2020 Off-season Discussion

[LofJ]

I'm looking forward to the training camp battles. I dont see Miles simply rolling over dead to lose his starting spot. I think he'll battle PJ hard for the starting 4 spot (probably lose that battle, but who knows)

The only thing Miles does better than PJ is dunking the ball. I'm sure he'll battle hard, but unless he's made a huge leap he's going to be the first wing off the bench.

Been 9 months since we've seen them. Couple guys could make huge leaps, or show up out of shape. We shall see.

I saw a pickup game video of several of our guys playing back in September (I think?) and both Miles and PJ looked like they were in excellent shape. Monk is also swole now, not sure how that's going to effect his game though, looking forward to finding out.

[JMAC3]

You're not just trying to be positive, you're trying to explain how the negative people are wrong and judging those less enthused about the move as sad. No one needs help to understand how to put a positive spin on this. You've posted essays trying to explain why positivity is warranted as though everyone doesn't already know the argument.

Gotcha man, I feel like I have a logical thinking process and explain why I feel the way I feel. The whole point of coming to a message board is to get others opinions and express your own opinions.

I also have not said anything negative about any other poster, put them down as being non-intelligent or attacked them on any type of personal level. I am just laying out examples of how other teams have approached team building and my thoughts on the process, I am not saying we have to go about things my way, but rather defending it as another route to becoming a consistent winning franchise.

My point is that we have other things going on besides just stretching Batum and signing Hayward, but 90% of the board are only focusing on that one action.

yawn

The whole "I'm smarter than you, you just don't get it" schtick is a tired look, why don't you drop that please.

I'll be honest, I'm real done feeling like I'm getting lectured by you. I'm saying that not as a mod, just as a poster getting turned off by you.

I am a full grown man so these types of comments are fine and I won't think about them again 15 minutes after posting this, but these are more aggressive attacks at me then I have sent to anyone on the board. We do not have to agree on the way the team is building, but this is a rather combative response at me for just posting my thoughts on the team.

[MasterIchiro]

Count me on team positive.

I am the Master.

It has been written...

[MasterIchiro]

I think the divide began with MJ calling Hayward at a time when many believed we belong deeper into our rebuild.

I view Hawyard as an instrument of development despite being a vet. I'm willing to fall back in the lottery in order to gain positive impact on every individual prospect playing to improve in this rebuild.

I view Hayward as the quarterback of this rebuild. And when LaMelo is ready to become a starting quarterback, we will be a perennial playoff team. We have plenty of assets to surround him.

As far as cap management, Kupchak can still add a max player if he moves Rozier. Rozier will benefit from Hayward and will gain trade value by the deadline.

But most importantly, we have a better team now instead of having to wait for a better team. Hayward makes us better and makes everyone around him better so it should be fun.

BUT THAT 9 MILLION DOLLARS! KUPCHAK WHY DID YOU EVER SIGN TEH NIC BATUM.

[JMAC3]

Quick offseason Score Board

Draft: 9/10 LaMelo was best player available, we kept all our seconds and even picked up an extra player to develop in the GLeague at our shallowest position. Overall I would take this type of draft every season, leaving the draft happy is such a new feeling for me.

Free Agency: 7/10 We had a bunch of cap space, announced to the league we would be willing to take on bad contracts and then the league basically announced they were good and did not have any deals to dump. Hence why Knicks still have 18 million in cap, Thunder still have 15 in cap. The only team who was able to pick up a first round pick was OKC and they had to take on three years of a bad contract to do it and give up a useful 2 way wing on a expiring (positive trade value)- Philadelphia won this trade and it wasn't close.

Hence the pivot to Hayward, the best player we as an organization have ever signed since coming back to Charlotte. Slight overpay, but honestly he was getting close to the same deal on the open market. You can argue whether he fits our timeline based on the direction the team is moving, but as a player I think we will see next offseason that he is in line with the deals that will be signed then. Also, bringing back Biz on Vet min deal makes a lot of sense, he is a smart guy (Vice President on Players Association Board) and a guy who can teach the young guys about Charlotte and how to be a pro.

Future Draft- 7/10 We did not give up any future first round picks always a good move. We picked up 2 seconds for doing nothing different then we would of done by signing Hayward. Sure we helped out the Celtics doing it, but it is still two future picks we got for doing nothing different ourselves. Only way I would of given us a higher grade was picking up a future first, but like I mentioned above those were few and far between unless you were trading away a starting level player.

