What is our weakness thread

[NCHeels2008]

I know after a loss to the Lakers there is a lot of weeping and gnashing of teeth, but after some posts in the Hendo thread it had me thinking, what is the Hornets weakness and if they traded some of their bench pieces what is the priority?

Some ideas I've seen

A)Consolidate assets and upgrade our backup PG situation (seems to be more of the issue on this board)
B)Consolidate assets and upgrade the PF position (more of a nat'l media push)

As great as Jefferson is, I'm not sure the Hornets can make the leap with him unless his defense returns to at least passable because he's hard to build around. You either concede spacing and put a true center next to him who can defend well (like Biz), you try to maximize spacing and concede interior defense (like Marvin) or you try to do a little of both (McBob/CZ Top). There are only a few players I can think of who can truly fit next to Al perfectly and they don't seem particularly available (Taj, Ibaka, Noah, Bosh, Aldridge).

Last years team was a lot of fun, but I go in circles thinking of how they make it to the next level. Creators like Kemba and Lance seem somewhat incompatible with Al to maximize both guys' gifts. It seems like you either have to go max spacing and try and get guys like Korver and Lillard (I know neither is readily available, just naming guys of similar talent level) or you go away from Alfense more and spread the floor and try to up the pace some. I don't watch this team as religiously as some of y'all so I hope to get others' opinions on how this team makes the leap and also how to get the most value from the guys who aren't playing (namely Hendo and Biz).

[Liver_Pooty]

Everything.

[KingCat]

Right now our biggest weakness is interior D. 2nd I'd have to go with lack of shooters, 3rd would be having two of the worst backup pg and pf in the league. Maybe reverse 2nd and 3rd now that im thinking about it.

[MKGsMotor]

Post D, really bad and inconsistent play from our best players, and Cliff's rotations as a whole.

imo

[AttitudeAjusta]

Offense

Shooting

We only have a couple guys that can shoot above average. Everyone else is noticeably worse

[HornetJail]

I would fully embrace a small-ball, transition offense. If our team still looks like this by Christmas, I would seriously consider trading Al for a more athletic center and some shooters. I hate myself for saying it because Al brought this team from the cellar to relevancy in the matter of months, and without him there's no way we are where we are right now, but if Zeller makes the jump this year to become a legit starter in the league this may be the way to go.

Whether or not Al is on this team after this season, our lack of three-point shooters is seriously disturbing and by far the biggest issue plaguing our offense. Kemba doesn't look like he's improved from 3 at all, Marvin was 7-23 before tonight's hot 1st half (and he has an entire 9-year body of work showing us he's an average 3P shooter), and the rest of our starting lineup as ONE 3-pointer so far this season. Hairston looks decent but he's still only 3-13 so from deep. Hendo is racking up DNPs, Roberts can't hit a shot to save his life right now, Zeller's shot comes and goes but he doesn't have 3 point range, leaving Gary Neal as our lone semi-consistent threat from deep. Last year we had McBob, CDR, and Tolliver getting big minutes, all of whom are significantly better 3P shooters than anybody on the roster but Neal and Pargo. Roberts should fix his shot, but he's so much of a liability everywhere else, we're seriously better off with Pargo playing backup PG.

I would have been so damn happy with our exact playoff roster with Noah, Lance, and PJ as the only additions and White, Ridnour, and Haywood as the only subtractions.
Al/Biz/Vonleh
McBob/Zeller/Tolliver
MKG/PJ/Taylor
Lance/CDR/Hendo
Kemba/Neal/Pargo

We could even have not signed Pargo and cut Taylor to make room for Nelson. CDR and McBob were huge, huge losses.

[Braggins]

Interior defense:
EIther Al's defense is worse or teams have just figured out how to beat our defensive scheme by targeting in Al in pnr's and various other things that take advantage of his truly god awful defense. Our starting PF is a SF who has 0 blocks on the season who we use as a stretch 4 in the imaginary instances where Al passes out of the post to an open shooter. We play Jason Maxiell a relevant amount of minutes at PF/C ahead of one of the better shot blockers in the league. The best rim protector in our rotation is our 21 year old SF.

