"I don't know whether Jake Voskuhl (left ankle, left knee) is a go," Bobcats General Manager & Head Coach Bernie Bickerstaff said. "Melvin Ely (left shin) went full boar today, so I think he's a go. I don't know about Gerald - he had a (left) shoulder (strain) in practice today, so we'll see what happens with him. But he's wearing that armor stuff, so I guess he should be alright. It's unlikely that Jake will play in Chicago.

"The great thing now is I don't have to make that decision until 60 minutes prior to the game."

WONDERS IN THE WATER
Forward Melvin Ely is sold on the importance of the HydroWorx 2000.

The hydrotherapy pool is one of the additions to the Bobcats training room this season, and Ely is a firm believer that it is a big reason he was able to recover quickly from the ankle, shin and calf injuries that kept him sidelined the last two games of the preseason.

"That's something that we've been blessed with this year," Ely said. "I'm happy that we have it because it kind of saved me. Other than that, I couldn't do any running. With the underwater treadmill, with no pressure, I could run just like I was running down the court. I'm in love with it now."

Ely looked as if he was fully recovered in Monday's practice and believes he is ready to pick up where he left off before getting injured.

"I was pretty much rolling before the injury," he said. "I didn't have any problems with anything, was in shape and didn't have any sore knees. I was cursed with spraining my ankle on the ball (in San Diego) and that kind of contributed to my shin splint and my pulled calf. It just became a nagging injury. I'm just happy it happened during preseason and I can start the season off fresh. Everything was perfect (Monday). I didn't have any pain or discomfort, so I think I'm free to play."

TOUGH TO WATCH
Guard Kevin Burleson was in attendance at Sunday's Carolina Panthers-Minnesota Vikings game to watch his brother Nate, a wide receiver for the Vikings, play. The results weren't pretty if you were a Vikings fan, as Carolina rolled to a 38-13 victory.

"That's the word right there - painful," Burleson said. "I was up there with all the other Vikings fans, and we were just happy if they got a first down. That's how bad it was. Carolina just dominated them. It's hard, because if you've been a Vikings fan, you know how this offense was. They were always in games, and to see them struggle just to get a first down is tough to watch, especially when you have family on the team."

As if the game wasn't hard enough for Burleson to watch on Sunday, he also had to endure it from the nosebleed section of Bank of America Stadium.

I walked forever up to the top, top, top, top. I was in 521 or something," he said. "I looked at my ticket and thought it wasn't going to be that bad, but I was at the very top. All of the Vikings fans were in the upper bowl. It was hot up there. It would have been easier if we would have had a little excitement, but it was a slow death Sunday. It was hard to watch, but I stayed the whole game."

HALLOWEEN MEMORIES
Bobcats rookies Sean May and Raymond Felton took some time this Halloween to reflect back on some of their trick or treat memories.

For May, Halloween was always about getting creative with costumes.

"When I was little, my parents didn’t believe in buying costumes," May said. "So I got one mask and would switch it up with what I would wear every year. Sometimes I put on football pads and would go as a football monster.  Sometimes I would go as a ghost and a monster at the same time. We did a lot of different things.  I had a great time with Halloween."

For Felton, Halloween wasn't so much about the costume as it was about the candy.

"Really, the fun thing was going trick or treating," he said.  "You got to meet up with all your cousins and your friends and go door to door to get candy.  That was the big thing."

"It was great," General Manager & Head Coach Bernie Bickerstaff said. "The guys can stick around and work out. They can come back in this evening if they want to work out. We're still trying to navigate ourselves to the building and find the shortcuts, but I think it's terrific - probably the best practice facility in terms of size in the league. There was a lot of thought that went into this."

But it wasn't just the practice court the Bobcats were impressed with. They also seemed satisfied with their new locker room, particularly point guard Brevin Knight, who as the elder statesman on the team with eight years of NBA experience, will have adjoining lockers in the new digs.

"It's a nice place. It's beautiful," he said. "Nobody's going to be putting stuff on the top shelf of my locker though. My clothes go on the lower rack - having two lockers makes it easy."

After one day at Charlotte Bobcats Arena, it might not take long for the Bobcats to start feeling at home.

"Once we start playing games here, it'll really start to feel like home," Knight said. "With today being our first day in here, it was beautiful. It feels good to now be able to walk downstairs and relax in a beautiful locker room."

READY TO MOVE
Wednesday night's game against the Indiana Pacers will be the last preseason game of 2005 for the Bobcats. It will also be the last time the Bobcats will play at the Charlotte Coliseum. The regular season home opener will be played on November 5 at Charlotte Bobcats Arena against the Boston Celtics.

Knight wasn't shy in expressing his desire to head Uptown.

"I'm ready to get out of (the Charlotte Coliseum)," he said. "We don't have any feel of home in there. (Charlotte Bobcats Arena) is now home, and this is what feels good to us."

"Sean hasn't had an opportunity to play, but he may be able to play (against Indiana)," Bickerstaff said. "We're going to look at that situation."

May missed all of training camp and the preseason after having arthroscopic surgery on his right knee before the team headed to Wilmington, NC for camp.

"I feel good," May said. "The key is if it swells (Tuesday night). If it does, I know I'm not ready. If it doesn't, I might give it a shot. I want to play, but the thing is that I don't want to rush into anything. I've sat for six weeks, so what's one more game? It felt great (Tuesday). I want to give it a shot (Wednesday), but I don't want to go out there and limit myself either."

