Tank for Flagg or Buzzin for the playoffs?

[JustBuzzin]

The big question is who will land Flagg. Now some may say we never win the lottery, but if there was a chance to actually win it this probably makes the most sense. Flagg will be up the road at Duke. He's already building his roots in Carolina. Can you imagine the storylines if he stays in Carolina. He could go down as a legend after his career.

Obviously he likes the state as he chose to play his basketball in Durham. Surely he would have no problem living in Charlotte. Now let's get to the fit you can't talk about a better fit than Flagg with Melo/Miller he can play that point forward role and help Melo facilitate the offense. His defense obviously is game changing. He steps in from day 1 as one of the best defenders on the team. With Flagg we become a major factor in the NBA.

Or we could make a playoff run this season hand our pick over to the Spurs and be happy with a playoff birth.


Tough decision what should we do?

[LofJ]

If LaMelo misses most of the season again sure start the tank. But if we're decent and we're winning games there's no way in hell we should tank the season and rely on hope and prayers to land a difference maker in the draft.

[Hornet Mania]

I get the sense that the new regime is going to let the young guys loose and see what happens, then build organically from there. All the moves so far have signaled patience, but I don't think they'll sabotage success if the team is surprisingly good. Lee is going to implement his system and find out how soon the team can actually compete.

So I don't expect any win-now moves, the team will sink or swim with the Melo/Miller/Mark core and then Peterson/Lee will evaluate and shape the team next offseason depending on how things go.

Personally I expect if everyone is healthy the team will be somewhere between 35-40 wins and in the play-in, if Melo and/or Mark are out for most of the year it will be slightly less of a disaster than last year but we'll be firmly in the mix for Flagg.

[Braggins]

They don't need to tank in the sense of bottoming out to try to be the worst team in the league. They just need to not make the playoffs. Their pick owed to San Antonio is protected 1-14 then conveys as two 2nds. The sweet spot for them in terms of improving as a team while maximizing their long term asset potential is to finish with the 11th best record in the East. Finishing 9th/10th and losing in the play-in would also be good. The team with the 10th worst record in the league has a 13.9% chance of getting a top 4 pick. Keeping their pick with basically a 14% chance at a top 4 pick in a loaded draft is way too much value to leave on the table.

With the current roster, probably the most drastic thing they would have to do to ensure this outcome would be something like trading Micic and Grant Williams at the deadline (ideal would be getting a good return for Miles at the deadline, but thats a separate convo imo).

I know some people would not like the optics of the front office sabotaging a potential borderline playoff run mid-season after everything this franchise has been through, but keeping their pick this year really is too valuable. This draft is not a Flagg or bust situation. Think of how good it was for Dallas to miss the playoffs the season before last in order to keep their pick, which ended up getting them Lively even though they didn't get lucky in the lotto. They got a ton of flack at the time, but it was clearly the correct move.

If they are somehow on like a 50 win pace halfway through the season then sure, they probably just have to roll with it, but its extremely unlikely they will be good enough with the current configuration for that to happen. The league is good enough right now and the roster is weak enough that its very possible that they are quite a bit worse than a fringe play-in team tbh.

[amcoolio]

There is no point in tanking, we always miss out on the top prospect

[JustBuzzin]

There is no point in tanking, we always miss out on the top prospect

Flagg is not a big. We should have a shot this time.

Shaq/Dwight/AD/Wemby man we missed out on some great bigs.

[luciano-davidwesley]

There's no point getting the 7th seed and being a first round exit and handing the pick over to SA.

Put me in the tank (but try for a few months first to see where we are at) group.

[JustBuzzin]

There's no point getting the 7th seed and being a first round exit and handing the pick over to SA.

Put me in the tank (but try for a few months first to see where we are at) group.

Yeah I have the same thought process. We just don't have enough talent to be handing over our lottery pick for a playoff birth. We still seem like 1 major piece away from being a consistent playoff threat imo.

Although I wouldn't be mad at the Hornets in the playoffs.

[Walt Cronkite]

Just want them to be entertaining to watch.

[KembaWalker]

Play to win. There’s always another prospect and we are basically always bad. Acting like it takes some special organizational strategy to put us in the lottery any given year is silly

If we are good enough to somehow make the playoffs then it means either LaMelo and Mark were extraordinarily healthy and/or they or Miller took a huge leap forward at which point I wouldn’t care about another prospect too much

[Bassman]

Coach said he doesn’t put limits on players or a team’s potential. Echos Peterson. They are pretty sure this team, even if amazingly healthy all season, might compete for a play in spot at best. Their goal is pretty clear to me: create and set the culture. Hard work, daily improvement, strive for excellence. All other things will form up within and behind that goal. I do NOT believe this new regime will do anything close to tanking. It would be the ANTITHESIS of building their culture.

But with a young NBA team, things can get cooking faster than expected. Chemistry and roles come together, instant magic. But that won’t last with injuries, and will be challenged with losing streaks (what happened to our mono?). How will they will respond to adversity in a long season?