General offense:
We could use more shooting but we have guys that can hit shots. We have a lot more serious weaknesses that prevent our guys from getting good looks and we don't take advantage of the versatility of our roster. Our offense is extremely simple and predictable. There is no reason we should have so much trouble scoring considering the offensive threats we have.

We don't seem to have much balance and we have a lot issues with our pace and style. More shooting would be nice but I think we currently have enough shooting to get by if both units were reliable on defense and use some different offensive strategies to play to the strengths of more of our good players. We clearly could use an upgrade at backup PG and I guess backup C. Roberts isn't terrible but he is simply a placeholder and don't screw up kind of guy and we can't afford that on our second unit. Biz mine be fine and it theoretically seems like he could complement the defensively challenged second unit.

[Braggins]

I would fully embrace a small-ball, transition offense.

The sad thing is that we play lineups with all of the weaknesses of small ball (lack of size/interior defense) but with none of the benefits (lots of shooters, speed and athleticism, defensive mismatches, etc). 3 /4 of our front-court rotation is slow, unathletic, and undersized. and we only have one average deep threat among them.

[ohara]

Halftime. Seems we come out of halftime weak and slow more often than not. Last night we got outscored by 21 and dug a hole from which we could not get out. Need to change something. We cannot rely upon 4th qtr rallies.

[EwingSweatsALot]

Lack of a backup PG

Lack of a backup C

Marv plays too much, Cody plays too little

We can't protect the rim

Continuity in the starting lineup

We don't have a go to scorer, which hinders us in droughts like last night when the Lakers scored 16 in a row. You have to have a guy that can just go get you a bucket when needed and we don't have that at all. We have a lot of "shooters" (Roberts, Marv, Neal, PJ, etc) but not a true scorer. We don't have a guy that can get us a bucket when we desperately need it.

[yosemiteben]

We don't have a go to scorer, which hinders us in droughts like last night when the Lakers scored 16 in a row. You have to have a guy that can just go get you a bucket when needed and we don't have that at all.

You mean other than the guy who is scoring almost 23 ppg for us? The guy who almost single handedly kept us in the game against ATL, going 15-24 from the floor? You literally just described Al's role on this team.

[EwingSweatsALot]

We don't have a go to scorer, which hinders us in droughts like last night when the Lakers scored 16 in a row. You have to have a guy that can just go get you a bucket when needed and we don't have that at all.

You mean other than the guy who is scoring almost 23 ppg for us? The guy who almost single handedly kept us in the game against ATL, going 15-24 from the floor? You literally just described Al's role on this team.

I don't consider that a scorer in my mind. I guess I should have phrased it better cause I know Al scores, but no big man is referred to as a scorer. I meant more of a guy on the wing, that can get his shot and break a guy down. Can get into the lane and get to the line. That's a scorer. Not too many people consider big men a "scorer." Blake Griffin scored 24 a game last year and they weren't going to him when they needed a bucket. It was CP breaking guys down. Crawford crossing guys over and getting his shot off. That's a scorer. At least in my mind.

[Al Kidd-Walker]

Garbage backup center that belongs in China

Garbage backup PG that belongs on the bench unless its a blowout

Garbage offense that involves passing the ball to Al, getting out the way and let him hold it for 20 seconds and hope he has his touch when he throws it up

No 3 point shooting aside from Neal and our backcourt is incredibly inconsistent

[mrknowitall215]

The slow-paced offense geared towards feeding the post is probably the biggest detriment

We still don't have a 3rd scorer. Lance Stephenson just isn't contributing, and I was weary of this when we signed him, because I didn't think much of him as a scorer with the Pacers either

Defense is probably our strongest strength aside from Al Jefferson, but we don't stick to that identity by trying to plug shooters around him. Therefore I would say that not having a identity might be one of our biggest weaknesses as well

[Hornet Mania]

An upgrade at backup C and backup PG would be a good first step. That backup C upgrade might be on the team if Biz ever gets a chance, but if not we should look to move Hendo to fill one or both of these needs. Maxiell should not be playing consistent minutes on any NBA roster, much less one with winning aspirations. Roberts has been the definition of vanilla, no spark whatsoever, nothing to suggest he's having a positive impact. He also hasn't been an abject disaster, to be fair, but he's pretty obviously one of our least-talented rotation guys.