Future Cap Space: 5/10 This is where I as fan start to be a little disappointed due to the stretching of Batum and the handcuff it puts on the team in the next two off-season's. Obviously I wish we would of avoided it, but seems like OKC wanted a first round pick and I think the board would be more upset if we traded our pick then stretching Batum. The good news is we still have a good amount of cap space next offseason to bring in a few other role players or one big name guy and have enough to resign Monk and Graham to fair market contracts.

Rozier only has 1 year left after this season so I don't really consider that long term money, so that leaves Hayward as the only guy we are really paying long-term. Hard to be upset with the way the future books look as both Hayward and Rozier project to either be starters or top 7 guys on our team. We are not paying anyone to ride our bench like we did the last couple of seasons. 5/10 might seem high to most, but I would consider us to have been in the 2or3/10 the last few off-season's, so we are still in a much better position moving forward then we have been in a long time.

[BlackOutBuzz]

Read on Twitter

No one wants to hear this I know, but part of the reason I haven't been all the way out on the Hayward move was because of what's happening in New York. This is two years running where they've had endless capspace and very little to show for it.

When Mitch said we weren't planning to make a big splash, I believed him (and still do), though maybe he lied about the rationale. Sure, it's important to let the kids play, but there also just weren't any marquee guys expected to be available.

Now, I'm not here to argue whether or not Hayward (or Westbrook for that matter) still qualify as "marquee" players. Just that I think they looked around the league, saw only 2 other teams could even sign the former All-Star and decided to make the opportunistic move.

The flip side of this is you hoard the capspace and enter 2021 as one of 20-some teams with space and the biggest draw being LaMelo's instagram followers. At least now they have the chance to be more attractive down the road than just "capspace."

Like the Knicks.


Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

[JMAC3]

Read on Twitter

No one wants to hear this I know, but part of the reason I haven't been all the way out on the Hayward move was because of what's happening in New York. This is two years running where they've had endless capspace and very little to show for it.

When Mitch said we weren't planning to make a big splash, I believed him (and still do), though maybe he lied about the rationale. Sure, it's important to let the kids play, but there also just weren't any marquee guys expected to be available.

Now, I'm not here to argue whether or not Hayward (or Westbrook for that matter) still qualify as "marquee" players. Just that I think they looked around the league, saw only 2 other teams could even sign the former All-Star and decided to make the opportunistic move.

The flip side of this is you hoard the capspace and enter 2021 as one of 20-some teams with space and the biggest draw being LaMelo's instagram followers. At least now they have the chance to be more attractive down the road than just "capspace."

Like the Knicks.

Great post, great take. I would be more upset about Hayward deal as well if multiple teams were handing out first round picks for salary dumps, but that just wasn't the case. There just wasn't enough big free agents to constitute teams feeling the need to give up an asset to sign any of the available guys, especially with next offseason looking much better.

[MasterIchiro]

I was honestly shocked Hayward opted out of 34 million. When Kupchak declared he didn't foresee the team chasing any free agents it was assumed Hayward wouldn't reach free agency 1 year before schedule. And the market for centers really impacted Harrell. He became a bargain at 9 when many forecast him getting 20.

And you're right Blackout. The Knicks haven't been able to do anything with cap space. It has been devalued as teams cling to and stockpile first rounders. But suddenly losing 9 million cap space is a huge blow? What about the Knicks 18 million dead cap space, second year in a row with useless cap space. Kupchak saw that this is a game of musical chairs and grabbed a seat in signing Hayward. He was staring at 2 consecutive years dead cap space like the Knicks. So were the Pistons and look at their remedy. Yikes!

[yosemiteben]

Spoiler:

You're not just trying to be positive, you're trying to explain how the negative people are wrong and judging those less enthused about the move as sad. No one needs help to understand how to put a positive spin on this. You've posted essays trying to explain why positivity is warranted as though everyone doesn't already know the argument.

Gotcha man, I feel like I have a logical thinking process and explain why I feel the way I feel. The whole point of coming to a message board is to get others opinions and express your own opinions.

I also have not said anything negative about any other poster, put them down as being non-intelligent or attacked them on any type of personal level. I am just laying out examples of how other teams have approached team building and my thoughts on the process, I am not saying we have to go about things my way, but rather defending it as another route to becoming a consistent winning franchise.

My point is that we have other things going on besides just stretching Batum and signing Hayward, but 90% of the board are only focusing on that one action.

yawn

The whole "I'm smarter than you, you just don't get it" schtick is a tired look, why don't you drop that please.

I'll be honest, I'm real done feeling like I'm getting lectured by you. I'm saying that not as a mod, just as a poster getting turned off by you.

