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Consider kemba either leaving or staying.

My plan if he stays. Umm, well i guess just keep doing what we're doing. kind of stuck until some contracts expire.

If he does.

Sign some half-way decent replacement on a 1 year deal, try to trade our non-expiring for draft picks. use expiring contracts to help facilitate trades. maybe keep lamb instead? basically, tank our tits off and set ourselves up to have as much cap space as possible.

I do not support intentional tanking. Not for this organization anyway.

Even if we tried tanking I'm sure we would screw it up somehow. Has a team tried harder to win the last couple of years and had less to show for it than this one?

make the playoffs? fail
develop young players? fail
shed salary? fail
tank for good lotto odds? fail
move players for future assets? fail
get kemba help? fail

this season was a complete and utter failure across the board, outside of the all-star game.

I have no idea what we should do. I wish Mitch luck.

https://youtu.be/ysrioDG8S1s?t=939
^time stamped

Liver_Pooty wrote:I have no idea what we should do. I wish Mitch luck.

locking MJ in a basement from June - July would be a good start.

mitch has experience with bad owners in LA, so hopefully that and his resume is enough to make MJ leave him alone.

From the outside looking in, the Hornets needs to pick a direction and go all in. If Kemba leaves, then he's made the decision for you. There's probably no salvaging the next two seasons.

If Kemba is willing to stay, and the Hornets are willing to max him, then they shouldn't be afraid to trade picks and prospects to get more talent around him. You need to treat your window as the length of his next deal and live with the results.

But this third way of holding onto B-list prospects and picks, while burning through the contracts on your books, is wasting Kemba's prime. Between the number of teams with cap space, and the types of players who will be available, the summer of 2020 will be a players' market and the chances of overpaying middling players again are pretty high. The next opportunity to add a meaningful free agent is probably the summer the of 2021. Kemba will be 31 when that seasons starts.

jbk1234 wrote:From the outside looking in, the Hornets needs to pick a direction and go all in. If Kemba leaves, then he's made the decision for you. There's probably no salvaging the next two seasons.

If Kemba is willing to stay, and the Hornets are willing to max him, then they shouldn't be afraid to trade picks and prospects to get more talent around him. You need to treat your window as the length of his next deal and live with the results.

But this third way of holding onto B-list prospects and picks, while burning through the contracts on your books, is wasting Kemba's prime. Between the number of teams with cap space, and the types of players who will be available, the summer of 2020 will be a players' market and the chances of overpaying middling players again are pretty high. The next opportunity to add a meaningful free agent is probably the summer the of 2021. Kemba will be 31 when that seasons starts.

what you will get from the hornets is a mix of both that will change from day to day and the selection of flawed prospects with some name recognition but dont fit in anyway shape or form on the current roster.

I'm calling it now, if Kemba stays we're trading for Kevin Love

For the record, I don't really care for Kevin Love. But with Lamb likely leaving and the lack of another scoring option combined with the lack of good trade assets to get something better, it would be very on brand for us to overpay for Kevin Love

Offseason, go in with 8th or better pick. Add that person with Kemba. Trade Marv & Nic for anybody.

I'm not interested in internet guesswork by people who hear stuff. Nobody, and I mean nobody, knows what Kemba will do this offseason except Kemba and he's publicly affectionate for Charlotte. Personally, I think he likes the small market. If the Hornets ante up, I say he stays and begins recruiting.

Now, the rest of the roster is a problem. Lamb is a goner. Kaminski could surprise and stay in Charlotte if the front office makes some promises. And we know how good NBA promises are. But that would allow Zeller to be traded for a wing or a mid-round draft pick. The Kaminski-Zeller move isn't what you'd call a positive, but it creates structural efficiency while potentially adding young, cheap talent.

I just don't know what you do with Batum. He's like the grad student who lives at home in the basement and smokes dope on weekends. Charlotte simply can't cut bait here. It would cost too much to trade that contract or stretch it. He might be okay as a 6th man if given the right framework, but have we seen the Hornets be that creative? I say the club swallows hard and keeps the cupboard stocked with Doritos. And just say NO to a Batum/Love swap. That's John Wall terrible.

I suspect the bow of the boat will turn toward the younger talent next season: Monk, Bacon, Bridges, Graham. I don't see the draft pick adding much, unless Kupchak is able to translate the pick to a right-fit veteran that allows Charlotte to offload a contract (Biz? Williams?). More likely the pick spends his nights in Greensboro.

Trading is a tough gig for the Hornets due to the extreme ugliness of the contract merchandise. But, as we've seen these past couple of years, no contract is untradeable. Well, maybe John Wall. Best case for Charlotte is to find a partner and take on some salary. Now, this is where it gets really sticky. For this to work, Jordan will have to go into the luxury tax. I think he makes that decision by resigning Kemba. If all that works out, then a trade could happen. I predict the Hornets will make one significant trade before training camp. MKG and a draft pick will be part of it.

Free agency will be almost closed to the Hornets. I think that's a good thing. If the boat indeed turns toward youth, then free agency is not the best course. Expect low-level signings.

Overall, I don't think Charlotte will be super-aggressive or active in the offseason other than a full-court press to re-sign Kemba Walker. Get that done and it's a win. Everything else is secondary. If Kemba leaves, then this post is garbage. It might be garbage anyway, but at least it'll be legit.

Attempt to make some kind of trade to find a second star that's not Kevin **** Love if that fails let Kemba walk and get started on this tank. I like the idea someone suggested of signing Mudiay, I would look at a lot of project players and get to work on this team. I believe we have a good young core to build around already, no proven stars but some decent players and Monk who has super high potential still.

Sell team to an owner who makes the majority of their money from some other business venture. Ideally the team is a hobby to them, they go out and find people they trust to make decisions (and they let them make them), total hands off approach. Term of the sale they must keep the team in Charlotte for at least 10 years..

Players we should target = buy low/hope for growth if Kemba leaves and we sell off veterans

Markelle Fultz (longshot because ORL traded a first for him recently. Should have been us)
Kyle Kuzma/Lonzo Ball (Kuzma can grow into a better Tobes Harris with more time)
Josh Jackson
Mo Bamba/Jonathan Issac
DSJ/Frank Ntilikina (if NYK lands two big fish and want to S&T for Kemba or just trade for role players to fit around them)
Furkan Korkmaz
Kris Dunn
Keeping Frank Kaminsky
Hezonja

Kemba re-signed to MAX
Turn Batum’s money into DeRozan using Miles Bridges
Trade Monk/Biyombo/‘20 Lotto Protected 1st for Danilo Gallinari

C-Cody Zeller
PF-Danilo Gallinari
SF-Michael Kidd-Gilchrist
SG-DeMar DeRozan
PG-Kemba Walker

NYG wrote:Kemba re-signed to MAX
Turn Batum’s money into DeRozan using Miles Bridges
Trade Monk/Biyombo/‘20 Lotto Protected 1st for Danilo Gallinari

C-Cody Zeller
PF-Danilo Gallinari
SF-Michael Kidd-Gilchrist
SG-DeMar DeRozan
PG-Kemba Walker

What the absolute ****

When you see the names of the free agents in 2020 and the ones in 2019, Hornets better don't mess up. Kupchak & co still have a chance to bounce back from that 2016 failure as long as they use their expiring wisely (unlike what happened with Howard's).

FA 2020

Plenty of money & cap space will be spent on Irving/Durant/Kahwi/Butler/Porzingis & co.