Hornets Lineup Talk

[JMAC3]

Houston is likely going to cut either Jeremiah Robinson Earl or Victor Oladipo. Either one would be a nice pickup for us.

JRE just got cut, would be a nice pickup in the front court to replace Kai

[MPM]

Houston is likely going to cut either Jeremiah Robinson Earl or Victor Oladipo. Either one would be a nice pickup for us.

JRE just got cut, would be a nice pickup in the front court to replace Kai

Fully down with this. JRE would be a good get as a depth big.

[fatlever]

I would say our starters compared to the rest of the league.

PG- LaMelo is a top 10 point guard.
SG- Rozier is a bottom 5 starter at his position.
SF Gordon is a top 20ish starter at his position.
PF Miles is around 15th best PF
C- Mark is a top 20ish center

Where are starters drop the ball, we actually have one of the better short benches in the league if healthy.
Pj is a top 5 forward off the bench
Miller is a top 10 wing bench player
Richards is a top 10 backup center

agree with the starters
hard to have a top short bench w/out at least 1 legit back-up point guard. we have the worst back up point guard situation in the league.
we have among the worst defensive guard benches, and among worst 3pt shooting benches.
and all this is assuming Miles plays after his 10 game suspension (for the record, I assume he will.
A healthy Cody (unlikely anytime soon, certainly would help)
I'm not quite ready to call Miller a top 10 wing bench guy, yet. I need to see him in real game action for a solid stretch of games, first. maybe by Jan he gets there? lot of random vets will eat his lunch for a bit. even high profile rookies typically suck, even when their stats are decent.

[JDR720]

[SWedd523]

That hair is not a good look for Mark. Bring the fro back big fella

[luciano-davidwesley]

I would say our starters compared to the rest of the league.

PG- LaMelo is a top 10 point guard.
SG- Rozier is a bottom 5 starter at his position.
SF Gordon is a top 20ish starter at his position.
PF Miles is around 15th best PF
C- Mark is a top 20ish center

Where are starters drop the ball, we actually have one of the better short benches in the league if healthy.
Pj is a top 5 forward off the bench
Miller is a top 10 wing bench player
Richards is a top 10 backup center

According to the casuals and the national media LaMelo is the 15-16th best PG in the NBA.

[luciano-davidwesley]

we have among the worst defensive guard benches, and among worst 3pt shooting benches.

So Cody Martin, PJ Washington, JT Thor and Brandon Miller are amongst the worst 3pt shooting benches. Please explain how you came to this conclusion? Maledon and Richards are the only poor shooters for their position amongst the main bench rotation players.

Though I will admit the Thorner 3 still has a slight question mark. PJ Washington and Brandon Miller are objectively excellent 3 point shooters for their positions.

[JDR720]

Our bench overall has poor shooting, but the real issue is nobody on the bench is a good playmaker or can make their own offense either.

Bench players (assuming Miles is back eventually and starts)

Bailey - rookie 2nd rounder, can't expect much if anything.
Leaky Black - can't expect anything.
Bouknight - Nope.
Theo - Average.
Cody - Not a playmaker, can't make his own shot.
Bryce - More of a scorer, but probably not efficient.
Miler - Rookie, can't make his own offense yet or create for others.
Frank - Bad on offense in general.
Nick - Can score in the paint, but not a playmaker or shot creator.
Nick Jr. - Can maybe do both, but not efficiently. Also a rookie.
Sumner - Rookie
JT: Nope.
PJ: Doesn't' do either well.

Most of our bench are either rookies or Swarm players.

If Cliff had some sense he's put Rozier or Gordon on the bench, not because the starters don't need them, that the bench needs them more.

If you substitute Miles for PJ, it doesn't get much better. Miles is, I'd say, above average at both but that's a borderline clogged toilet offense bench unit.

[Bassman]

Our bench depth is the stuff of expansion drafts. Outside of Miller (a rookie who will require lots of work to get good), PJ and a solid but average Richards, we suck. Horrible PG situation, lots of rookies, young league guys who can’t produce consistently (looking at Thor and Theo) and no deep bench bigs. Lastly, that collective group minus PJ and Richards probably shoots a FG percentage of 30%.

