extent. The Bobcats did show some wins improvement even though they still finished 21-61. But, it was obviously Higgins’ opinion that there was enough talent for more things to happen. Hiring Dunlap was a gamble in the first place since he had little pro coaching experience — he was a teacher, but not a motivator.
Apparently, Higgins is thinking that the teaching part is done and he needs a coach who will effectively be able to garner that talent.
Higgins does have some excellent talent to work with starting with Kemba Walker, Gerald Henderson and Ramon Sessions.
The Bobcats obviously need to improve their inside game, and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist is still a key factor despite averaging 9.0 points and 5.8 points a game as a rookie. Higgins probably want the new coach to have Kidd-Gilchrist as his No. 1 project. Much more should be expect from him as a sophomore.
Higgins needs to hire a good coach and make a wise draft pick. If he fails on either, he could be the next Bobcat to leave the organization.
