Anthony Gruppuso-USA TODAY Sports
Do you remember the days when center Tyson Chandler wore a Charlotte Bobcats uniform? Not many people do but it is something most NBA fans have forgotten as time went on. Now that he’s an All-Star center with the New York Knicks, lets take a quick look back at his short-lived career in Charlotte.
Chandler entered the NBA at age 19. By the time he was with the Bobcats, he had already played over eight seasons in the league. The Bobcats got an experienced center in Chandler who was still full of great youth and had a huge future ahead of him.
On July 28, 2009, the New Orleans Hornets (now Pelicans) traded Chandler to the Charlotte Bobcats for possibly one of the best Bobcats of all-time in Emeka Okafor.
Chandler played only one season in Charlotte! Talk about making an impact! The guy we see today, dominating on the Knicks, is not the guy we saw in the 2009-10 NBA season. In his only year in a Cats uniform, Chandler averaged sub-par numbers. He averaged 6.5 points per game, 6.3 rebounds a game and only started 27 of the 51 games he ever played on Charlotte.
The numbers he averaged in the 2009-2010 season were a huge step down from his dominant few years before with the New Orleans Hornets. For the previous 3 years before his arrival in Charlotte Chandler started every game he played in. Out of his three years in New Orleans, he played in a total of 197 games and started every single one of them. So you can see just where the Cats used him wrong.
But it wasn’t just the Bobcats fault for using him wrong that season. After going from averaging 30+ minutes per game in previous years to averaging 22 minutes a game in Charlotte you can just tell something was wrong with him when he was in Charlotte. Injuries were also a huge factor in Chandler’s bad performance in Charlotte. He was out for almost a month with a stress fracture.
Even though the Bobcats made their first ever playoff appearance in Chandler’s only year with the team, one can still greatly question why the Cats did not use this dominating center properly. Before he came to Charlotte, he was putting up tremendous numbers in New Orleans. He was averaging a double-double in the 2007-08 season and then averaging eight and eight the year after. So why did he have a significant drop off with the Bobcats? It is something still greatly questioned today.
On July 13, 2010, Chandler was traded along with Alexis Ajinca to the Dallas Mavericks for Matt Carrol, Erick Dampier and Eduardo Najera. Man did the Mavericks get him for cheap! After his exit from one disappointing season in Charlotte, Chandler went on to become an NBA champion in 2011 with the Mavs, an Olympic gold medalist in 2012, a one-time NBA All-Star in 2013 and the Defensive Player of the year in 2012. Let that success tell you how well he did after he left Charlotte!
Daniel Carney covers the Charlotte Bobcats for www.rantsports.com. You can follow him on Twitter @dan_jcarney, subscribe to him on YouTube where he talks sports, and add him on
