Charlotte, North Carolina isn’t exactly the hot bed for premier professional sports — in fact, it’s a down right awful sports city in terms of team success. The Charlotte Bobcats finished with a 0.106 winning percentage last season, the absolute worst in NBA history and the Panthers are currently 1-6 this season and things don’t look like they’re going to improve any time soon.
The face of each organization, Michael Jordan for the Bobcats and Cam Newton for the Panthers, are neighbors in the same high rise in Charlotte. Jordan, one of the NBA’s greatest players had some words of wisdom for last season’s NFL Rookie of the Year (via The Charlotte Observer).
“Obviously he’s trying to put a lot of things on his back and that’s human nature. Sometimes when you expect so many great things you want to carry that burden yourself. And its virtually impossible.
“He’s going to have to get the support of his team — obviously the organization is supporting him –and grind through this. He’s got to look at himself in the mirror. Every leader in any scenario always must look himself in the mirror and say, ‘Can I do more?’ or ‘What can I do to enhance the scenario with my teammates to pull them along?’ or do whatever I can to try to make the situation better.
Cam Newton obviously has the talent and the physical gifts to become a star in the NFL (and the companies endorsing him seem to agree). However, the only way to become one of the league’s elite is to win, and team success hasn’t found itself among Newton’s accolades.
Furthermore, Newton’s penchant for sulking on the sidelines have been cause for concern among the media elite. The Panther’s star obviously wants to go out there and do the things to make his team better, but some feel that he shouldn’t look so discouraged when things aren’t going his way. The team tends to feed off the energy of their leader and negative energy isn’t the way to get tally marks on the other side of the win/loss column.
Even if the Panther’s haven’t found the success they hoped they’d have going into this season, it has to be nice they have a guy who can go to one of the greatest winners in professional sports history for some sound advice, even if that guy is one of the worst GM’s the NBA has seen.
