Friend and coworker of former North Carolina superstar Michael Jordan, president and chief operating officer of the NBA’s Charlotte Bobcats, business school and law school graduate—Fred Whitfield is a man of many talents.

A Greensboro, N.C. native, Whitfield oversees the day-to-day activities in the Bobcats’ front office, from negotiating sponsorships with major corporations to making sure all Charlotte basketball fans enjoy their experience when they come see his team at Time Warner Cable Arena. Even the stadium’s name itself comes courtesy of Whitfield, who negotiated the television and naming-rights contract with cable giant Time Warner.

But Whitfield’s job with the Bobcats is just the latest position in a career that has taken him from assistant basketball coach to attorney to director of player development for Nike.

Whitfield discussed his winding career path Wednesday night when he visited campus for a presentation sponsored by the Fuqua Business School Media, Entertainment and Sports Club.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Whitfield’s career is the manner in which he came to befriend Jordan, and how that friendship has shaped his life and career.

The two met at a basketball camp at Campbell University, where Whitfield had been an all-Big South basketball player, and they became close friends. Following Jordan’s entry into the NBA, high-level management firms took serious interest in Whitfield, believing that he was the key to adding Jordan to their portfolio of clients. After Jordan chose Falk Associates Management Enterprises to be his agents, Whitfield followed suit and accepted a job at that same firm.

Eight years later Whitfield was once again referred by Jordan to a new job, this time as the director of player personnel for the Washington Wizards, who had just signed Jordan to their roster. In Washington, Whitfield got his first taste of the administrative aspects of an NBA franchise. He contributed to trade talks, player evaluations, staff hirings and scouting. But when Jordan retired from the NBA in 2003, Whitfield likewise left the Wizards, returning to Nike to work under the Jordan Brand. There he negotiated contracts with athletes and helped to establish business operations. In 2006, when Jordan became a minority owner of the Bobcats, he again tapped Whitfield, bringing him aboard as president of the Bobcats franchise.

Wednesday he not only spoke about his role as the Bobcats president, but also about his relationship with Jordan.

“I’ve been fortunate to be able to work alongside [Jordan] and support a lot of the growth that he has been able to build with his brand personally,” Whitfield said. “Now it’s just a lot of fun to be able to work with him on a day-to-day basis.”

Whitfield also talked about how the Bobcats’ management is attempting to turn an expansion team in just its eighth season into a perennial playoff contender. He spoke specifically about problems that he saw within the organization upon his arrival.

“When I got there, we had several things we really needed to change and clean up,” Whitfield said. “We needed a new TV deal and we needed a naming-rights deal that would give us credibility in the corporate community.”

With Jordan as an owner and Whitfield as president, the Bobcats have turned a haggard expansion program into a competitive NBA franchise. One step in this direction took place in June 2009, when the Bobcats selected former Duke star Gerald Henderson with the 12th pick in the NBA Draft. He was a bench player for the 2009-10 team, which made the playoffs for the first time in franchise history. But both Whitfield and Jordan know that their franchise is capable of much more.

“We are building and putting the pieces in place to help sustain success rather than barely squeaking our way into [the playoffs] like we did two years ago,” Whitfield said. “Michael’s goal is to have our franchise where we can compete at least for a conference championship and play for a world championship.”

Although he has bounced around the realms of business and professional basketball for most of his career, Whitfield seems set on staying in Charlotte, at least for now. Whitfield claimed that in ten years he would probably still be right where he is now, directing the day-to-day operations of the Bobcats. But given his varied experience since meeting Jordan all those years ago, it is hard to know where he’ll be a decade from now.

Michael Jordan is amongst the most vocal of NBA owners when it’s come to initiating a better revenue-sharing system, as his Charlotte Bobcats struggle to compete financially with the Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks. In terms of stylish, personalized air travel, though, it’s safe to say that MJ has just about every owner beat. Even you, Mark Cuban.

This, via Yardbarker, is the guy’s plane. It features a North Carolina-blue tail fin, the “6″ and the “23″ in its tail number refer to the amount of NBA championships he won and Jordan’s number, and it has his own logo on it. Just in case MJ gets confused on the tarmac:

Perhaps those familiar with the wonderful world of aviation (especially as “PanAm Fever” grips the country) can help us identify the type of plane it is in the comments section. All we can tell is that having your initials worked into the plane’s identification (as you can see by the “N236MJ” on the plane’s left jet engine) is pretty dope.

(And, no, “PanAm Fever” is not a real thing.)

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A week ago, we looked at the top Boston Celtics of all time, and I had a hard time narrowing it to just ten guys. This week, we’re looking at the top Charlotte Bobcats of all time, and putting together a list of ten in this case was barely even possible. The top five itself is admittedly a little underwhelming, but what can you do with a team that’s only been around for seven seasons? That’s nowhere near enough time to put together any Hall-of-Fame careers, so yes, this list is nowhere near as attractive as the Boston one. But we’re going to do it anyway, because “Charlotte” is next in the alphabet.

That being the case, here we go…

#5 – Brevin Knight – Let’s put it this way: Knight stopped playing for the Bobcats in 2007, and still only one player in the history of the team (See #3 on this list) has more total assists in a Charlotte uniform than he does. He’s also still third in total steals and ninth in total points and, unbelievably, ninth in total rebounds. The team selected him along with the #1 guy on this in the original 2004 expansion draft, so he’ll always have a special place in the hearts of Bobcats fans. The way things are going, he might always have a special place in the franchise leaders for major statistics, as well.

