Charlotte Off Season Review

[jbk1234]

That's not a reason to hand out the worst contract of the offseason to a bench player. And it's still exactly what got them into their current mess. I'm sure they felt the cap space wouldn't matter much when handing out the deals to guys like Zeller and MKG, but it came back to bite them this offseason.

I'm not at all convinced it was the worst contract handed out this offseason. He's not even getting $20M per. There are far scarier contracts. People keep calling him a backup but this is a league where Teague, Augustine, Rubio, Bledsoe, Reggie Jackson, Dragic, Trey Burke, and Rondo will all likely be starting on opening day. How many of those players are definitely better than Rozier?

He's 100% a backup. As are Augustin, Burke, and Rondo. The rest are unquestionably better than Rozier. Outside of him being kind of young (but not really as he's 25) and the hope he'll improve, he hasn't shown that he does a single thing well. He's a mediocre defender, doesn't distribute well, and can't even break 40% shooting. You could say he doesn't really turn the ball over, but it's hard to when you just jack up bad shots.

I think he's a good defender and the advanced stats agree with me. The only guy on that list who comes close to him defensively is Rubio and Rubio is actually a worse shooter than him. People underrate the ability to defend the PG position in a league where maybe half the players even make the attempt. I'm not saying it's a team-friendly deal, but I suspect it will age better than at least a handful of the contracts that were handed out this summer.

[BullyKing]

I'm not as down on Rozier as most and I really don't think that cap space will matter given the duration of the contract. They've got more expiring contracts than they can likely move as is.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-J327A using RealGM mobile app

That's not a reason to hand out the worst contract of the offseason to a bench player. And it's still exactly what got them into their current mess. I'm sure they felt the cap space wouldn't matter much when handing out the deals to guys like Zeller and MKG, but it came back to bite them this offseason.

I'm not at all convinced it was the worst contract handed out this offseason. He's not even getting $20M per. There are far scarier contracts. People keep calling him a backup but this is a league where Teague, Augustine, Rubio, Bledsoe, Reggie Jackson, Dragic, Trey Burke, and Rondo will all likely be starting on opening day. How many of those players are definitely better than Rozier?

Trey Burke is definitely not likely to be starting on opening day. He might not even be the Sixers primary backup PG and they signed him for the minimum. The fact that the question is whether or not he is "definitely better than Rozier" given the above sort of illustrates the problem with Rozier's contract.

[jbk1234]

That's not a reason to hand out the worst contract of the offseason to a bench player. And it's still exactly what got them into their current mess. I'm sure they felt the cap space wouldn't matter much when handing out the deals to guys like Zeller and MKG, but it came back to bite them this offseason.

I'm not at all convinced it was the worst contract handed out this offseason. He's not even getting $20M per. There are far scarier contracts. People keep calling him a backup but this is a league where Teague, Augustine, Rubio, Bledsoe, Reggie Jackson, Dragic, Trey Burke, and Rondo will all likely be starting on opening day. How many of those players are definitely better than Rozier?

Trey Burke is definitely not likely to be starting on opening day. He might not even be the Sixers primary backup PG and they signed him for the minimum. The fact that the question is whether or not he is "definitely better than Rozier" given the above sort of illustrates the problem with Rozier's contract.

I thought Burke was still on the Knicks. Who's their starting PG?

[jbk1234]

I'm not at all convinced it was the worst contract handed out this offseason. He's not even getting $20M per. There are far scarier contracts. People keep calling him a backup but this is a league where Teague, Augustine, Rubio, Bledsoe, Reggie Jackson, Dragic, Trey Burke, and Rondo will all likely be starting on opening day. How many of those players are definitely better than Rozier?

Trey Burke is definitely not likely to be starting on opening day. He might not even be the Sixers primary backup PG and they signed him for the minimum. The fact that the question is whether or not he is "definitely better than Rozier" given the above sort of illustrates the problem with Rozier's contract.

I thought Burke was still on the Knicks. Who's their starting PG?

In any event, my point was if a third of the league doesn't have a starting PG better than Rozier, and that remains true over the length of his contract, he's tradeable.

[BullyKing]

I'm not at all convinced it was the worst contract handed out this offseason. He's not even getting $20M per. There are far scarier contracts. People keep calling him a backup but this is a league where Teague, Augustine, Rubio, Bledsoe, Reggie Jackson, Dragic, Trey Burke, and Rondo will all likely be starting on opening day. How many of those players are definitely better than Rozier?

Trey Burke is definitely not likely to be starting on opening day. He might not even be the Sixers primary backup PG and they signed him for the minimum. The fact that the question is whether or not he is "definitely better than Rozier" given the above sort of illustrates the problem with Rozier's contract.

