Offseason 2025 Thread

[Braggins]

The roster looks bad but also boring/uninteresting with not a lot of upside and also I have no faith in the front office or coaches. I think they are probably due for a good amount of improvement next season regardless due to likely better health, but its getting increasingly difficult to find reasons to care about this team. The Mark trade was kind of the tipping point.

I watched more Orlando and Portland games than Charlotte last season and I see that trend continuing to increase.

[Braggins]

If they get healthy seasons from LaMelo and Miller they should be able to have a good enough offense to be somewhat competitive with all the shooting they added, but they look absolutely horrific on defense.

They need to make a huge splash trade at this point.

[Diop]

Any news on grants recovery?

[yosemiteben]

Any news on grants recovery?

I've seen on socials that he's been out and about in the community, but nothing on court and haven't heard any update on recovery.

[fatlever]

There was an interview with him a little bit ago I feel like they talked about it on l o h where Grant has basically been living in the rehab rooms. Be accounts he's been very aggressive in his rehab. Nothing I've seen points to him being behind schedule if anything ahead of schedule.

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[fatlever]

The roster looks bad but also boring/uninteresting with not a lot of upside and also I have no faith in the front office or coaches. I think they are probably due for a good amount of improvement next season regardless due to likely better health, but its getting increasingly difficult to find reasons to care about this team. The Mark trade was kind of the tipping point.

I watched more Orlando and Portland games than Charlotte last season and I see that trend continuing to increase.

How is losing Mark Williams a tipping point? I get there's a million reasons to be frustrated with this franchise. We shouldn't trust them until they've earned back our trust. But trading Mark Williams is pretty far down on a list of me of things to be annoyed about.

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[Braggins]

Spoiler:

The roster looks bad but also boring/uninteresting with not a lot of upside and also I have no faith in the front office or coaches. I think they are probably due for a good amount of improvement next season regardless due to likely better health, but its getting increasingly difficult to find reasons to care about this team. The Mark trade was kind of the tipping point.

I watched more Orlando and Portland games than Charlotte last season and I see that trend continuing to increase.

How is losing Mark Williams a tipping point? I get there's a million reasons to be frustrated with this franchise. We shouldn't trust them until they've earned back our trust. But trading Mark Williams is pretty far down on a list of me of things to be annoyed about.

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He was the third or second most talented player on the team. The return they got was pick #29 and a future first likely to be in the 20s or even 25+. There is a pretty low combined chance one of those picks returns a player as good as Mark.

He was also my favorite player on the team.

[yosemiteben]

Spoiler:

The roster looks bad but also boring/uninteresting with not a lot of upside and also I have no faith in the front office or coaches. I think they are probably due for a good amount of improvement next season regardless due to likely better health, but its getting increasingly difficult to find reasons to care about this team. The Mark trade was kind of the tipping point.

I watched more Orlando and Portland games than Charlotte last season and I see that trend continuing to increase.

How is losing Mark Williams a tipping point? I get there's a million reasons to be frustrated with this franchise. We shouldn't trust them until they've earned back our trust. But trading Mark Williams is pretty far down on a list of me of things to be annoyed about.

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He was the third or second most talented player on the team. The return they got was pick #29 and a future first likely to be in the 20s or even 25+. There is a pretty low combined chance one of those picks returns a player as good as Mark.

He was also my favorite player on the team.

I understand being disappointed that Mark didn't work out. I really wished he would have too and I really like him as a player and just as a really good dude.

But I don't understand how you can have this take and ignore the fact that he couldn't stay healthy. I don't enjoy watching anyone on this team enough to want to hang onto them if they need 50% load management to get through the season.

The team obviously likes Mark from a character perspective, and I am extremely skeptical that they are moving him just for fit / scheme. It seems very obvious to me that he has major health issues and they aren't comfortable betting on that. It is what it is.

If I knew we could have gotten two 1sts for him (even if 2 late 1sts), I would be way more annoyed for them to not extend him, him to have recurring injuries next season, and then to let him walk as an UFA after the season.

The singular most frustrating thing about being a Hornets fan in the last couple seasons IMO hasn't been talent on the roster, it's been not getting to see that talent because every year half the roster is hurt. If they aren't confident he'll be able to stay healthy, I would rather err on the side of getting off the perpetual injury ride.

[Braggins]

But I don't understand how you can have this take and ignore the fact that he couldn't stay healthy. I don't enjoy watching anyone on this team enough to want to hang onto them if they need 50% load management to get through the season.

He looked perfectly healthy whenever he played. I have a hard time believing the way they managed his injury wasn't influenced to some extent by them tanking and having no incentive not to be cautious. He didn't look physically limited at any point last year when I watched. The picks they got in the trade were garbage. There was way more upside to just seeing what they could get out of Mark even factoring in injury risk.

I know you can't help but always rationalize everything the franchise does and give them the benefit of the doubt, so I'm not really interested and going back and forth on it.

[fatlever]

They didn't want to pay mark long-term for whatever reason. Getting two late first round picks for a player they clearly were not going to extend is pretty decent business. It sucks it didn't work out with him though.

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[yosemiteben]

I know you can't help but always rationalize everything the franchise does and give them the benefit of the doubt, so I'm not really interested and going back and forth on it.

Cool dude, I at least appreciate you signalling that you aren't interested in trying to have an objective conversation with me about a topic.

[JMAC3]

The roster looks bad but also boring/uninteresting with not a lot of upside and also I have no faith in the front office or coaches. I think they are probably due for a good amount of improvement next season regardless due to likely better health, but its getting increasingly difficult to find reasons to care about this team. The Mark trade was kind of the tipping point.

