The night that matters is May 30. The evening will be the most important in the team’s eight-year history.

Across the river from Manhattan, in the NBA’s Secaucus, N.J., studios, the league will place 14 pingpong balls in a drum. If the balls roll right, Charlotte will receive the No. 1 pick in June’s NBA draft.

That pick will be 6-foot-10 Anthony Davis, the former Kentucky star. Davis is Manhattan. Compared to him, every other player is New Jersey.

The Bobcats have only a 25 percent chance of winning the pick. We like to say that people, and teams, make their own luck. We lie. Good fortune is underestimated in the NBA and every other sport. San Antonio did a great job of packing talent around Tim Duncan, Chicago around Derrick Rose. But without Duncan and without Rose, the Spurs and Bulls are merely a collection of nice players.

via Tom Sorensen of The Charlotte Observer