The Charlotte Bobcats have new uniforms

It is a time of renewal in the Charlotte Bobcats organization, as the team looks to make a clean break from a dreadful 7-59 season that was, in terms of winning percentage, the worst in NBA history. Heading into next year, the Bobcats will have a new focal point, selected with the No. 2 pick in the upcoming 2012 NBA draft. They will have a new coach, with news breaking this week that the team will hire former St. John's Red Storm assistant Mike Dunlap to man the sidelines.

And they will have new uniforms, which were unveiled Tuesday night in photo galleries published by the Charlotte Observer and the Bobcats' official site, respectively. Take a gander at the new togs, modeled (from left) by guard Kemba Walker, swingman Gerald Henderson and big Bismack Biyombo:

They all look reasonably pleased with their new clothes! And why shouldn't they be? They are, if nothing else, different from the ones in which they just lost 59 of 66 games. The Observer's Rick Bonnell details the changes:

They're switching to a darker navy blue, adding Carolina blue as an accent, and further de-emphasizing the orange color that dominated their uniforms their first two seasons.

They're also shortening their nickname on the white home jerseys from "Bobcats" to "Cats." The blue road jerseys will continue to say, "Charlotte."

If the first thing the "Cats" shortening made you think of was, "Well, that's a nice symbolic sayonara to Robert Johnson" — the original owner of the franchise, after whom the Bobcats were named (well,kind of) and who sold the team to Michael Jordan in February 2010 — then you are not alone; I thought that, too. But team president Fred Whitfield told Bonnell that the shortening is "not purposefully" about Johnson, that it is "about brand identity" and intended to reflect what Charlotte fans actually call the team during games. (I guess "WAIT WHY DID YOU DO THAT, OH MAN, YOU GUYS ARE THE WORST" wouldn't fit on the front.)