Over the first half of this season, the Charlotte Bobcats started players with less than four seasons of NBA experience 84 percent of the time. Six guys each with less than four full seasons – Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Jeff Taylor, Kemba Walker, Bismack Biyombo, Byron Mullens and Gerald Henderson – average at least 20 minutes a game.

The Bobcats aren’t pleading for sympathy – this is the path they chose when they blew up the Gerald Wallace/Stephen Jackson/Raymond Felton group. But to think there wouldn’t be growing pains inherent to this process is shortsighted.

Those aren’t excuses for a 10-31 start. But it explains a lot. If the front office now panicked and made wholesale changes toward an older roster, the pain of the last 1 ½ seasons would serve no purpose.

via Rick Bonnell of The Charlotte Observer