Going into their inaugural NBA season in November of 2004, the Charlotte Bobcats looked nothing like the city’s previous tenants that relocated to New Orleans two years prior. The nickname was different, the colors were different, the players were different and soon, the arena, too, would also be different.
Back in the summer, the organization had plucked 19 unprotected players from across the NBA’s other 29 rosters in the 2004 Expansion Draft. Starting from scratch isn’t easy, especially when the building blocks are all basically unwanted parts from already established franchises.
The Bobcats would soon add second overall pick Emeka Okafor in the 2004 NBA Draft and then over the next several months, whittled the roster down to 12 players by Opening Night. One of them was 6’8” combo forward Gerald Wallace, a former late first-round pick that had been buried on the Sacramento Kings’ depth chart in each of his first three NBA seasons.
As the years began ticking by for the Bobcats, the wins didn’t come nearly as fast as the fanbase grew attached to Wallace. Game after game, there wasn’t anywhere on the court that the energetic headband-wearing high-flyer wouldn’t launch himself towards for the good of the team. Whether it was the ferocious dunks, tenacious defense or all-out hustle for unclaimed loose balls, the potential for jaw-dropping action spiked whenever Wallace took the floor.
Winning in the NBA is extremely tough, and Wallace embodied that toughness with the competitive edge and attitude he brought daily. He appropriately earned the nickname of ‘Crash,’ a moniker that couldn’t have been more fitting given his physical approach to the game. A separated shoulder, fractured rib, punctured lung, multiple concussions, and likely countless more unseen injuries along the way only further heightened the legend of Crash.
In 2005-06, Wallace swiped a league-high 2.5 steals and joined Hall-of-Famer Hakeem Olajuwon as the only NBA players in history to average 2.5 steals and 2.0 blocks in a single season. Though he just missed making the NBA All-Defensive Team, Wallace finished ninth and fourth in voting for the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year Award and Most Improved Player Award, respectively.
Four years later, Wallace became the first and still only Charlotte player to ever make both the NBA All-Star Game (he also participated in the Slam Dunk Contest) and NBA All-Defensive First Team in the same season. In addition to a third-place finish for the 2010 Defensive Player of the Year, he led the Bobcats to 44 wins and their first playoff berth since returning to the NBA.
Charlotte’s postseason window officially closed when Wallace was traded to Portland in February of 2011, ending his six-and-a-half-year run with the team. That ensuing summer, the franchise’s cornerstone torch was passed to incoming rookie point guard Kemba Walker, as Wallace spent four more seasons in the league before making his final NBA appearance at age 32. Beginning alongside the likes of Okafor, Brevin Knight, Raymond Felton, Matt Carroll, and then later Jason Richardson, DJ Augustin, Boris Diaw, Stephen Jackson and Tyson Chandler, Wallace averaged 16.4 points on 47.7% shooting, 7.5 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 1.8 steals and 1.2 blocks over 454 games – all but nine of which were starts – in Charlotte.
More than all the statistics and accolades he accumulated, Wallace’s biggest contribution to the Bobcats, by far, was stamping his face and identity onto a once anonymous franchise. Fans that had soured on the sport following the Hornets’ departure were drawn back in by his hard-nosed, blue-collar playstyle. In a way, Wallace’s career mimicked Charlotte’s relationship with NBA basketball at the time. He, too, had been left behind, overlooked, and underappreciated.
Still sitting in the top five on a slew of all-time franchise leaderboards, no player was more responsible for bridging the two Hornets’ eras together than Wallace. It’s only right, after all these years, that he finally receives a well-deserved night of recognition. Gerald Wallace gave everything he had to Charlotte and now, it’s time to give him something in return.