The First Spark

The schedule softened. Charlotte beat Detroit by seventeen, lost to Philadelphia by two, beat Chicago on a Marcus floater, and stole a game in Orlando when Luka stripped an inbound pass with six seconds left. The record crawled from dead to merely ugly. 8-22. Then 11-24. Then 15-27. ESPN did a segment titled FUN BAD OR JUST BAD? Calvin Roarke admitted the Hornets were "less embarrassing than advertised" and immediately added that no serious team should fear them. In Charlotte, fear was not the emotion returning. Curiosity was. Attendance climbed from empty to patchy. A fan forum that had spent October designing fake Daniel Carter clown graphics began posting breakdowns of Tyrese's defensive possessions.