Before the Charlotte Bobcats brass met with Kentucky’s Michael Kidd-Gilchrist over dinner a while back, they said they knew he was a winner. What they found out was that he was a high character guy as well.

“We really liked him in Chicago with the interview we had,” Bobcats GM Rich Cho said Thursday night. “We took him out to dinner. He was great there.”

But make no mistake, they didn’t draft him because he’s a good date. “First and foremost, he’s a winner,” Cho said. “He plays both ends of the floor. He’s a competitor who is a high character person.”

Cho praised his work ethic and the Bobcat officials will be looking for Kidd-Gilchrist to improve his shot and they are sure he will.

The Bobcats did pick up some good perimeter shooting with the first pick of the second round when they landed Vanderbilt forward Jeff Taylor who can slash to the basket or hit an outside jumper.

“These two guys who have a great opportunity to come in and play right away,” said Bobcats president Rod Higgins.

Cho said both players can guard well defensively and get up and down the court, both attributes that will fit well with the Bobcats new upstyle of play they’ll be employing.

Both Higgins and Cho indicated that there were trade opportunities with teams vying for Charlotte’s second spot. “As we filtered through the different trade scenarios,” Cho said, “we just felt it was best to take the best player available and we felt that was Michael. He was our No. 1 target and we are ecstatic to have him.”

He averaged 11.9 points and 7.4 rebounds per game in his only season at Kentucky, which won the national championship.

The Bobcats still need size upfront and in the back court.