Primoz Brezec knew expectations would be high as he prepared to enter his second season in Charlotte in 2005-06. He knew the pressure would be on him to match, if not exceed, his breakout season with the Bobcats in 2004-05 in which he posted career highs in points (13.0), rebounds (7.4), assists (1.2), blocks (0.76) and field goal percentage (.512) and finished fourth in the 2005 NBA Most Improved Player award voting.

In one season, Brezec went from being a relative unknown on Indiana's bench, averaging 1.8 points and 1.1 rebounds in three years with the Pacers, to becoming an integral part of a budding expansion franchise. But one good year wasn't nearly enough for Brezec, and instead of shying away from the challenge, Brezec welcomed it, setting the bar high for himself and his Bobcats teammates.

“My expectations were to win 30+ games with this team and to get better individually as an all-around player,” he said. “We finished with 26 wins while dealing with a lot of injuries, and even though I don’t think my stats improved, I felt I was facing tougher competition and stood up to it well. Another one of my goals was to play all 82 games. Unfortunately I missed three games -- I guess it’s not that bad, but my goal was to play the entire season.”

Only rookie guard Raymond Felton played in more games (80) than Brezec’s 79 this season, but due to the rash of injuries to the Bobcats frontcourt – Emeka Okafor (56 games), Sean May (59), Melvin Ely (25) and Jake Voskuhl (31) combined to miss 171 games due to injuries – Brezec often found himself on an island as Charlotte’s only active big man.

“For like a month and a half, I think I was the only big guy in the lineup,” Brezec noted. “Emeka was hurt, Melvin was out, Sean was out, Jake was out, so most of the season we had to play small with Gerald (Wallace) at the four and Jumaine (Jones) at the three. All that was kind of new for me, but what can I say it was a tough year.”

Yet despite often finding himself double-teamed inside, Brezec was still able to produce, averaging 12.4 points and 5.6 rebounds while connecting with amazing accuracy from the field. For more than half the season, Brezec found himself among the Top 10 in the league in field goal percentage and finished ranked 14th after shooting a career-best .517 from the floor.

Brezec credits some of his success from the field to the addition of an expanded post-up game to his repertoire this season. Normally content to stay outside with big men like Okafor and Ely working the post, Brezec was forced to turn his back to the basket more often.

“When we were forced to go small, we became more of an up-and-down team, and with me the only big guy I was able to post up more,” he said. “I liked being able to add that to my game. I worked on my low post game a lot over the summer and liked getting the chance to use it, even though I might not have liked the reason why with our guys on the bench.”

Brezec also acknowledges his shortcomings, and has sworn to dedicate himself towards improving what he felt was exposed as his biggest weakness this season – his rebounding.

“Obviously I am a little disappointed with my rebounding,” he admitted. “My minutes went a little bit down this year, but I have to rebound the ball better. We have a lot of guys that go after the rebounds. Gerald (Wallace) is a great rebounder and so is Raymond (Felton). Everyone picked up the slack and was going to the boards, but being 7-2, I am going to have to start doing a better job. That’s definitely the part of my game I’ll be working on this summer.”

So now that year two is in the books, what does Brezec think is in store for the Bobcats in the 2006-07 season?

“We have a good group of guys here,” he said. “I think we are going to continue to improve individually and as a team. This was only our second year. We have a bright future in the league as long as we keep on improving.”