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Now that we have the Hornets “core” playing together for more than 10 minutes at a time, let’s opine on how they are doing, how well do they fit, and is this a core that can deliver next level performance.

My opinion is strictly a starting point for discussion, as many of you see far more games than I do. I will list each player, give him a CORE YES OR NO, on how well he fits our core for the future, and a CURRENT GRADE, which is that player’s performance grade year to date. Please submit your own grades and analysis.

PLAYER CORE CURRENT COMMENTS

BALL YES / B “Melo is ringing all star bells. His flashy scoring and play is improved. Vital to the core. Still needs shot discipline; must prove he is a prime ball distributor when needed. Best future could be as off guard paired with a pure point.”

MILLER YES / C+ “Miller shows his skills, has great potential, but his shooting needs consistency. Must improve his handle to attack the basket. Must continue to gain strength. How well does he play with Melo? TBD.”

WILLIAMS YES / C “Mark’s return is still getting ramped higher, but shows promise recently. Still must get fully healthy and stronger to assert himself defensively. Clearly part of the core as our primary center.”

BRIDGES NO / C “Miles wasn’t ready to rock at the start of the season, and has been playing catch up since. Reasonably productive but less consistent than last year. Motivation? Blends with this core at times, but need an upgrade.”

GREEN NO / D “Major disappointment. Was supposed to bring top level defense, glue guy qualities and a good shot. While his 3 % isn’t bad, he rarely takes enough shots to make any difference. Gets killed on ball screens. He brings effort, but that’s something we can get from NSJ.”

its not much of a core. LaMelo could turn into a guy thats a 3rd option on a contender team if he matures, big if.

Miller and Williams could develop into guys that are average starters on typical contenders, the good role player guys
We need 2 players that are better than LaMelo if we want to make real noise with this team. We could get 1 in this draft. Then we have some assets to either trade for another.

I have no false notions that a team "led" by LaMelo and Brandon is gonna do anything but fight for play-ins. we need at least two massive talent infusions preferably one that is defensively focused and one offensively.

KembaWalker wrote:its not much of a core. LaMelo could turn into a guy thats a 3rd option on a contender team if he matures, big if.

Miller and Williams could develop into guys that are average starters on typical contenders, the good role player guys
We need 2 players that are better than LaMelo if we want to make real noise with this team. We could get 1 in this draft. Then we have some assets to either trade for another.

I have no false notions that a team "lead" by LaMelo and Brandon is gonna do anything but fight for play-ins. we need at least two massive talent infusions preferably one that is defensively focused and one offensively.

Good luck with that lol

I like our core. Easily our best collection of young players since the return in 04. Not saying much but it is something.

Big issue is our role players are pretty crappy. Green is just a cardio guy for the most part. Cody has taken a step back. Richards is a matador on D. Grant was our glue and things really feel apart when he went down.

I think this core can work and find success. We are still missing a lot of pieces and need to find an offensive system that isn't 3pt spam since we don't have the personnel for that.

I compare us to Houston before they added Udoka and vets. Prior to that one of the players (don't remember if active or former) commented on how selfish the Rockets played. Jalen Green was hogging the ball at the time. I think KPJ was his backcourt mate.

There was no structure with rookie coach Stephen Silas.

JMAC3 wrote:

KembaWalker wrote:its not much of a core. LaMelo could turn into a guy thats a 3rd option on a contender team if he matures, big if.

Miller and Williams could develop into guys that are average starters on typical contenders, the good role player guys
We need 2 players that are better than LaMelo if we want to make real noise with this team. We could get 1 in this draft. Then we have some assets to either trade for another.

I have no false notions that a team "lead" by LaMelo and Brandon is gonna do anything but fight for play-ins. we need at least two massive talent infusions preferably one that is defensively focused and one offensively.

Good luck with that lol

yeah, its pretty unlikely that this team becomes a real contender any time soon. near 0%. but thats what it would take to get there

KembaWalker wrote:

JMAC3 wrote:

KembaWalker wrote:its not much of a core. LaMelo could turn into a guy thats a 3rd option on a contender team if he matures, big if.

Miller and Williams could develop into guys that are average starters on typical contenders, the good role player guys
We need 2 players that are better than LaMelo if we want to make real noise with this team. We could get 1 in this draft. Then we have some assets to either trade for another.

I have no false notions that a team "lead" by LaMelo and Brandon is gonna do anything but fight for play-ins. we need at least two massive talent infusions preferably one that is defensively focused and one offensively.

Good luck with that lol

yeah, its pretty unlikely that this team becomes a real contender any time soon. near 0%. but thats what it would take to get there

This just isn't how teams become playoff contenders though.
Our best bet is that #2 pick, averaging 21 ppg in year 2 is better than "an average starter" or whatever bs cap that is.
Our 23 year old best player continues to get better, and isn't capped at some invisible barrier of being a 3rd option.
Mark is 23 and hasn't even played 80 games, probably not done getting better.

4 years ago people would have laughed you out of the room if you said SGA was an MVP level player.
Heading into the year people thought Houston shouldn't pay Sengun and Green max contract money.
Cleveland looks like the best team in basketball, people said they should blow the team up and trade away Mitchell 6 months ago.
- Nobody thought Garland was the 2nd option on a contender this summer

The NBA is ever evolving, players are always getting better. Probably not the best bets as an organization to plan on guys that are 22 and 23 yrs old not improving.

JMAC3 wrote:

KembaWalker wrote:

JMAC3 wrote:
Good luck with that lol

yeah, its pretty unlikely that this team becomes a real contender any time soon. near 0%. but thats what it would take to get there

This just isn't how teams become playoff contenders though.
Our best bet is that #2 pick, averaging 21 ppg in year 2 is better than "an average starter" or whatever bs cap that is.
Our 23 year old best player continues to get better, and isn't capped at some invisible barrier of being a 3rd option.
Mark is 23 and hasn't even played 80 games, probably not done getting better.