I watched more Orlando and Portland games than Charlotte last season and I see that trend continuing to increase.

I would agree with this. Outside of LaMelo and Brandon, we lack excitement. I would say you can toss in Miles there but he could be traded and half the people are over him anyways. We are still really low on the talent levels if Kon and Tre Mann are in our top 5 players.

Our center rotation is probably the 2nd worst in the League. We still are really lacking for depth, guys that are 2nd rounders aren't fixing our depth- we should know that as this was already a road we went down a few years ago.

[Braggins]

They didn't want to pay mark long-term for whatever reason. Getting two late first round picks for a player they clearly were not going to extend is pretty decent business. It sucks it didn't work out with him though.

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Theres an underlying assumption in here that not extending him (and thus having no choice but to trade him) was a smart or necessary move that I don't agree with. And again, those picks are garbage. It was pick #29 and a late first four years from now. The level of player expected from those picks is generally out of the league after their rookie contract.

[yosemiteben]

They obviously moved Mark because they are stupid and arbitrarily decided they didn't like him for no reason. His health status was not relevant and there's no reason to assume that it will be an issue going forward. The Lakers didn't have a real objection based on their medical review and so that can't possibly be why they rejected the trade after the deadline despite desperately needing a C and Luka specifically wanting to play with Mark.

Both us and LAL also were outliers and other teams clearly like him and wanted him, but we took a bad trade offer because we also arbitrarily didn't like the teams that wanted him and made better offers for him.

Occam's razor at work.

At some point, the fact that this is the best offer we could get, combined with our desire to move him, combined with the fact that another team needed him, traded for him, and then rejected the trade for health reasons, combined with his constant injury issues over the last 18 months, is enough smoke to suggest that health issues are a real motivating problem.

[JMAC3]

They obviously moved Mark because they are stupid and arbitrarily decided they didn't like him for no reason. His health status was not relevant and there's no reason to assume that it will be an issue going forward. The Lakers didn't have a real objection based on their medical review and so that can't possibly be why they rejected the trade after the deadline despite desperately needing a C and Luka specifically wanting to play with Mark.

Both us and LAL also were outliers and other teams clearly like him and wanted him, but we took a bad trade offer because we also arbitrarily didn't like the teams that wanted him and made better offers for him.

Occam's razor at work.

At some point, the fact that this is the best offer we could get, combined with our desire to move him, combined with the fact that another team needed him, traded for him, and then rejected the trade for health reasons, combined with his constant injury issues over the last 18 months, is enough smoke to suggest that health issues are a real motivating problem.

There is a difference between trading Mark Williams and trading Mark Williams and then deciding if you want to start the corpse of Nurkic or a 2nd round rookie. Chances Liam McNeely is more impactful than Mark Williams seems pretty low to me, he was drafted basically in the same slot as Nick Smith Jr, who is nowhere near as impactful as Mark- even with his injury woes.

Mark Williams is 23 years old and shown in limited time he can be an impact level starter in the NBA. Do we all have to decide he sucks and will never be good again now that he is traded?

The weird thing is you were never this vocal about Mark being dead weight when he was on the team.

[yosemiteben]

I was in the camp that LAL backed out for non-injury related reasons. I was 100% bothered when Mark still needed load management post-ASB, but as I've said before I assumed that was just to make sure he survived until the next season and not because he actually needed it.

At this point I just don't think it's realistic to deny that health is a major issue for him. If it wasn't, we would not be in the position of trying to move off him but being stuck with offers like the one we took.

I didn't say he sucks, quite the opposite. I just think betting on him getting and staying healthy is a bad bet, and injuries have been the most frustrating thing about this team for me.

Honestly, if they trade Melo and downgrade talent but get a guy that can stay healthy, I'll probably be alright with that for as much as I love Melo. Cause I'm real **** over watching half our active roster, including most of our core players, constantly out with injuries.

[JMAC3]

Shocker you were on board with the team when wanted to keep Mark, now you are on board when the team wanted to trade Mark.

[KembaWalker]

yeah I mean the only two options are that he has been crippled the whole time, or his camp made a big stink and he wanted OUT with the only real evidence of that being the weird little AWOL vacation he took after the trade and the FO felt obligated to help him out

[yosemiteben]

Shocker you were on board with the team when wanted to keep Mark, now you are on board when the team wanted to trade Mark.

Shocker that you don't engage substantively with my post

And I did a long form post about the Mark trade that was very much not "whatever we do is great and smart so this must be great".

[Braggins]

If someone is offering you picks that have like a 10% chance of returning a player as good as the player you are sending out, even if that player has legitimate injury risk (which I never said Mark doesn't), that doesn't mean you have to do it, even if thats the best offer you can get. I don't think they should have been even looking to trade him in the first place and especially not when his value was likely at an all time low (outside of the event of him having a career ending injury).

I said pretty clearly I think they would have been better off just seeing what they can get out of Mark as a player rather than trade him for some garbage late 1sts right now. If I wanted to move on from a player his level that has some injury risk and that was the best I was being offered I would just not trade him. If he continues to play like he has shown hes capable in the past and stays decently healthy his value will go up and you can maybe actually trade him for a decent return, or just have a good center on your team.

I would rather incur the risk of him having a career ending injury and basically going to zero value than trade him for the package they got. And I don't actually think there is any reason to think he is at a high risk of having some imminent catastrophic injury any day now based on everything we know about his health and what was reported with the LA trade. It was reported that LA was worried about his long term health, which made perfect sense since they were trading an unprotected first that wouldn't convey for 5 years.