Thing is, this team is just one flat tire from being a lottery team anyway. I’m not convinced Mark Williams will be healthy, or if he is, be able to return to his modest pre-injury performance level. Nothings guaranteed with a back issue. If he’s out were crap in the middle again. Generally good supporting cast to Miller, Miles and Melo but collectively they aren’t the equal to playoff contenders.

[Rich4114]

There's no point getting the 7th seed and being a first round exit and handing the pick over to SA.

Put me in the tank (but try for a few months first to see where we are at) group.

I disagree. This core has never experienced winning and if the org is trying to change the culture then even a 7th seed birth is valuable to this group. They can experience the playoffs atmosphere and build on it for the next season. Rather than try to start that journey one more year or longer later. We risk having LaMelo/Mark/Miles know nothing but losing and needing to be moved for lesser value. They'll go to orgs who know how to win and then we'll watch them shine.

Losing creates more losing. Take incremental wins when they're available, especially for a team in our situation.

[Rays Pompadour]

I'll join the group advocating for a push for the playoffs.

The current culture is a losing one. Deal with it by winning. Win and the playoffs will be a reward. Win and the world will take notice. Win and the front office will one day face the happy stress of figuring out how to pay all these great productive players.

Continue to lose and the lottery remains the organization's one hope of finding lightning in a bottle. And the world will continue to ignore this beleaguered franchise; free agents will shun, fans will flee, hope will fade.

But are the playoffs a reasonable goal for this team? I say it's a K2 they'll have to find a way to climb. Make smart trades for complimentary, productive pieces. Continue to develop talent, but NOT at the expense of the W. Make winning the primary, maybe even the only, season's goal.

Tanking is no longer a rebuild strategy. OKC was the lastest to make a go of it and stockpiled assets. Gaining collateral was the goal, not hoping to win in the lottery. Leveraging resources...now THAT'S a rebuild strategy. I think the Hornets have taken notice and are on the right path to correcting the losing culture through smart resource management.

Now, they must win.

[Braggins]

Did it create a "winning culture" when they made the playoffs with Big Al that one year?

[JDR720]

Making the playoffs next season as the 7th seed doesn't help us gain a winning culture, it just takes our pick away. We recently made the playin tournament twice, and that obviously didn't help create a winning culture. Or the couple years the Kemba /Jefferson team was solid, yet nobody would say they had a winning culture.

In general "winning culture" is overrated, because hardly any teams actually have such a thing. Most of the good teams, at least in the NBA, aren't winning cultures, they're various levels of treadmill teams. Like Atlanta on the low end, Cleveland on the high end. The Kemba/Al team was a low-end treadmill team. Teams like Denver, Bucks, Boston etc. have winning cultures. Teams that are consistently good and are expected to win titles, playoff series, have high seeds etc. The lone exception is the Heat, who on paper are a treadmill team but they have the best coach by a mile who enforces "Heat culture" which is a fancy way of saying they have a winning culture.

If we want a higher end treadmill or a lower end "winning culture" we need to draft and develop, like the other good smaller market teams have done. Or hope Lee is a Spo level coach. Otherwise, it's in our interests to keep our draft pick over gunning for the 7th seed.

I also think this next draft pick is particularly important since we drafted Saluan in this one. He isn't going to help any kind of culture any time soon. We can't effectively not pick a contributor in back to back drafts. See how badly the Bouknight/Kai/Thor draft held the team back.

[SWedd523]

I don't think it really matters right now what their "goal" is. If Melo and Mark don't play the entire season then we're looking at another bottom-4-team-in-the-league type of season. Even if the team remains healthy you're hoping for "play in contention"

[bravor]

Need another alpha. And if with mrs Luck you land Cooper, you can look to trade Bridges and then, you can build a winning culture.

Need anpother alpha

[Rays Pompadour]

I've argued that the Hornets have a losing culture. That means losing has been established in Charlotte.

Culture is built on expectations. Expectations are built on long-term trends. If you lose consistently over a long period of time, you expect to lose in the near-term future. Losing is your culture. That's a great thing if you run a weight-loss resort, not so much as a professional sports team.

The Hornets must win to change their losing culture, and win consistently over a long period of time to change the expectation away from losing to winning.

[KingCat]

We are still decently far away from making playoffs imo. This league is so damn compettitve now that I think an honest playoff push gives us a 9th seed and playin exit at best.

[JustBuzzin]

Ask yourself are you comfortable with our current core to throw our lottery pick away for a playoff birth?

This seems like our last year of being a bad team. Pretty soon Miller is going to develop his body and game. If Melo stays healthy this team is going to be in the playoffs on a consistent basis imo.

I think we should look to add another top pick in a loaded draft. Even if we don't get #1 maybe we end up #2 and get Bailey.

This draft is much much better than the 24 draft. I would like to see us add 1 more difference maker to add with Melo/Miller/Mark. I would hate to give our lottery pick to the Spurs for a playoff birth.