Otherwise it's just been maddening inconsistency.

[yosemiteben]

Two of the guys that we thought would help our perimeter shooting problem are shooting below 10% from three. So there's that...

[yosemiteben]

I would have been so damn happy with our exact playoff roster with Noah, Lance, and PJ as the only additions and White, Ridnour, and Haywood as the only subtractions.

Well McRoberts walked so that's not on us. Based on his production so far if we'd kept him we would have a worse record than we currently do.

CDR is racking up DNP's for a team that desperately needs a wing.

Tolliver can't get off the bench for a Phoenix team that has worse big man depth than we do.

Plus we expected to keep Taylor around. So the proposal is that we have Lance, PJ, Hendo, MKG, Taylor, CDR and Tolliver? That is way too many folks at the 2-3 positions.

[Marino]

I think our biggest issues are the interior defense, and we cant make shots. I think offensively we will be fine, but the defense is the biggest issue.

[Roll Tide 09]

Want to know the problem? Biyombo isn't getting playing time (like he should), Okafor is still unsigned.....I believe, and there is absolutely no consistency. Also, we should have scooped up DJ Augustin.

[fatlever]

I would say that not having a identity might be one of our biggest weaknesses as well

to me this is probably the biggest problem i see with this team currently and moving forward. the roster makes no sense as currently constructed.

we were in an asset collection phase until jefferson agreed to sign last summer. i cant fault the front office for signing jefferson because when a team like the bobcats get the change to sign a top 30 player, you have to take it.

last year it was understandable that the roster made no sense, because we just added jefferson to a collection of young draft picks that had no identity.

jefferson is not the type of player who you can just add to any roster and expect it to work. he is one of the most unique stars in the league as a result of his post game that requires lots of touches in a very specific spot and his non-existent defensive game. if you want to feature jefferson, then you have to build a roster around him to highlight his positives and cover his negatives.

to an extent, cho tried to do some of that last year - by trading for neal/ridnour - and this summer by going after hayward.

the lance acquisition from a roster standpoint really made no sense. it seemed more like a desperation play after we failed to land hayward, who did make sense.

marvin, kinda made sense from an offensive standpoint, but it should have been painfully obvious to anyone that marvin cannot coexist next to jefferson defensively.

jefferson and MKG make absolutely no sense together offensively and even less so with kemba and lance in the backcourt as well. i really have no clue how you could ever create an efficient half court, pound it down low offense with MKG and lance on the wing. it will never work.

the front office has to decide, sooner or later, who it wants to build around. if they really want to build around jefferson, then they are going to have to probably trade MKG or lance (as much as it pains me to say it) in favor favor of a wing who can make 3s and they will have to put a long, shot blocking big next to jefferson to cover for his defense. you could probably get away with zeller/vonleh at power forward, once you add a real 3pt shooter to the wings, ideally two 3pt shooters.

if the front office sees kemba, lance and MKG as the future, then they are going to have to move away from jefferson to create an offense that opens driving lanes for those 3 to attack and move to an uptempo offense.

you cant continue to roll out kemba, lance, mkg, marvin and jefferson and expect the results to get much better. lance and MKG are a horrible fit for jefferson on offense and marvin is a horrible fit for jefferson on defense.

we can grind out victories here at there, but getting past the 1st round wont happen with this roster.

i am concerned we will resign jefferson to a monster deal this summer and continue to jam square pegs in round holes for the next 3 years.