BREZEC FEELING RESTED
Bobcats center Primoz Brezec returned to the starting lineup in San Diego against the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday night after getting a week of rest courtesy of Bickerstaff. After a busy summer playing for Slovenia's national team, Bickerstaff wanted to give Brezec a break from basketball and it appears to have paid off. On Sunday, Brezec led the Bobcats with 20 points and 14 rebounds in his first game back.

"I'm getting more comfortable," Brezec said after Tuesday's practice. "Bernie gave me a couple of games off to get my legs back after a tough summer. I'm just trying to get ready for the last preseason game and the regular season. I think my shot is coming along, and I'm excited."

ROSTER TRIMMED
Forwards D'or Fischer and Jason Capel were released prior to Tuesday's practice.

"The plan now is to probably keep 15 (players), so everybody's doing that math right now," Bickerstaff said.

The Bobcats roster currently stands at 15 players.

_KAF_R BUYS A VOWEL
Emeka Okafor was one of 15 top NBA stars, WNBA players and NBA legends that teamed up with America’s favorite game show, Wheel of Fortune, to raise more than $350,000 for a variety of charities.

Of the funds raised, more than $200,000 will be donated to the American Red Cross for the victims of Hurricane Katrina as part of Wheel of Fortune's NBA Week, airing October 31 through November 4 in national syndication

Okafor will appear on the Tuesday, November 1 show along with Ben Gordon of the Chicago Bulls and Richard Hamilton of the Detroit Pistons.

The good news for Charlotte is that help is on the way. Both Okafor and Ely are expected to make their preseason debuts on Saturday at Miami, strengthening a front line that has consisted mainly of Jake Voskuhl and rookie free agents Marcus Campbell, D'or Fisher, Antonio Meeking and Matt Nelson.

"It's good (to get Okafor and Ely back) because we have no chemistry," General Manager & Head Coach Bernie Bickerstaff said on Friday. "I was talking to Brevin (Knight), and we try to run automatics (play calls). But we can't run automatics with the guys we have in there, so he has to call them out. That's been the problem because the other guys don't know them. There's just no chemistry at all, and you can see we really don't have anything down inside now."

BREZEC GETTING A BREAK
While Okafor and Ely are expected to make their preseason debuts on Saturday, Bickerstaff will continue giving Brezec some much needed time off. Brezec went to Europe almost immediately after the Bobcats inaugural season ended and participated in two-a-day practices for most of the summer before playing in the European Championships in late September. He is not expected to play at Miami.

"That's my primary concern right now," Bickerstaff said. "He's tired. He's worn out... he just needs to get away. Primoz does what he does - he's going to work hard and going to be there, so there's no problem. We just need him to step away. It's hard with him because his work ethic is such that he just doesn't want (the time off). He doesn't know what to do with himself now."

Still, Brezec is willing to do what is best for himself and the team before the regular season begins.

"I've never been in that situation before, where I didn't have a day off in the summer," he said. "So I'm going to listen to Bernie and the doctors."

FELTON FEELING IT FROM THE FIELD
Bobcats rookie point guard Raymond Felton leads the team in scoring (15.0 points) through two preseason games, but Bickerstaff wants him to understand that his minutes don't depend on the amount of points he scores each night.

"I don't want Raymond to get hung up on the same thing we didn't want Emeka to get hung up on (last year) - the fact that people said that he can't score," Bickerstaff said. "If we had any problems with his credibility about anything, then he wouldn't be here. That's something I don't want him to get caught up in. We have all the confidence in the world in him, that's why we took him No. 5. That's not a qualification for playing."

GOING EASY ON THEM
After playing an intrasquad scrimmage and two preseason games in four days in three different cities, Bickerstaff gave the Bobcats a bit of a break on Friday, holding a brief, non-contact practice before the team headed to Miami.

"Sometimes you have to back off and just work on execution in non-contact," Bickerstaff said. "I think it's a lot like football does sometimes where there are days you don't put the pads on. It's a tough grind for these guys, and the contact is the part that wears them down."

The Bobcats looked to be playing with tired legs on Thursday night, and it showed in the statistics. After shooting .479 (45-94) from the field against Atlanta, Charlotte shot just .308 (24-78) in the loss to New Jersey.

"I understand why because of the group that we had in there and the fact that they had played back-to-back games and played a lot of minutes," Bickerstaff said. "I don't think it will be a problem over the long haul. Right now we've got takers but not many makers."

FOR THE KIDS
On Monday, October 17, the Bobcats will host their second annual “Cool School Field Trip” event for middle school students attending public and private schools in conjunction with the team’s preseason game against Atlanta at the Charlotte Coliseum. The event will be presented by Harris Teeter and is co-sponsored by Kraft Foods Global, Inc. and Discovery Place.

"I think it's a great opportunity for the kids to come out," Bickerstaff said. "The best thing about it is the reason they are allowed to come out, because they have made some kind of contribution - whether it's the grade point average or perfect attendance, so there's a positive in terms of that. They've earned the right to be in this situation, and it's a nice, fun environment for the kids. And they make a whole heck of a lot of noise. It's just a great atmosphere."