Bobcat Bonfire

Bickerstaff calls it quits

By George Washington III | May 9th, 2008

Bernie Bickerstaff, the first coach and GM of the Charlotte Bobcats, has decided to leave the organization. Considering he has been virtually silent since the hiring of Sam Vincent, it isn’t surprising that now with Larry Brown on the job, Bickerstaff might want to call it a career, at least in Charlotte. There has been speculation that he would end up in New York with Donnie Walsh, but nothing has been confirmed.

Looking back at Bickerstaff’s run with the ‘Cats, you can see both ups and downs. He traded up in 2004 to get Emeka Okafor and took Gerald Wallace in the expansion draft. He also failed to move up to get Deron Williams or Chris Paul, and went with Raymond Felton and Sean May instead. As a coach, he was able to get the team to run with maximum effort, even when they were completely outmanned in the first three seasons of the team’s existence.

Bickerstaff was never a brilliant coach or GM, but he did guide the team through the opening years with tough coaching and a bit of humility. Good luck to him in his future endeavors.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 9th, 2008 at 9:46 am and is filed under Business of Basketball, Sam Vincent, Larry Brown. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.