Charles in Charge: The Charles Lee Thread

[KembaWalker]

the difference between OG Cliffs defensive team or Borregos high power offense team was that those actually felt like execution of a strategy. when this team goes out there i dont see some team thats actually tactically keeping teams from doing what they want to do. I see a couple guys like Moussa going hard af and then it seems like the rest is just some weird combo of plodding pace and some hustle you'd expect from G League guys, and throw in a dash of our offense being so anemic that teams aren't really having to try that hard to put us away.

the closest thing i saw to a philosophy from Lee when the roster was healthy was chucking a bunch of garbage 3s. that was his actual plan for this team getting executing and it was awful. and there was really no excuse for it. the excuses came later

[JustBuzzin]

The system: Give ball to Melo let him create. If that doesn't work just chuck the open 3.

Yeah he gotta go you can't win like that.

[fatlever]

The system: Give ball to Melo let him create. If that doesn't work just chuck the contested 3.

Yeah he gotta go you can't win like that.

fixed it for you

[JDR720]

The offense is no doubt horrible. I think our only plan offensively is Melo (and when healthy, Mann/Miller) going 1v1 and bombing threes. Our offensive talent isn't as bad as our offense is. Even when we were healthy-ish, our offense was still terrible.

Funny enough, I think we need a few Gordon's on this team. Players that keep the ball moving and can make shots. But Lee still needs to go back to the drawing board on his offensive system. It can't be this isolation/3pt bombing James Harden offense from a decade ago.

[amcoolio]

So we are two last second wins away from a 19 game losing streak. Had the team lost that Lakers game, we'd be on a 12 game losing streak with a horrendous point differential. No matter the roster, most coaches aren't surviving that.

I will say the defense has been good before this losing streak, but that is really the only selling point for Lee right now. Ultimately it will depend on player exit interviews like it almost always does. If LaMelo/Miller say they don't get Lee and he isn't helping them, he is gone

[HornetJail]

So we are two last second wins away from a 19 game losing streak. Had the team lost that Lakers game, we'd be on a 12 game losing streak with a horrendous point differential. No matter the roster, most coaches aren't surviving that.

I will say the defense has been good before this losing streak, but that is really the only selling point for Lee right now. Ultimately it will depend on player exit interviews like it almost always does. If LaMelo/Miller say they don't get Lee and he isn't helping them, he is gone

Yeah our okay team defense is the only redeeming quality of Lee at this point in time, but i honestly hesitate to even give Lee that much credit for our defense. We are committing an enormous amount of roster spots to anyone that hustles around on defense, all of whom actively hurt our offense. Is Lee's lone selling point is getting the ~20th best defensive team by talent, to 18th in DRTG, what are we even doing here?

[KembaWalker]

if Cleveland tries against us our DRTG will probably be back in the bottom 10

[HornetJail]

if Cleveland tries against us our DRTG will probably be back in the bottom 10

i was trying to be generous to Lee but our DRTG is probably worse if half our games didn't result garbage time 4th quarters anyway

[SWedd523]

if Cleveland tries against us our DRTG will probably be back in the bottom 10

exactly. how much of this good but still below league average defense is from teams resting their best players against us? getting big leads and then letting off the gas? our slow pace?

Eye test tells me defense is still pretty bad

[yosemiteben]

if Cleveland tries against us our DRTG will probably be back in the bottom 10

i was trying to be generous to Lee but our DRTG is probably worse if half our games didn't result garbage time 4th quarters anyway

Again, our DRTG that I posted is from cleaning the glass, which filters out garbage time.

[KembaWalker]

Read on Twitter

We need to bring in Pat Bev on a 10 day to be our Ben Gordon

[KembaWalker]

https://amp.charlotteobserver.com/sports/charlotte-hornets/article301248459.html

Has Charles been too positive?
An interesting question. Obviously the players don’t think so however I don’t even think it’s necessarily the positivity that irks me about Lee. He has a non competitive group of scrubby players and no amount of dragging them or tearing them down is going to amount to a significantly better product on the floor so whatever. I’m personally not a huge fan of the YouTube guru grindest phrasing and that was from day 1.

Way more importantly than attitude or phrasing, he gets imo one more season to prove that he can bring something to the table that tactically gives us an edge on the floor, or even at least gives us a professional level offense. That’s still a much lower bar than someone like Borrego or even Cliff were held to but hey, that’s the state of the team right now. I’d say half a season next year but they have yet to put anyone else on the staff that is anywhere near capable of taking over as an interim coach for half a season so I don’t think that’s an option.

[yosemiteben]

In case there was any question about our goals for this season, Lee very clearly laid them out here:

Read on Twitter

Note how "making the playoffs" was not included as a goal they set for this season.

[SWedd523]

Used Car Salesman speech 101.

eta: I'm not team fire Lee but come on man, that's embarrassing from a 1/30 job in the world at the helm of a $172 million dollar roster.

If I interviewed for a leadership position and I said some **** like that I'd expect to be laughed out of the room.

[EmpireFalls]

Eh what else are you gonna say when the team is nearly 40 games below .500 and you have a -8 net rating. I don’t think you can lean on winning in this scenario

[KembaWalker]

Obsessed with daily improvement has to be one of the stupidest phrases anyone has ever come up with and somehow it’s our team motto

Wasting an entire year on building togetherness with a roster that needs about 8 players off the team immediately and could probably be better off with 3 or 4 of the other guys exchanged is pretty funny too, and on top of that trying to trade one of the couple guys that arent on those lists and failing is pretty funny. Glad Damion Baugh and Wendell Moore and are building their chemistry together though. Hornets DNA right there

[Bassman]

I’ve got no clue where the various influences and influencers came from to create Lee’s coaching approach. I think it’s essentially a player centric method, mixed with warm fuzzy goal setting and micro measures for each player. The players seem to respond reasonably well. They’ve given strong effort nearly every night. I see the foundations being set; the BIG question is can Lee coach the TEAM up to a far greater performance standard? All the little improvements he charts for these guys have to collectively become big leaps. Staying healthy is critically important. So is getting out of this hole next season. That means not trading away Mark or Melo (or both) for lesser talent just to add more picks.

[JMAC3]

I would move on from Lee to be honest, you can usually tell pretty quickly if a coach is going to be good. 9/10 times when you say "well, let's give him another year to see if he figures it out" you end up regretting it. As a Bears fan I have seen this logic fail over and over, As an Indiana basketball fan I have seen this logic fail over and over, living in Charlotte and seeing the Panthers operate I have seen this fail over and over......

We won't do it though, we will do what 90% of teams do and keep him even though it is pretty clear he isn't special. You have to be special to keep a job only 29 other people have, and Lee isn't a grinder, he isn't going to be able to do the hard things with his "We tried really hard, we all loved each other, we all had fun" mantra garbage.

At the end of the day, the team didn't improve under him. It sucks the injuries whatever,

[KembaWalker]

He's just a "good cop" assistant that has hit his Peter principle. the idea of this guy tactically outdueling anyone in an intense 7 game series is honestly a complete joke. and he obviously has no pull or sway on the officials by choice or for whatever reason which is half a HC job imo. he lets us get punked and never has anything to say about it

[Chapelchilla]

He probably is completely safe as he executed the owners preseason plan to miss the playoffs, keep the pick and acquire more draft capital. With the health center breaking ground this week they are proceeding with their step by step process. Hopefully we get a top (the) pick and move to the learn to win regularly phase next year.