Once again, THIS FRONT OFFICE DOES NOTHING TO HELP US GET BETTER ! No dealing, no cuts of marginal players to grab much better players released today. Stupid Clifford the Dog keeps his baby Frankie, so he can return in 6 weeks to royally £¥€K up again and again.

[fatlever]

we have among the worst defensive guard benches, and among worst 3pt shooting benches.

So Cody Martin, PJ Washington, JT Thor and Brandon Miller are amongst the worst 3pt shooting benches. Please explain how you came to this conclusion? Maledon and Richards are the only poor shooters for their position amongst the main bench rotation players.

Though I will admit the Thorner 3 still has a slight question mark. PJ Washington and Brandon Miller are objectively excellent 3 point shooters for their positions.

Say what? Are we talking about the same players?

- PJ Washington, a career 36% three-point shooter which is bang-on league average

- Brandon Miller the rookie adjusting to a three-point line who's been in a 9 month slump since February of last year who shot 30% from three in summer league and 5% from 3 in preseason

- Cody Martin who hasn't played in a year and had one good month of hot three-point shooting 2 years ago before he came back to reality to the low 30s for the rest of the season

- and Thor who has showed some promise from hitting Corner threes in preseason but is yet to replicate that over any consistent Span in his career yet

- any point guard we play from our bench is going to be completely non-existent three-point shooter and obviously Nick Richards isn't shooting threes. That's 40% of our lineup which is a complete non-factor and at best the other three positions are League average.

- PJ is the only player on the bench who has shown any type of consistent ability to make threes at an NBA level and that's at 36%. The rest are complete unknowns at this point.

I feel pretty confident in saying that we have one of the absolute worst three-point shooting benches in the league.

[luciano-davidwesley]

Say what? Are we talking about the same players?

- PJ Washington, a career 36% three-point shooter which is bang-on league average

Clearly better than the average bench rotation shooter then, he also hits 36% at a fairly high volume. The 36% league average is bumped up by starters and I don't see Durant, Dame, Trae or Curry coming off the bench.

- Brandon Miller the rookie adjusting to a three-point line who's been in a 9 month slump since February of last year who shot 30% from three in summer league and 5% from 3 in preseason
Oh no he's been cold on a very small sample in preseason. Keep in mind its been the offseason so to call it a 9 month slump is a bit silly. He's clearly forgotten how to shoot despite that being his best skill

- Cody Martin who hasn't played in a year and had one good month of hot three-point shooting 2 years ago before he came back to reality to the low 30s for the rest of the season
He had a hot year of shooting in 2021/22 hitting 38.4%. Not to say he'll definitely be there again but to call it a hot month is being intentionally obtuse.

- and Thor who has showed some promise from hitting Corner threes in preseason but is yet to replicate that over any consistent Span in his career yet Agreed but he has just turned 21 and looks to have improved a lot in this aspect of his game.

- any point guard we play from our bench is going to be completely non-existent three-point shooter and obviously Nick Richards isn't shooting threes. That's 40% of our lineup which is a complete non-factor and at best the other three positions are League average. Pretty sure I mentioned Maledon and Richards aren't great shooters but you are definitely talking down the others more than is probably fair. Maledon is still a better shooter than Dennis Smith Jr who everyone wanted to keep and I think he can at least make wide open ones at an OK clip if defenses dare him to shoot.

- PJ is the only player on the bench who has shown any type of consistent ability to make threes at an NBA level and that's at 36%. The rest are complete unknowns at this point.
Brandon Miller hit plenty of deep threes in college so no. That's not true. He'll be fine

I feel pretty confident in saying that we have one of the absolute worst three-point shooting benches in the league.

You can criticise the playmaking and other areas of the bench (scoring, though I think Miller shooting over guys at 6'9 will help out there) but the shooting is fine. I do like the idea of Hayward being the glue guy for the second unit.

Quite OK with having a non shooting center off the bench, that's pretty standard for a 5 to not be lights out.

Someone needs to bring some beer and steak to the pity party over here.

[SWedd523]

Disagree wholeheartedly on shooting. Outside of Melo there isn't a single guy on the roster who you think is going to make threes at any volume or be someone opponents have to gameplan for.