3 years ago people would have laughed you out of the room if you said SGA was an MVP level player.
Heading into the year people thought Houston shouldn't pay Sengun and Green max contract money.
Cleveland looks like the best team in basketball, people said they should blow the team up and trade away Mitchell 6 months ago.
- Nobody thought Garland was the 2nd option on a contender this summer

The NBA is ever evolving, players are always getting better. Probably not the best bets as an organization to plan on guys that are 22 and 23 yrs old not improving.

capping LaMelo as 3rd best player isn't selling him short with an invisible barrier, he needs to improve a lot to even get there. asking for more than that is even more unlikely. the PPG is irrelevant, he's a 1 way player and his PPG is gotten in truly disgusting fashion.

same with Brandon as far as being a starter level player on a real contender like Cleveland, Boston, OKC is now (Houston is not even close to a real contender). on one of those teams with his inefficient scoring hes like a 12ppg player that does nothing else but low tier scoring. a solid bench weapon. he needs to get a LOT better

These guys are scoring points, terribly and barely doing anything else. big deal. i dont care. they have no idea how to play real basketball

sure it would be nice if LaMelo became an actual efficient 30ppg player that was also capable of playing NBA playoff level defense. that would make him an actual star player. thats most likely not going to happen. thats why we need talent infusions.

The Hornets will start getting the best versions from these players, when they start giving their best versions to the team in terms of trying to win. If you want LaMelo, Miller and Mark to win games, you first have to try and win games as an organization.

That means not stockpiling first round picks, not trading role players for 2nd round picks, not trading cap space for 2nd round picks. Investing money into the roster, coaching staff.

LaMelo, Miller and Mark are not going to just wake up one morning and having winning habits that make players winning players. We have to surround them with guys that will help them achieve winning, the amount of growth we would see from these guys if we made the playoffs the next few years would be massive.

Shocker Jalen Williams has improved a lot when every single night his team is doing everything possible to win. Same with Ant. Same with Haliburton.

LaMelo would be a totally different player if he were in a winning organization. If you want him to have better shot selection maybe don't put him on an 8 win team that is going nowhere. Telling players to have winning habits when everything around them is losing habits is a broken environment.

This is why I am preaching we should be all in vs whatever we are doing now. The longer we sit around and don't care about winning the less chance that these guys are going to have winning DNA as their best versions.

I just have zero faith that Coach Lee is going to ever figure out a system that develops them properly. Guy has been the biggest dud of all our offseason acquisitions.

I think this franchise let two Separate incidents really hinder their decision making over the past few years. The first clearly is the miles incident. You could argue that the franchise mishandled that situation and allowed it to Negatively impact three straight off seasons. The second has to be the kai Jones trade, Which not only tied up a future draft picked, made it harder to make trades involving our future draft picks, but also allowed the franchise to get into a mindset of feeling that we needed to tank this year in order to not lose that pick. I think that Kai Jones trade was far worse than most people understand when you look at the entire impact of the trade. Not just talking about the fact that he was a complete bust but the impact it had on us for several seasons and how it allowed the franchise to have a loser mentality going into this season while also possibly preventing the team from making a big win now move.

We do not know what the core guys best is yet.

First, they are young.
Second, they have barely played together due to injuries. They do not know how to maximize each others strong points and hide the weakness.
Third, we do not have the right guys around them due to injuries, a new coach/system and legacy decision making from the previous regime.

The losing is ok culture has to change too. After this season. No more boo boo's and half efforts. Work work work and get tough.

Obviously we need another a high end talent. Hopefully through the draft this year. Then get the right guys around the core that fit into the system we are trying to implement. Chose wisely with an upper tier trade target too.

Hopefully we have a pretty good team by this time next year and are on the road to being great after that season.

Fingers crossed.

EmpireFalls wrote:I just have zero faith that Coach Lee is going to ever figure out a system that develops them properly. Guy has been the biggest dud of all our offseason acquisitions.

Salaün and Josh Green are right up there.

Which addition did Peterson get right?

Just stick to the game plan. It's not the FO's fault Grant and Mann got hurt and Micic's slumping, Josh and Salaun just need to keep on working and improving like any young player. If the FO does manage to add a top 3 pick in the draft and then Lonzo this offseason, that's probably when they cash in those stockpiled picks and contracts and make a move for a legit difference maker like an Adebayo or Booker when their teams start shopping them.

The last thing we need is another MJ-era knee-jerk quick-fix overreaction trade to get into the play-in or whatever. Whatever happens stay away from a headcase like Butler, if Thibs and Pat Riley himself can't keep that guy happy then what chance does our young FO have? Just stick to the game plan.

MasterIchiro wrote:

EmpireFalls wrote:I just have zero faith that Coach Lee is going to ever figure out a system that develops them properly. Guy has been the biggest dud of all our offseason acquisitions.

Salaün and Josh Green are right up there.

Which addition did Peterson get right?

Diabate only

EmpireFalls wrote:

MasterIchiro wrote:

EmpireFalls wrote:I just have zero faith that Coach Lee is going to ever figure out a system that develops them properly. Guy has been the biggest dud of all our offseason acquisitions.

Salaün and Josh Green are right up there.

Which addition did Peterson get right?

Diabate only

Yeah, 1 year of work, and he produces a C3 with C2 potential.

Talk about quicksand. We lost 1 year and spun our wheels and already fans want to dump Josh Green on the trade board, Salaün too, and want Lee fired.

The early returns are early, but they're so bad.

Seems like as good a place as any to post this: