BETTER THAN 'CATS: Bob Johnson, owner of the NBA's new expansion team in Charlotte, today became the first major league sports owner since Paul Brown in Cleveland in the 1940s to name a professional sports franchise after himself, announcing that the new team will be called the Charlotte Bobcats. The other finalists for the team name were "Dragons" and "Flight," the latter of which was a nod to North Carolina's favorite sons the Wright Brothers; Tony Kornheiser had a better idea the other week, that in honor of the Wrights the team be called the "Charlotte Brothers."
Guess that means that should Bobcat Goldthwait someday come to own an NBA franchise, he'll have to come up with some other name.
In other NBA news, Jeff Van Gundy will be the next coach of the Houston Rockets- good move by JVG; it's better to coach a ready-made contender with Yao and Stevie Franchise than the mess in Washington or a near-certain losing power struggle with teenager LeBron James in Cleveland. Oh, and the coach with the worst winning percentage in the history of American professional sports, Tim Floyd, was inexplicably hired by the former Charlotte team, the New Orleans Hornets. I guess compared to that other ex-Iowa State coach, Larry Eustachy, Floyd all of a sudden doesn't look so bad.