Nobody fears PJ, Miles, Miller, nor Gordo.

Until they get actual threats, they're going to continue to be severely limited in half court sets and easy to defend against

[Snidely FC]

Sumner - Rookie

Sumner is not a rookie, drafted in 2017, age 27
missed 20-21 season with torn Achilles
With Ntilikina and Martin out expect him to play more than you wish

[Braggins]

That hair is not a good look for Mark. Bring the fro back big fella

I seriously didn't realize that was Mark the first couple times I looked at that... I saw the hair and my mind immediately assumed it was some 27 year old GLeague player whose never played a single NBA game and was somehow going to end up in the rotation because of Clifford.

[Braggins]

I think PJ is a little better at 3pt shooting than his % would indicate because I think he would be more efficient from 3pt playing in a functional offense that more consistently created good shots for role players like him.

In his 2nd/3rd seasons playing under Borrego he shot 37.6% on about 5 attempts per game. I also think he is going to be the starter though in the decently likely event that Miles doesn't play for the team again.

The bench kind of looks like its going to suck at everything imo.

Heres what I would do with the team they are probably going to be playing with most of the season.

(starters/bench/deep bench)

S: LaMelo ~ Rozier ~ Miller ~ PJ ~ Mark
B: Maledon ~ McGowens ~ Hayward ~ Thor ~ Nick

If Martin ever gets healthy, which I don't really expect at this point, I think he should start over Rozier.

[JDR720]

Sumner - Rookie

Sumner is not a rookie, drafted in 2017, age 27
missed 20-21 season with torn Achilles
With Ntilikina and Martin out expect him to play more than you wish

Looking at his stats, before the ACL he averaged 7/2/1 on 52/40/80 in about 17mpg.

Last season with Brooklyn he averaged 7/1/1 on 46/36/90 in about 15mpg.

He may not be that bad, at least he's efficient. If he can defend, may be a decent depth option.

[JMAC3]

Disagree wholeheartedly on shooting. Outside of Melo there isn't a single guy on the roster who you think is going to make threes at any volume or be someone opponents have to gameplan for.

Nobody fears PJ, Miles, Miller, nor Gordo.

Until they get actual threats, they're going to continue to be severely limited in half court sets and easy to defend against

Yeah I disagree..

1. You left out Terry. https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/most-threes-made-last-3-years 6 guys in the entire league have made more 3s than he has over the last 3 years.
2. PJ made 2 3s per game last year, that is top 10 in the league for PFs.
3. Miller, he had like 2 open threes in the preseason, teams were hugging him on the line for a reason. 1 player in the 6 main basketball conf (acc, big ten, pac 10, big 12, sec and big east) made more threes than him per game last year.

Gordon and Miles aren't amazing, but teams also aren't leaving them open daring them to shoot.

[fatlever]

Part of this issue with our horrendous three-point shooting last season could be all down to Clifford's clogged toilet offense. Or simply due to the fact that we had so many injuries last year putting players in bad positions offensively. It's hard to say heading into the season which it is. You mentioned Terry Rozier, yeah he took 8 3s a game last year and made 33%. But the three years prior under borrego, he was closer to 38%. What should we expect from Terry this season?

The three-point shooting was so bad from everyone last year across the board, I'm at the point that seeing is believing. I need to see these guys make threes at a decent percentage. I don't want to hear what people did in college or what they did two to three years ago under a different coach and a different system. If our three-point shooting looks anything close to what it was last year we're going to be bad.

I suspect when melo is in the game the three-point shooting will be better because at least there'll be some spacing and a Creator on the floor. But when he's off the floor I just don't see where the spacing is going to come from. Why would you leave any shooter when Melo is off the floor? No one else can create offense for themselves or anyone else. No one else can beat their man off the dribble and get a defense to collapse or rotate. And no one else will command a double team.



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[LofJ]

Bridges can move the opposing teams defense, put pressure on the rim, and command a double team. It's a shame he's such an idiot because this team as it's currently constructed really needs him.

[JMAC3]

Well Ish will start the year as the main backup pg, he has had a pretty harsh fall off the last few years.

Hoping he can be a steady locker room guy until Frank gets back or NSj proves he is ready for real NBA minutes.