Hornets Lineup Talk

[JDR720]

Hornets New Years Resolutions

- Get a quality coach who isn't a retread (unless it's Bud). Ideally either a hardass who will hold players accountable, or a young up and coming coach who they can relate to so maybe they'll listen to him.
- Get a new GM, also someone who isn't a retread (unless it's Bob Myers). Either of the candidates in the Fire Mitch thread would be fine.
- Trade Gordon for anything. Letting him go for nothing is stupid. He isn't part of the core, he is expiring and he keeps getting hurt. Even a couple 2nd's would be good value.
- Trade Terry if we get a good offer. He should have slightly positive value.
- If we aren't confident on keeping Miles, trade him for something. No idea what his value is, but he is a hired gun for the playoffs at the least.
- Ideally, acquire some half decent young-ish vets who play defense and have good intangibles. Especially a backup PG.

[Braggins]

I basically hate almost everything about this franchise from top to bottom, minus a few players and the uniforms and court.
Gut it all. Burn it to the ground. Clean out the entire org.
Remove the rot that has infested every aspect of the franchise.

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They do have my all-time favorite broadcast crew.

[SWedd523]

I basically hate almost everything about this franchise from top to bottom, minus a few players and the uniforms and court.
Gut it all. Burn it to the ground. Clean out the entire org.
Remove the rot that has infested every aspect of the franchise.

Sent from my SM-G973U using RealGM mobile app

They do have my all-time favorite broadcast crew.

From a marketing standpoint the Hornets should be a gold mine

Awesome colors, logo, jerseys, court, and so on.

Ashley and those two dudes as a top tier broadcast team

Melo as one of the young, flashy social media stars all the young kids love

GOAT as owner

etc etc etc. Tailor made situation for a money printing machine.

Yet the team is trash so nobody comes to games. MJ has hidden away from public view as a failure. Two ancient dinosaurs leading the team into oblivion, players clearly do not GAF, and the death throes grow in magnitude every season

[Braggins]

I basically hate almost everything about this franchise from top to bottom, minus a few players and the uniforms and court.
Gut it all. Burn it to the ground. Clean out the entire org.
Remove the rot that has infested every aspect of the franchise.

Sent from my SM-G973U using RealGM mobile app

They do have my all-time favorite broadcast crew.

From a marketing standpoint the Hornets should be a gold mine

Awesome colors, logo, jerseys, court, and so on.

Ashley and those two dudes as a top tier broadcast team

Melo as one of the young, flashy social media stars all the young kids love

GOAT as owner

etc etc etc. Tailor made situation for a money printing machine.

Yet the team is trash so nobody comes to games. MJ has hidden away from public view as a failure. Two ancient dinosaurs leading the team into oblivion, players clearly do not GAF, and the death throes grow in magnitude every season

[fatlever]

I basically hate almost everything about this franchise from top to bottom, minus a few players and the uniforms and court.
Gut it all. Burn it to the ground. Clean out the entire org.
Remove the rot that has infested every aspect of the franchise.

Sent from my SM-G973U using RealGM mobile app

They do have my all-time favorite broadcast crew.

yeah, but that's Bally. Not really Hornets employees... otherwise yes, please keep Ashley and Eric. I also like the bald guy who does halftime with Ash. He's not afraid to criticize, unlike Eric and Dell. We've missed that on broadcasts since Steph left.

[JDR720]

The cheerleaders and Hugo are cool too.

[Braggins]

26th in ORtg
30th in DRtg
30th in Net (3 way tie for last)
17th in Pace
26th in 3pt makes per100
25th in 3pt attempts per100
21st in 3pt%
27th in rebounds per100
19th in assists per100
19th in TOs per100

Impressive all-around awfulness

[SWedd523]

only thing they're good at is commiting crime and getting hurt

[yosemiteben]

Read on Twitter

[Snidely FC]

Zach Lowe, still the only national writer who pays attention to the Hornets

The (non)-rotations in Charlotte:

The Charlotte Hornets are 3-18 in their past 21 games. They are 26th in offense and 29th in defense. Opponents have mauled them by 11.1 points per 100 possessions, a figure that would rank dead last most seasons. In this one, the Pistons are even worse. It's a testament to Detroit's historic awfulness that Charlotte could lose this much -- including 11 straight recently -- yet receive almost zero national scrutiny. Congratulations to everyone involved.

Injuries have spared Charlotte some wrath. LaMelo Ball hasn't played since late November and is questionable for Friday's game. Gordon Hayward, Cody Martin, and Mark Williams have missed a ton of games. Frank Ntilikina has not played. Even P.J. Washington is dinged up.