I am a full grown man so these types of comments are fine and I won't think about them again 15 minutes after posting this, but these are more aggressive attacks at me then I have sent to anyone on the board. We do not have to agree on the way the team is building, but this is a rather combative response at me for just posting my thoughts on the team.

Appreciate the response and I'm good letting things lie. Just know my response wasn't because of your thoughts on the team, it was because of comments that read to me like you were criticizing other view points. Don't think it's worth it for either of us to call them out and doesn't matter anyway, and I'm open to the possibility that I was being oversensitive about it.

Cheers.

[JMAC3]

I was honestly shocked Hayward opted out of 34 million. When Kupchak declared he didn't foresee the team chasing any free agents it was assumed Hayward wouldn't reach free agency 1 year before schedule. And the market for centers really impacted Harrell. He became a bargain at 9 when many forecast him getting 20.

And you're right Blackout. The Knicks haven't been able to do anything with cap space. It has been devalued as teams cling to and stockpile first rounders. But suddenly losing 9 million cap space is a huge blow? What about the Knicks 18 million dead cap space, second year in a row with useless cap space. Kupchak saw that this is a game of musical chairs and grabbed a seat in signing Hayward. He was staring at 2 consecutive years dead cap space like the Knicks. So were the Pistons and look at their remedy. Yikes!

The main difference is that now we have the dead cap it is unmovable. Knicks could still take on a salary dump or execute a trade where they send out less money then they bring back. However, they have basically brought in worthless players the last few years to surround young talent of French Frank, Knox and Barrett and all three have really struggled transitioning to the league so far.

Analytics are making a big move in the NBA and teams are realizing that draft picks are more valuable then cap space unless you are one of the 5 winning big market teams. Rookies are the best way to find players who overachieve their contracts where as free agent signings are typically guys who underachieve their contracts.

[JMAC3]

Appreciate the response and I'm good letting things lie. Just know my response wasn't because of your thoughts on the team, it was because of comments that read to me like you were criticizing other view points. Don't think it's worth it for either of us to call them out and doesn't matter anyway, and I'm open to the possibility that I was being oversensitive about it.

Cheers.

No worries buddy, we all really care about this team and probably sports in general so emotions are going to get involved.

I for one had to turn off the Bears game last night 20 minutes in because they were so bad and it kind of ruined my night. My girlfriend gets mad at me and asks me why I care so much about sports, and I just have to tell her this is who I am, I can't help it.

[MasterIchiro]

I was honestly shocked Hayward opted out of 34 million. When Kupchak declared he didn't foresee the team chasing any free agents it was assumed Hayward wouldn't reach free agency 1 year before schedule. And the market for centers really impacted Harrell. He became a bargain at 9 when many forecast him getting 20.

And you're right Blackout. The Knicks haven't been able to do anything with cap space. It has been devalued as teams cling to and stockpile first rounders. But suddenly losing 9 million cap space is a huge blow? What about the Knicks 18 million dead cap space, second year in a row with useless cap space. Kupchak saw that this is a game of musical chairs and grabbed a seat in signing Hayward. He was staring at 2 consecutive years dead cap space like the Knicks. So were the Pistons and look at their remedy. Yikes!

The main difference is that now we have the dead cap it is unmovable. Knicks could still take on a salary dump or execute a trade where they send out less money then they bring back. However, they have basically brought in worthless players the last few years to surround young talent of French Frank, Knox and Barrett and all three have really struggled transitioning to the league so far.

Analytics are making a big move in the NBA and teams are realizing that draft picks are more valuable then cap space unless you are one of the 5 winning big market teams. Rookies are the best way to find players who overachieve their contracts where as free agent signings are typically guys who underachieve their contracts.

Free agents are like driving off the car lot with a brand new Ford Expedition (*cough* Jerami Grant) for 60K that becomes worth 45K the second you hit the road. Draft picks are like that dusty classic car you wheel out of the old barn and pray the engine cranks when you turn the key. Sometimes there's a fortune buried beneath a blanket of dust. Kupchak is looking for that Stingray Corvette in the second round. Kupchak is ahead of the market in investing in draft picks over cap. Small market teams should leverage cap when they can add a player who makes their rebuild pieces improve. This was a unique opportunity with Hayward.

[Rich4114]

I think Jordan and Mitch both roll with the mindset that we'll never make use of max cap space slots in the way a major market team would at this point or in the near future. I think that sort of thing could change very quickly and for us, we'd need to be very planned about it where we were willing to take some risks by not securing existing talent so we could have 2-3 max cap spots available in a year where 3 top free agents could coordinate a place to play together like Miami did. We'd also need to plan it so it happened in a year where there wasn't as much competition. Basically, we could be waiting a long, long, long time before we even had the opportunity and then it's not guaranteed at all - case in point the Knicks.

