This is the latest installment of PBT’s series of “What your team should do when the lockout ends.” Up next is the Charlotte Bobcats. You can also check out our thoughts on other NBA teams here as we work our way through all 30 squads.

Last season: Hope that four-game sweep in the playoffs was fun/worth it, Charlotte! The Bobcats plummeted back to Earth last season. No. Plummeted isn’t fair to objects that plummet. The Bobcats rocketed back to Earth. No. That’s insulting to rocket ships. The Bobcats were instantly teleported back to Earth last season after their first playoff run in 2010. There we go. The whole season fell apart nearly instantly.

Larry Brown was fired, Paul Silas was brought on. D.J. Augustin flourished, but the team could not, would not get out of its funk. Despite progress from Gerald Henderson and a surprisingly competent season from Kwame Brown, the Cats were dreadful. But the awfulness lead to some good things, actually. The Bobcats finally, mercifully agreed to blowing the team up and building towards the future. Gerald Wallace, the team’s biggest star, their All-Star, was sent to Portland for Dante Cunningham and draft picks. They still managed to win 34 games. For perspective, that’s only three games fewer than the 8th seed Indiana Pacers. While, yes, this does tell you how crappy the East continues to be, it still shows the the Bobcats weren’t wretched. Just awful. Bright side!

Since we last saw the Bobcats: Everything is different. Rich Cho was brought on in June, and subsequently oversaw a draft day deal that sent Stephen Jackson, the other pillar of the playoff appearance to Milwaukee and picked up Corey Maggette, but more importantly added the seventh pick in the draft, giving them two in the top ten. The result?

The Bobcats have a… young core? Where did this come from?

D.J. Augustin, Gerald Henderson, Bismack Biyombo, Kemba Walker, Tyrus Thomas, Dante Cunningham. That’s a six-man rotation of 25-years of age younger, with Thomas the oldest (depending on your Biyombo impression). All of a sudden the Bobcats are looking like one of the most hopeful teams in the league after being the most hopeless for the past few years. Just shows what committed management and ownership can do. The Bobcats begin having a shot at Portland’s first-rounder in 2013 and while their 2012 pick could be held by the Bulls from the Tyrus Thomas trade, it’s lottery protected in 2012, then protected in various forms all the way to 2016.

The Bobcats are headed in a new direction, and while it could be rough for fans, they’ll have Kemba Walker as a bonafide star to bet excited about.

When the lockout ends, the Bobcats need to: continue the process. They’ve started a true rebuilding process. They’ve begun to move away from veteran contracts and towards younger players. They’re building a core of rookies through the draft. They’ve still got some flotsam in the pool, however.

Desagana Diop is reason No.1 why the Cats need the amnesty clause. From there, Maggette should be on the block for cheap for any team looking to add a wing. If Maggette can bounce back from a downright bad 2011, he might pull in interest. He is an efficient scorer (18.3 career PER), and shot 36 percent from 3-point range last season in a down year. Tyrus Thomas needs to have a heck of a year to justify keeping him and his salary around, especially with a deep draft of power forwards hanging round.

But the young guys bring a lot of promise. D.J. Augustin’s improvement means Kemba Walker can develop at his own pace, likewise with Thomas and Biyombo. They’ll need to work out the point guard confusion eventually, but that’s the luxury of rebuilding. They’ve got time, as long as they’re patient.

So yeah, 2012 will probably be a struggle for Charlotte. But if they take on the right identity, they could be the young team that loses but is fun to watch every game. And that’ll be a real first in franchise history.

The title of this article is misleading. It suggests that jettisoning veterans is, in fact, the Charlotte Bobcats’ problem, and I suppose that it can’t really be denied that by giving away guys like Stephen Jackson and Gerald Wallace, win totals are inevitably going to drop. But really, in the big picture of the franchise, dumping long-term contracts in favor of younger guys and draft picks is a much friendlier way to rebuild.

While you can make the playoffs behind guys like Wallace and Jackson, it probably would only ever happen as a seven or eight seed, and even then you’re most likely looking at a first-round loss.

When that happens, when a team is only good enough to barely miss the lottery, just sneak into the postseason, and then immediately lose, there’s simply no way to get better. You can’t win a ring, but you also can’t draft top rookies. Unless you get lucky with a late pick or a trade, there’s no way you’re ever going to slip out of that basketball purgatory unless you do something dramatic.

Something like, say, trading away all of your best players.

It’s really the only way for a team to truly rebuild. Sometimes, the only way to get better is to get worse.

In Charlotte’s case, that’s exactly what they’ve done. A year ago they made their first playoff appearance in franchise history, and within twelve months they had traded away the best player in their franchise’s history (Wallace) for Dante Cunningham, Sean Marks, Joel Przybilla, the draft pick that would eventually turn into Tobias Harris (traded to Milwaukee as part of the deal that shipped out Jackson and brought back Corey Maggette and Bismack Biyombo), and a 2013 first-rounder. It sounds like a lot, but it really isn’t.

So why make the deal? Two reasons—first, they’re hoping Biyombo and whomever they get with that 2013 pick play a huge role in this rebuilding process. Secondly, they’re hunkering down to be bad for a few years so that they can stockpile a few more lottery picks and put together a core they can move forward and grow with.

Despite whatever talent they currently have on the payroll, the only ones that appear to be part of this long-term plan include Biyombo, fellow rookie Kemba Walker, Gerald Henderson, and Tyrus Thomas. If they’re bad enough in 2011-2012, and there’s no reason to think that they can’t be, they’ll have a shot at top-tier guys in June’s draft, as well. Anthony Davis, Quincy Miller, Harrison Barnes, and Jared Sullinger all are guys that could help alter the fate of a franchise, and that ’12 draft class has plenty more guys that could bloom into perennial all-stars as well.

A group built around the four current Bobcats listed above, plus Davis or Barnes, plus two more first-round picks in 2013 (maybe—eventually they’re going to have to give up a first-rounder to Chicago from the Tyrus Thomas trade) will be plenty young, but will also feature plenty of big-name talent from three or four consecutive draft classes.

That’s perfect for Charlotte, because in their current financial standing it’s ideal for their best players to be on rookie deals, anyway. Considering that literally every other big veteran contract on the book (Maggette, DeSagana Diop, Boris Diaw, Matt Carroll, and even D.J. Augustin should they decide to let him go) will expire either this coming summer or in the summer of 2013, the ‘Cats look like they’re in pretty good shape to be more or less where they want to be in two years’ time.

The real challenge—and this sounds odd, I know—is playing poorly enough in the meantime to contend for the draft picks they really need. They must resist the temptation to play the vets and instead give the younger players a full opportunity to learn and grow. If they can do that, then rebuilding will go much more smoothly, at least for the long-term.

It’s not going to be pretty in the meantime, but these types of things rarely are. What matters is that the organization drafts well, steers clear of any big veteran contracts, and lets the next generation of Charlotte Bobcats come into their own. If they can do that, they’ll be all right. Eventually.