The defense has taken the worst hit. The Hornets do basically nothing well, and are out of sorts in all the ways you'd expect from such an inexperienced group. They miss rotations, botch switches and get lost in transition.

Their weakside rotations are a mess; the veterans are not blameless.

https://media.video-cdn.espn.com/gifs/mp4/HORNETS_D_NO._1_2gif.mp4

Miles Bridges starts that rotation a full second late; he's leaning the wrong way -- toward Andre Drummond -- when White's pass is halfway to Patrick Williams. Bridges has no chance to recover.

This is Bridges's rotation too:

https://media.video-cdn.espn.com/gifs/mp4/HORNETS_D_NO._2_2gif.mp4

This time it's Nick Smith Jr. -- the low man on the weak side -- who never arrives to help:

https://media.video-cdn.espn.com/gifs/mp4/HORNETS_D_NO._3_2gif.mp4

Only two teams yield more shots at the rim than the Hornets. Every game is a parade of marauding dunks. Charlotte allows an average number of 3s, but its opponents are shooting 40% from deep -- highest in the league. Some of that is luck, but a good amount is on the Hornets.

Charlotte should be in full trade mode. Keep Ball, Williams, Smith Jr. and Brandon Miller, test the market for everyone else and prepare for a transitional summer with another lottery pick and new ownership putting its stamp on the organization.

[JDR720]

Read on Twitter

1-14 with a -18 rating this past month. Historically bad.

[JMAC3]

Miles Bridges grading out as a 77% defender according to EPM.
Cody Martin 93% Defender EPM.

https://dunksandthrees.com/epm

Nathan Mensah grading out as worst player in NBA. -8 EPM
Theo is -7 EPM, 1% lol
Ish Smith 2% EPM
JT Thor 2% EPM
We have/had 4 of the 11 worst graded players in NBA

Scoot would of fit in perfect at 3% EPM

[HornetJail]

Poor Mensah lol, he's far from the only player in the league that doesn't belong, but he's in an absolute no-win situation playing with our busted 2nd unit. He's being asked to be a defensive anchor for 3-4 HORRIBLE players in basically all his minutes on the floor.

[Benjamin Linus]

Why do we take so many long twos? We're 11th in the league in % of fga from 16 feet to the 3pt line, yet we're last in the league in fg% from that range. We're actually one of the few teams that shoot a lower % from long twos than we do from three.

The last year under Borrego we were 25th in the league in % of long two shots taken. We actually didn't take much midrange shots in general under Borrego. Just feels like one of the many ways the league has passed Clifford by

[fatlever]

Miller and Hayward both looking for that shot. Ish shots ton of mid range.

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[JMAC3]

Miller and Hayward both looking for that shot. Ish shots ton of mid range.

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Miles has been shooting a decent amount of faceup jumpers from that range this year too.

[JMAC3]

I know our record sucks, but I don't think we are nearly as bad as some people are making it out to be. We have some talent, we just are really hurt and have a coach who isn't doing anything special with the talent we do have.

LaMelo is a good player, very good. Probably top 30. Good enough to be your best player and would be a dream as the #2 player. I think we have two solid #3 options in Bridges/Rozier from a scoring standpoint. The issue is with Ball out they are now having to fill the role of a #1 instead of #3 on a good team. When healthy Mark/Richards is at least an average center rotation at worst, so that doesn't concern me. So who does that leave left?

PJ contract looks okay thus far, he is a top 7 player on most teams. The goal should be to keep him as a bench big IMO. Cody Martin is solid bench wing defender on a solid contract. So far PJ, Nick, Cody are all solid bench pieces on solid contracts. Nick Smith Jr could solidify himself as a bench piece worth discussing but he isn't there yet IMO.

Last two guys before we get into the muck? Brandon Miller. The #2 pick. He is the swing piece right now. This year? Probably best as a 4th option as a rookie, but can he be a reliable #2 in 2 years? Does he have potential to be better than LaMelo? If he emerges as a true running partner with LaMelo then you keep one of Terry and Miles and that is a playoff team top 3 options.

Gordon Hayward should have been a 6th man this year. Problem was we were so hurt all year he basically had to start whenever available. Can he get healthy and fill a role this year or is he destined to be bought out?

The Muck. McGowens is a muck for me. He is fine as an 11th man type but he isn't a nightly rotation guy. Thor sucks, I would be fine cutting him after this year. Ish should just retire mid year after the deadline, he isn't good enough. Mensah worst player in the league. Bouknight is muckity muck at this point.