I thought Burke was still on the Knicks. Who's their starting PG?

Maybe you were thinking of Elfrid Payton? But I think the larger point is someone like him is just as good a bet to be decent as Rozier and he got significantly less.

[pacers33granger]

I'm not at all convinced it was the worst contract handed out this offseason. He's not even getting $20M per. There are far scarier contracts. People keep calling him a backup but this is a league where Teague, Augustine, Rubio, Bledsoe, Reggie Jackson, Dragic, Trey Burke, and Rondo will all likely be starting on opening day. How many of those players are definitely better than Rozier?

He's 100% a backup. As are Augustin, Burke, and Rondo. The rest are unquestionably better than Rozier. Outside of him being kind of young (but not really as he's 25) and the hope he'll improve, he hasn't shown that he does a single thing well. He's a mediocre defender, doesn't distribute well, and can't even break 40% shooting. You could say he doesn't really turn the ball over, but it's hard to when you just jack up bad shots.

I think he's a good defender and the advanced stats agree with me. The only guy on that list who comes close to him defensively is Rubio and Rubio is actually a worse shooter than him. People underrate the ability to defend the PG position in a league where maybe half the players even make the attempt. I'm not saying it's a team-friendly deal, but I suspect it will age better than at least a handful of the contracts that were handed out this summer.

What stats are you looking at? I see him having a negative DRPM per ESPN and a generally poor defensive rating. These stats were also against mainly backups. He's somewhat athletic but every time I've seen him he gambles and doesn't seem to have good defensive awareness.

[jbk1234]

He's 100% a backup. As are Augustin, Burke, and Rondo. The rest are unquestionably better than Rozier. Outside of him being kind of young (but not really as he's 25) and the hope he'll improve, he hasn't shown that he does a single thing well. He's a mediocre defender, doesn't distribute well, and can't even break 40% shooting. You could say he doesn't really turn the ball over, but it's hard to when you just jack up bad shots.

I think he's a good defender and the advanced stats agree with me. The only guy on that list who comes close to him defensively is Rubio and Rubio is actually a worse shooter than him. People underrate the ability to defend the PG position in a league where maybe half the players even make the attempt. I'm not saying it's a team-friendly deal, but I suspect it will age better than at least a handful of the contracts that were handed out this summer.

What stats are you looking at? I see him having a negative DRPM per ESPN and a generally poor defensive rating. These stats were also against mainly backups. He's somewhat athletic but every time I've seen him he gambles and doesn't seem to have good defensive awareness.

He's got a positive DBPM and VORP according to basketball reference.

Honestly, ESPN has never publicized their methodology for DRPM, and it produces so may crazy outliers, I have a hard time taking it seriously anymore. The only other situation where a for-profit company provided data based on a formula and process they don't disclose, and where people treated it as a reliable data point, is the bond-rating companies and we saw how that worked out in 08. For all the ink spilled writing about the NBA, I've never seen someone try to reverse-engineer their findings to see if they could extrapolate their formula for producing that stat. If there's a reliable methodology there, it shouldn't take someone with a background in mathematics more than a week to figure it out.

[babyjax13]

I don't think this can be anything other than an F. They overpaid Rozier, who shouldn't have made any more than Satoransky/Jones (so $8-$10 million on a good day...but I don't think even that) and let Walker go for absolutely nothing. If that was going to be the plan, they should have traded him at the all-star break, or at least tried to work out a S+T where they weren't the team giving up value (the 2nd). Their picks were fine, unexciting, but fine... but honestly, that doesn't offset what a hopeless mess their roster is. Somehow they have the 12th highest payroll in the league, and they don't have a single player on the roster that would be a top 20 starter at their position unless one of the young guys really breaks out. I don't know what they are doing, and neither do they, they've been completely irresponsible to their fans for almost the entire time they've been back in Charlotte.

[Laimbeer]

Props to Hornet fans for owning it. So often fanbases will try to rationalize their team's mistakes.

[HornetJail]

I'm not as down on Rozier as most and I really don't think that cap space will matter given the duration of the contract. They've got more expiring contracts than they can likely move as is.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-J327A using RealGM mobile app

That's not a reason to hand out the worst contract of the offseason to a bench player. And it's still exactly what got them into their current mess. I'm sure they felt the cap space wouldn't matter much when handing out the deals to guys like Zeller and MKG, but it came back to bite them this offseason.