The last 5 years, we've had untradable assets because Cho thought he was being witty by signing everyone who had potential to $14m/yr deals in a span of 2 seasons which was then compounded by the unique circumstances of summer of 2016 and Batum/Marvin who both got overpaid. Having Hayward on the books for $120m over 4 years is still better than having MKG, Zeller, Batum, whichever enormous underperforming center contract (Biz, Plumlee, Dwight, etc.) over 4-5 years. What we cannot let happen is we get strapped by giving someone like Miles a big "hope it works out for us" pay day and quite frankly, the same for Graham and just repeat the last 4 years.

At least Hayward has always performed up to a certain standard and that lowest standard is better than Batums highest. I'm not overly excited about the Hayward deal but I am bought into it and see why they did it. It's not comparable to anything we've done in the past though.

[LofJ]

Appreciate the response and I'm good letting things lie. Just know my response wasn't because of your thoughts on the team, it was because of comments that read to me like you were criticizing other view points. Don't think it's worth it for either of us to call them out and doesn't matter anyway, and I'm open to the possibility that I was being oversensitive about it.

Cheers.

No worries buddy, we all really care about this team and probably sports in general so emotions are going to get involved.

I for one had to turn off the Bears game last night 20 minutes in because they were so bad and it kind of ruined my night. My girlfriend gets mad at me and asks me why I care so much about sports, and I just have to tell her this is who I am, I can't help it.

I like to think I am above irrational sports fandom, but last night I had to stop myself from sending a profanity laced tirade to Batum over Twitter when I saw he signed with the Clippers. For some reason that set me off and made me legitimately angry.

[Bassman]

Batum is such a POS, and essentially now a rental to meet minimum salary requirements. You don’t even want to break glass in case of fire with that pile of junk.

Yeah, I despise the guy that much. He actually turned out WORSE than “Doris” Boris Diaw.

However, I see the points made by some as to the value quotient we have with Hayward, versus other thins we would have been looking at. Indeed, we’re not going to lure prime free agents any time soon. We now have a lot of drafted talent which has to be developed and evaluated. The beauty of good drafting is that you get deeper with cheap talent. The bad part is the bill comes due in 4 years. You can’t pay everyone, nor should you.

With Hayward we have a bonafide shooter and go-to guy. We needed that along with a quality big man (still waiting on that one). Who doesn’t fit that we could trade for that big?

[MasterIchiro]

The timing of the Hayward signing allows a big signing next free agent class, allowing the Hornets to exceed cap to keep the first batch of rebuild pieces due raises. With the second batch we can probably still exceed cap without going over the luxury tax. We will be stacked with talent if we can convince one more big time player to sign here next off-season. Adding Hayward makes it easier to do that. As soon as that second marque player joins Hayward, extend Devonte' and Monk if they've earned it. Down the line extend Miles and PJ if they've earned it. And don't forget Ball has superstar potential. When Hayward and a second big name come off the books, LaMelo might be attracting multiple stars here, in which case you sign them and go over cap for LaMelo. We needed Hayward for a second big name and we need to fit both before going over cap for Graham and Monk.

[BeesWax]

Batum is such a POS, and essentially now a rental to meet minimum salary requirements. You don’t even want to break glass in case of fire with that pile of junk.

Yeah, I despise the guy that much. He actually turned out WORSE than “Doris” Boris Diaw.

However, I see the points made by some as to the value quotient we have with Hayward, versus other thins we would have been looking at. Indeed, we’re not going to lure prime free agents any time soon. We now have a lot of drafted talent which has to be developed and evaluated. The beauty of good drafting is that you get deeper with cheap talent. The bad part is the bill comes due in 4 years. You can’t pay everyone, nor should you.

With Hayward we have a bonafide shooter and go-to guy. We needed that along with a quality big man (still waiting on that one). Who doesn’t fit that we could trade for that big?

IF we could use Bridges to try to get Turner I would be thrilled. He would be a good part of the post draft process for us.

[luciano-davidwesley]

BUT THAT 9 MILLION DOLLARS! KUPCHAK WHY DID YOU EVER SIGN TEH NIC BATUM.

Yes yes it was genius of Kupcake to turn a big asset into a significant 3 year liability. Lets just pretend it didn't happen. Can someone pass the Kool-Aid?

[JMAC3]

Read on Twitter

Limits a good amount of the players they would be able to trade for with exception.

[316Hornets]

Read on Twitter

Looks like we're set, sign Gelo and be done