[JMAC3]

I know our record sucks, but I don't think we are nearly as bad as some people are making it out to be. We have some talent, we just are really hurt and have a coach who isn't doing anything special with the talent we do have.

LaMelo is a good player, very good. Probably top 30. Good enough to be your best player and would be a dream as the #2 player. I think we have two solid #3 options in Bridges/Rozier from a scoring standpoint. The issue is with Ball out they are now having to fill the role of a #1 instead of #3 on a good team. When healthy Mark/Richards is at least an average center rotation at worst, so that doesn't concern me. So who does that leave left?

PJ contract looks okay thus far, he is a top 7 player on most teams. The goal should be to keep him as a bench big IMO. Cody Martin is solid bench wing defender on a solid contract. So far PJ, Nick, Cody are all solid bench pieces on solid contracts. Nick Smith Jr could solidify himself as a bench piece worth discussing but he isn't there yet IMO.

Last two guys before we get into the muck? Brandon Miller. The #2 pick. He is the swing piece right now. This year? Probably best as a 4th option as a rookie, but can he be a reliable #2 in 2 years? Does he have potential to be better than LaMelo? If he emerges as a true running partner with LaMelo then you keep one of Terry and Miles and that is a playoff team top 3 options.

Gordon Hayward should have been a 6th man this year. Problem was we were so hurt all year he basically had to start whenever available. Can he get healthy and fill a role this year or is he destined to be bought out?

The Muck. McGowens is a muck for me. He is fine as an 11th man type but he isn't a nightly rotation guy. Thor sucks, I would be fine cutting him after this year. Ish should just retire mid year after the deadline, he isn't good enough. Mensah worst player in the league. Bouknight is muckity muck at this point.

Long story short. For this team to be good, Miller has to develop into a #2. Trade 1 of Terry/Miles. Fill their spot with a defender, upgrade the coach and let the young team develop. Lamelo, Mark and Miller are all 22 or younger, we don't have to win right now or blow it up. Add a top 5 pick to this mix and we are still pretty interesting. I just don't think dumping both Miles and Terry is the answer. It puts too much pressure on Miller and this upcoming rookie to be really good right away and we shouldn't rush that if we don't have to.

[Rich4114]

I don't know what Miles is going to be getting in free agency, but I don't think we should bail on resigning him based on this season. The offense we run literally only gives the primary ball handler a chance for stats. It's ISO, grenade ball. Miles can get to the rim, but not if he has to drive through 6 people including his own teammates.

We will not be competitive with any of these players playing meaningful minutes:

JT Thor
Bryce
Nick Richards
Mensah

And I'll also say (again) that with Terry playing the role he's playing here, we'll never win more than 30 games even if fully healthy.

[fatlever]

" made the wrong draft day trades"
While you can say that Miles was a hit because he was an actual solid player for where he was drafted. You cannot discount the fact that we drafted SGA and traded him on draft day. That in hindsight is a colossal failure, especially given the situation with Miles currently.

Trading away the 13th pick in the draft for the late 1st and few seconds was a mistake. How much could we use a player like duren on this team going forward. Our Center depth is atrocious. And who knows what's going on with Mark's back. The reason we were given for why Mitch traded that pic in 2022 was because he said we already had enough young players to develop (bouk, kai, thor) which is even more depressing. We passed on adding a potential great young big because of three absolute garbage can players that Mitch picked the year before and held on to despite all signs pointing to them being absolute busts.

His strategy of loading up on second round picks and then trying to use them to hit a home run in the draft did yield a couple of solid players in Cody and nick, but he filled up the roster with too many of the projects thus completely depleting our veteran presence and our depth which has tanked our season for 2 years in a row when injuries have forced those players into the rotation when they should have been in the G League or cut.

Hitting on Melo I mean hard to give him credit for that. That was a three-player draft and we picked third. Had Golden State not s*** the bed and picked a mellow second we would be looking at Wiseman.

Miller seems to have a solid floor so no doubt he'll be a good NBA starter for a while, but to say we've hit on him at number two, way too early to tell.

Nick Jr seems like a solid player, though completely redundant to so many players already on the roster. And I'd much rather have duren on our team right now.

Outside of 2021 he didn't outright miss on any of our Lotto picks which is nice. But I can't say was some great drafter by drafting miles melo and Miller.

PJ is bang on average for where he was drafted so not really a plus or minus.

The bar for our drafts was set so incredibly low due to the misses under cho that anything better than that looks fantastic. I don't hold Mitch's drafting skills in as higher regard as some of you.

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