I'm not at all convinced it was the worst contract handed out this offseason. He's not even getting $20M per. There are far scarier contracts. People keep calling him a backup but this is a league where Teague, Augustine, Rubio, Bledsoe, Reggie Jackson, Dragic, Trey Burke, and Rondo will all likely be starting on opening day. How many of those players are definitely better than Rozier?

I would rather have every last one of those players over Rozier, except Burke. And Burke is on a minimum, so given that, I'd rather have him too. Rozier is making more than every player you mentioned.

[pacers33granger]

He's got a positive DBPM and VORP according to basketball reference.

Honestly, ESPN has never publicized their methodology for DRPM, and it produces so may crazy outliers, I have a hard time taking it seriously anymore. The only other situation where a for-profit company provided data based on a formula and process they don't disclose, and where people treated it as a reliable data point, is the bond-rating companies and we saw how that worked out in 08. For all the ink spilled writing about the NBA, I've never seen someone try to reverse-engineer their findings to see if they could extrapolate their formula for producing that stat. If there's a reliable methodology there, it shouldn't take someone with a background in mathematics more than a week to figure it out.

That's fair and defense is impossible to quantify. We can agree to disagree there but really if he's slightly positive on defense against backups on a strong defensive team and negative on offense, that's still pretty telling imo. I still don't believe he's put together a single season out of 4 years that I would consider to be better than an average backup.

Maybe a change of scenery will do him well and I hope so for Hornets' fans sake. But I wouldn't bet on it based on past performance and the fact that Stevens tends to make PGs look better than most other coaches.

[stinger14]

I don't think this off-season, in particular, that was the problem. The problem was the three or four off-seasons that preceded it. The bill just came due this summer.

This is 100% right but the biggest issue is they didn't learn anything apparently. They again went for a lower upside prospect in the draft and badly overpaid a role player, both of which are the types moves that caused this mess.

So true, and Jordan needs a lot of the blame. A lot of fans were quick to throw Rich Cho under the bus (deserved it) but here is Kuochak making the same mistakes. Two GM's same crap points back to the one constant, Jordan

[pacers33granger]

So true, and Jordan needs a lot of the blame. A lot of fans were quick to throw Rich Cho under the bus (deserved it) but here is Kuochak making the same mistakes. Two GM's same crap points back to the one constant, Jordan

Yeah given that Rozier article where he said Jordan told Mitch to do what it takes to get him leads me to believe Mitch was planning to just let Kemba walk and bottom out completely before Jordan jumped in. It's especially an issue when Jordan has understandably penny-pinched in the past, but he seems to have a penchant for doing so at the wrong times.

But I still feel Mitch overplayed his hand on this one anyways. That same article has Rozier saying he was thinking he would sign a big 1 year deal with NY and Mitch hands him three big years all guaranteed. Really says something when even the Knicks wouldn't go more than a 1 year prove it deal.

[Diop]

our board cap expert was outlining how the Rozier contract had to be certain $ers to be a legal trade for Kemba. it doesn't excuse the Hornets, just adds a little context. Not trading Kemba the previous year was largely due to the All star game I'm sure. The team was going no where and they needed to reset. It was the best thing for Kemba as well.

i'm always naively optimistic at this time of the year and hope they see something in Rozier that we don't.

[reload141]

Really pulling for Rozier to live up to his contract, I love him and he really took a lot of flack in Boston because of Kyrie and his attitude.

Sacrificed the most by far in Boston for Kyrie, now has a chance to flourish.

Charlotte fans deserve some good vibes.

[Hornet Mania]

I'd give the offseason a D. There's no way to salvage losing a franchise player for nothing, but I'm not as gloomy about everything else.

Rozier is an overpay but at least he's young and has shown flashes. The contract is meaningless because we aren't attracting any FAs over the next two offseasons no matter what and even if we needed to take on salary for a trade our cap sheet is wide open in July 2020 and July 2021 so he doesn't ruin cap flexibility. At minimum he's preferable to Elfrid Payton or Emmanuel Mudiay, which was realistically what the team was looking at next season if they didn't get Rozier.

Seems too early for the "PJ Washington is a low upside prospect" takes, i's not as if he's a 23yr old Sr. He was picked around the area he was projected to be drafted, even saw an article that claimed he was a potential gem prior to the draft. Of course he could flop, it would be very on-brand, but it's not a red flag situation like the Suns and Cam Johnson where the team reached extremely hard AND got an older prospect. The verdict on that pick won't be decided for awhile.

[pacers33granger]

Rozier is an overpay but at least he's young and has shown flashes. The contract is meaningless because we aren't attracting any FAs over the next two offseasons no matter what and even if we needed to take on salary for a trade our cap sheet is wide open in July 2020 and July 2021 so he doesn't ruin cap flexibility. At minimum he's preferable to Elfrid Payton or Emmanuel Mudiay, which was realistically what the team was looking at next season if they didn't get Rozier.

