RealGM

Starting my annual tradition of starting a thread for the 1st 10 games in hopes that it'll actually be interesting to do for more than 3 or 4 threads. Use this thread to discuss trends, stats, general multi-game observations over the first 10 games, as well as to make predictions for our record over those games.

Game #1 - Home vs. Brooklyn, Wed. 10/22 W 136-117
Game #2 - Away @ Philadelphia, Sat. 10/25 L 121-125
Game #3 - Away @ Washington, Sun. 10/26 W 139-113
Game #4 - Away @ Miami, Tues. 10/28
Game #5 - Home vs. Orlando, Thurs. 10/30
Game #6 - Home vs. Minnesota, Sat. 11/1
Game #7 - Home vs. Utah, Sun. 11/2
Game #8 - Away @ New Orleans, Tues. 11/4
Game #9 - Away @ Miami, Fri. 11/7
Game #10 - Home vs. Lakers, Mon. 11/10

As a fan, I'm excited to watch 8 games in 15 days, but that's a pretty full slate and really hope we keep things under control and pick up Ws in winnable games so things don't get off the rails.

I'm predicting we go 6-4, with wins over BRK, WAS, MIA 2X, Utah, and NOP.

4-6

If this team plays to its potential I'm seeing 3 easy wins (Utah, Washington, and BRK), and a couple other possible wins. could see anywhere from 3-7 to 6-4.

I'll say 4 Ws vs BRK, NOLA, UTA, MIA. We blow a 5th one by losing to Washington, a team we absolutely should beat, but just don't.

Bold Prediction: Starts off 3-0

Then we'll lose 3 in a row.

Then win 2 more.

Then lose 2 more.

5-5 record.

5-5
Win the opener.
Upset the Lakers.
Lose one we should win.
Melo leads scoring, 3's and assists
Diabate leads in RBs
Kalk in blocks
Sexton balls out as a 6th man
Kon looks legit

3-7. Our defense will be ripped apart this season due to our awful bigs and forwards.

EmpireFalls wrote:3-7. Our defense will be ripped apart this season due to our awful bigs and forwards.

Miller and Bridges are not awful by any stretch of the imagination

5-5

Yes the center rotation has been talked to death but still very excited about the depth of this team. I think their new competitive attitude will catch a few teams sleeping to begin the season.

Chapelchilla wrote:

EmpireFalls wrote:3-7. Our defense will be ripped apart this season due to our awful bigs and forwards.

Miller and Bridges are not awful by any stretch of the imagination

Miller is a wing, who cannot guard up whatsoever. Have you seen him in the post against the strong guys it’s not going to work. He could get knocked over by a gust of wind

Bridges is 6’6” and not capable of being a secondary rim protector or a great rebounder/inside presence for a 4. He’s very athletic and actually can get some good possessions in but as a 4 he’s below average in size and that will hurt us badly. He’s also very inefficient offensively.

As for the 5 rotation… I am hopeful about Kalk but in real NBA games vs real men he’s gonna get dunked on and exposed badly vs shooting bigs or quick guards on the perimeter. Plumlee is not an NBA player and in fact will likely have one of the worst plus-minus and advanced stat profiles in the entire NBA once again this season. He is completely awful at every facet of the sport.

Salaun makes Bridges look like LeBron and makes Plumlee look like Wilt Chamberlain. If he receives significant rotation minutes the opponents will be laughing at us. Simply put he is the worst player I’ve ever seen don a Hornets uniform and that’s unlikely to change.

Now for the slight positives:
Diabate is fine as an energy big. But again, he carries very little roll threat and will be the worse center vs about 25 of the other 30 teams. If Diabate is the answer, the question is “how do we win 27 games?”

I was intrigued when I saw those first three game, all winnable on paper. In theory we should be able to get the season off to a decent start or at least not get blasted out of the building right away as we're figuring out rotations.

I'm going to guess we start 4-6.

Couple days off and then PHI on the road Saturday, will be an interesting matchup.

Not sure what to make of them barely eeking a win against BOS. Big fan of Embiid being on a minutes restriction though.

I know BRK doesn't have great bigs and a single game sample size is completely meaningless, but nonetheless encouraging to see us rebound so well last night. We had a 40% ORB% which is kinda nuts and a 75% DRB%, both of which would've been best in the league last year.

Hornet Mania wrote:I was intrigued when I saw those first three game, all winnable on paper. In theory we should be able to get the season off to a decent start or at least not get blasted out of the building right away as we're figuring out rotations.

I'm going to guess we start 4-6.

Lee was pretty creative with rotations last night and a lot of dudes got meaningful PT. Balanced scoring too.

yosemiteben wrote:Big fan of Embiid being on a minutes restriction though.

Maybe I should take that back.

Embiid is cooked. It seems like he used up the last of that cartilage chasing the MVP.

Obviously we've been playing not great competition our first several games, but damn if those team stats aren't impressive:

Ant will be out when we play the wolves

From Cleaning the Glass, LaMelo's stats are **** nuts and we need him more than ever (not my favorite, wish we were less reliant on him). When he's on the floor we're +20.5 points per 100 possessions on offense and -20.9 on defense. That defensive number is 6th best in the league.

On/off numbers for melo Have been absurd during the first three games. It's concerning that we still completely fall apart as a team when he's off the floor, even with Sexton playing so well.