Rebound: the business side of the Bobcats gets a bounce from a season so lousy it set a league record.

• Author: Campbell, Spencer

The Charlotte Bobcats' new coach is a no-name, a former assistant at St. John's University in Queens, N.Y., touted for--if anything--his knack for developing talent. He's wasting little time before burnishing that reputation. "Look at him," Kyle Pagani says as silverhaired Mike Dunlap, eight days into We job, explains the finer points of free-throw shooting to 6-foot-9 Bismack Biyombo on a practice court at Time Warner Cable Arena. "He's already working with the players." Robert Shavitz agrees. "Yes! That's what we needed." Pagani and Shavitz had driven from Greensboro to attend a party celebrating the National Basketball Association draft, which begins in a few hours, and joined the crowd along a glass partition looking into the practice court, straining to get a glimpse of a future that, if not promising, at least promises to be different.

The roughly 4,000 fans attending the event, thrown by the Bobcats, have no reason to be optimistic. The team WLIS awful last season. Many believe they were aiming for awful, building a lousy roster to get the first pick in the draft. If so, the Bobcats over-achieved. Not only was it the worst team in the league but the worst in league history. Still, it didn't win for losing. The draft has just one can't-miss kid: Anthony "The Blow" Davis. In the National Football League, he would go to the team with the last-place record. That's how the Carolina Panthers got Cameron Newton, the rookie quarterback who resuscitated their flagging franchise last Year. The NBA is different. About a month before the draft, nonplavoff teams entered a lottery for positions. The worse their record, the more ping gong balls they got. Charlotte had the best odds at Davis, but there was a 75% chance the team would go Browless. It did, drawing the second pick.

General Manager Rich Cho looked deflated when he heard the news, but he shouldn't have been surprised. Fortune has forever frowned on the Bobcats. The NBA thrives on superstars, and the team hos never had one despite a string of high draft picks, including a duo of Carolina Tar Heels off a national championship team. The franchise's financials might be worse than its roster. Privately held Bobcats Sports and Entertainment Co. won't open its books, but Forbes magazine reported that while revenue stayed steady, around $100 million, the team incurred increasing losses over four seasons, reaching $25.5 million in 2010-11.

Yet the front office is positiely sanguine. "What people from a business perspective don't always realize is that a challenging season leads to an exciting offseason," says Pete Guelli, executive vice president of sales and marketing. "Our numbers are up in nearly every single business category." The Bobcats are selling hope, and fans are buying--so far. But their faith is fragile.

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"Rich Cho is doing...