I'm not sure how Rozier is preferable to Mudiay or Payton, especially considering the vast difference in cost. He and Payton are the same age and Mudiay is 2 years younger. And both arguably had better years while being actual starters (though all three are backups and simply not good). Both were even better shooters as crazy as it seems given that is a major deficiency of both.

I don't get the "PJ Washington is a low upside prospect" takes, i's not as if he's a 23yr old Sr. He was picked around the area he was projected to be drafted, even saw an article that claimed he was a potential gem prior to the draft. Of course he could flop, it would be very on-brand, but it's not a red flag situation like the Suns and Cam Johnson where the team reached extremely hard AND got an older prospect. The verdict on that pick won't be decided for awhile.

Most draft experts have him as a 10 year vet, but never an all star type guy. Which is an alright late lotto pick, but Charlotte has a history of taking the safe picks and amassing a team of middling role players as a result.

Given the direction of the franchise they should have gone for an upside play or tried to take advantage of teams looking to trade up and get another asset. He'll be a good NBA player, just not sure it was the right direction and again is partially what got them into this current mess. Also slightly odd given PF is where the glut is on that roster.

[Hornet Mania]

Most draft experts have him as a 10 year vet, but never an all star type guy. Which is an alright late lotto pick, but Charlotte has a history of taking the safe picks and amassing a team of middling role players as a result.

Given the direction of the franchise they should have gone for an upside play or tried to take advantage of teams looking to trade up and get another asset. He'll be a good NBA player, just not sure it was the right direction and again is partially what got them into this current mess. Also slightly odd given PF is where the glut is on that roster.

We'll see I suppose. No one ever knows anything about the draft until a few years later and then everyone knew it all along.

I remember a couple years ago everyone talked about how Charlotte chose the 'high upside' pick of Malik Monk and not Donovan Mitchell who would have been just another 'safe pick' who didn't have much room to improve....whoops. The team probably has a bright future in the alternate universe where Kemba/Mitchell are at the helm instead of turning into a total dumpster fire. The only pick the franchise has actually struck gold with since being revived is Kemba and he was considered low-upside at the time. If I remember correctly he was actually the team's second lotto pick that year, the first was used on Biyombo because of all that juicy potential...which amounted to nothing.

It's hard for me to worry about missing out on the upside play when every time the franchise has drafted a player like that since its revival (most notably Alex Ajinca, Bismack Biyombo, MKG, Noah Vonleh and Malik Monk) they've turned out to be either essentially unplayable or so one-dimensional that they're actually surprisingly low-upside too. At this point I'd be thrilled if the team lands a young prospect who can be a solid player (I'm assuming starting caliber) for 10yrs at the end of the lotto. It would kick the crap out of everything the team has done on draft day since the turn of the century, Kemba-excluded.

[HartfordWhalers]

our board cap expert was outlining how the Rozier contract had to be certain $ers to be a legal trade for Kemba. it doesn't excuse the Hornets, just adds a little context. Not trading Kemba the previous year was largely due to the All star game I'm sure. The team was going no where and they needed to reset. It was the best thing for Kemba as well.

i'm always naively optimistic at this time of the year and hope they see something in Rozier that we don't.

Link me to the post, but without seeing it I will say that this sounds completely wrong.

You could have brought back in Rozier at 3 years 3m a year and had it a legal trade.
Trade rules are limits on the amount of money you can bring back, and don’t require you bring back that much.
And Boston could have signed Kemba outright, they didn’t need matching.

While a sign and trade needs a three year deal, it doesn’t need be all guaranteed or for as high a salary.

[Diop]

our board cap expert was outlining how the Rozier contract had to be certain $ers to be a legal trade for Kemba. it doesn't excuse the Hornets, just adds a little context. Not trading Kemba the previous year was largely due to the All star game I'm sure. The team was going no where and they needed to reset. It was the best thing for Kemba as well.

i'm always naively optimistic at this time of the year and hope they see something in Rozier that we don't.

Link me to the post, but without seeing it I will say that this sounds completely wrong.

You could have brought back in Rozier at 3 years 3m a year and had it a legal trade.
Trade rules are limits on the amount of money you can bring back, and don’t require you bring back that much.
And Boston could have signed Kemba outright, they didn’t need matching.

While a sign and trade needs a three year deal, it doesn’t need be all guaranteed or for as high a salary.

viewtopic.php?p=77055123#p77055123