#4 – Matt Carroll – To think that Matt Carroll is in the top five of anything is pretty crazy, but numbers don’t lie; as far as Bobcats are concerned, Carroll is fourth in total points, seventh in total rebounds, and fifth in total steals. He’s also got the second longest-tenure ever with the team and is currently the longest-employed Bobcat at 5 ½ years with the team. He was traded to the Dallas Mavericks during the 2008-2009 season but apparently couldn’t stay away and was traded back to the team in 2010. Now he’s in great shape to keep racking up stats and—get this—in two seasons he might have played more games than any other Bobcat in history.

#3 – Ray Felton – Charlotte may have decided that Felton wasn’t as cost-effective a point guard as D.J. Augustin moving forward, but Felton’s contributions to the team have been, so far, among the best ever for the franchise. He’s the all-time team leader for assists, field goals made, and three-point field goals made, second in total points and steals, third in total rebounds, and seventh in total blocks. When he was drafted in 2005 along with UNC teammate Sean May, the idea was that the two serve as cornerstones to the organization. Felton held up his end of the deal, but ended up pricing himself out of a long-term career there. Go figure.

#2 – Emeka Okafor – Dwight Howard wasn’t the Rookie of the Year in 2005, believe it or not. Emeka Okafor was. In fact, he’s the only Rookie of the Year the franchise has ever had, despite having had so many high lottery picks over the years. That doesn’t say a lot for the way the Bobcats have drafted, but at the time it seemed to mean really good things for Okafor’s career as a Bobcat. Despite having played only 330 games in Charlotte and having left the team two full seasons ago, he still is the all-time franchise leader in rebounds and blocks. He’s also third all-time in scoring, fourth in steals, and ninth in assists. He’s never been an All-Star and probably never will, but he’s good enough to be the second-best Bobcat ever.

#1 – Gerald Wallace – The Bobcats have only ever had one All-Star and one member of an All-Defensive team. Both those players are Gerald Wallace, and when you look at the franchise’s statistical leaders, Wallace is at the top of most of them. No Bobcat has ever scored more points, played more games, gotten more steals, or made more field goals or free throws than this guy. He’s also second in rebounds, second in blocks, third in assists, and fourth in three-pointers made. I’d say that’s the best this franchise has had to offer to date, which makes his trade to Portland last season all the more painful.

Honorable Mention

Jason Richardson – Had Richardson played the bulk of his professional career in North Carolina, or even five or six seasons, he’d probably be at the top of this particular list. Instead, he only played one single season for the Bobcats and still ranks eighth in total points and steals for the franchise, as well as tenth in total assists and blocks. In one season, J-Rich did enough to make honorable mention here, which is a little ridiculous but true all the same.

Stephen Jackson – A lot like Richardson, Jackson did a whole lot in not much time with the team. In just a shade under two seasons with the Bobcats, Jackson managed to tally up enough assists and steals to rank himself sixth all-time in both categories. He’s also currently ranked seventh in total points and tenth in total rebounds, and had he played out the rest of his contract there instead of getting traded to Milwaukee this past summer, he would’ve climbed in those and other categories pretty quickly.

Boris Diaw – A narrow miss for the top five, Diaw is currently sixth in total points and rebounds and fourth in total assists and blocks. Considering that outside of Matt Carroll and D.J. Augustin, he’s the only player mentioned here still currently with the team, he’ll climb the ranks pretty quickly. Were we doing this list 2-3 years from now, he’d almost certainly be in.

Primoz Brezec – It’s easy to forget that a guy like Brezec even played in the NBA, but despite that he remains fifth in franchise history for total points, fourth in total rebounds, and sixth in total blocks. And he did all that in only three seasons with the club.

D.J. Augustin – Augustin is already the all-time franchise leader for free-throw percentage and is fifth in total assists and tenth in total steals. He’s still a young guy, which means with more time he could continue to improve his rating on the list of all-time Bobcats, but only if Kemba Walker doesn’t make it unnecessary to re-sign Augustin when his rookie deal expires. Knowing the history of the club, though, that’s probably exactly what will happen.

I told you it wasn’t a pretty list, but it’s a complete list and it is accurate. If you don’t believe me go pull up the stats for some of your favorite Bobcats. Look at the all-time roster. Try to pick out ten guys more deserving than these. You can’t because it’s simply not possible.

But if we’re going to do an all-time roster for all thirty teams, we’ve got to include the Bobcats. After “Charlotte” in the list of alphabetical NBA city names is “Chicago,” which means we’ll get back to the all-time rosters of more storied franchises in just seven days. I think we all know who #1 on that list will be, but numbers 2-5 will help keep things interesting.

Until then, these are the best Charlotte Bobcats of all time. Enjoy them, because they might not stay that way for long.

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Hurricanes & Bobcats “venue swap”

By Joe Ovies
Updated at 12:35 p.m.

From the department of “What Took So Long,” a couple of North Carolina professional teams will trade places during the preseason.

According to the SportsBusiness Journal, the Carolina Hurricanes and the Charlotte Bobcats  scheduled a “building swap” for this fall. The Bobcats will play the Miami Heat Oct. 19 at RBC Center, while the Canes will play the Atlanta Thrashers Sept. 25 at Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte.

Slight problem, though. That whole NBA lockout thing that could wipe out a portion of the season. Let’s hope David Stern hammers out an agreement so the “Heatles” make it to town.