Charles in Charge: The Charles Lee Thread

[EmpireFalls]

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Give Lee the pink slip TODAY and go get a real head coach.

[Bassman]

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Give Lee the pink slip TODAY and go get a real head coach.

Wow that’s quite a surprise. Memphis either has really high expectations, or Jenkins really crapped the bed with players/management.

[Walt Cronkite]

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6282258/2025/04/17/hornets-coach-charles-lee-lamelo-ball-nba/ Quick read on Lee's season from a Celtics beat writer. Some optimism from quotes by Gibson and Grant Williams.

[wilson115]

Read more at: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/sports/charlotte-hornets/article310476730.html#storylink=cpy

Lee spoke to The Observer about a range of topics, including LaMelo Ball’s evolving leadership, the addition of Collin Sexton, impressions of Charlotte’s 2025 draft class featuring Kon Knueppel, Liam McNeeley, Sion James and Ryan Kalkbrenner and more.

RB: How has the game evolved in your mind and how can LaMelo and Collin Sexton make problems for others?

CL: Just the game is becoming so much more and more positionless. A lot of times you just want your five best players out there, no matter what size they are. Do they compete defensively? Can they remember a game plan? Can they execute a game plan? And then offensively, are they willing to share the ball, play together, get a piece of the paint, make the right reads? And whether that guy is 6 feet tall or 6-9, the whole lineup is 6-6 across the board — whatever that is — you just want to have your five best players out there that bring cohesion on both sides of the floor that they are going to compete at a really high level.

RB: How confident are you in the front line as the roster is constructed?

CL: I see a lot of versatility. When we talk about Miles (Bridges) and you can throw Tidjane (Salaun) in that category, Moussa (Diabate). But yeah, just versatility. I think the way that Ryan will play as big and Moussa will play as a big are two different things, but I think both guys, they’re really good defensively.

Then I think offensively, wanting to play faster, Moussa allows us to do that. Because after a rebound, or a blocked shot or a steal, he is just out. He can outrun a lot of a lot of bigs. And Ryan, his ability to be really mobile on the perimeter. I think he rolls really well and can catch some lobs from some of our guys. But he’s also going to be able to play on the perimeter and make some passes. So, we are going to have the ability to toggle between a lot of different looks.

[Bassman]

Thanks for posting that here. Lee is either delusional or deflecting regarding our center position. It’s getting slammed around the league.

If it’s completely the opposite (a STRENGTH instead of a major weakness) I will light my hair on fire via live YouTube.

[EmpireFalls]

I want Chris Jent in there over Lee next season. He has us playing elite on both ends

[Chapelchilla]

The jibber jabber was annoying. Hopefully it goes over better in practice and gets Melo to the gym or whatever. I bet they clown him though.

[fatlever]

The natives are getting restless with Charles Lee. Saw he was trending on Twitter. lol. Second year in and the offense looks every bit as elementary and basic as it did last year. Is this only because Miller is out? It's really hard to judge Charles Lee until he has a run of games with melo Miles and Miller on the floor. But at the same time something isn't working with this offense. It can't just be get randomly hot from 3 or else we lose. melo It spends entirely too much time trying to dribble the ball up the court and dribble the ball to the top of the key while getting repeatedly fouled and pushed around. He needs to preach a lot faster ball movement and let Melo get the ball back in the middle of the shot clock rather than trying to have him initiate everything through Dribbling. That takes in a lot of unnecessary energy. In theory I thought pairing him with Sexton would be great but let's be real, Sexton likes to look for his own offense first. same as mann, same as miles.

And tonight he had a perfect chance to get a big fine from the league while complaining about the officiating towards Lamelo. This is something we were screaming for him to do last year. Stand up for your players just for once. And he wouldn't do it.

Second year in a row where he can't get any type of offense generated melo Off the court. It's certainly reasonable to expect that any offense will be worse when their star player sits, but it shouldn't crater to the levels of the 2011 Bobcats.

My gut says he probably gets replaced this summer. Justified or not.

[Braggins]

It really has been a hard situation to analyze. On one hand I don't want to be overly harsh on him because of the talent level hes had at his disposal, but he also really hasn't shown me anything to positive about. I lean towards thinking hes probably a dud but I don't really feel confident about it tbh.

[JustBuzzin]

I'm just going to be honest...


He's not a good HC. The system is just chuck 3's and let LaMelo make plays off the dribble.

We have a two top five picks with Miller/Kon and he has no idea how to use them.

[mg]

I'm just going to be honest...


He's not a good HC. The system is just chuck 3's and let LaMelo make plays off the dribble.

We have a two top five picks with Miller/Kon and he has no idea how to use them.

Agreed I'm a little disappointed in his offensive "system." He seems like a really good dude but can't see him as HC on a team with playoff type aspirations. Maybe that's by design to suck again this season ahead of the next draft.

[fatlever]

It's incredibly difficult to evaluate Coach Lee. For the second year in a row he hasn't really been given a roster designed to compete. He's never had a stretch of games where his best players are healthy. Unless the front office is delusional, they can't seriously be expecting this to be a winning team regardless of who's coaching. It would be incredibly unfair to judge him without giving him at least two full seasons

All of that can be true... While at the same time it's hard not to point out some of the head scratching coaching decisions. He always gives off vibes of a motivational speaker or a spokesperson for a pyramid scheme. I have absolutely no idea what our team identity is supposed to be. It's frustrating that our offense actually looked more Complex in Summer League than it does during the regular season. For the second year in a row the offense has devolved into ISO hero ball and spamming the three point line. I'm frustrated that he hasn't been more outspoken about the treatment of his star players by the referees. It's hard to really pinpoint any of the players improving under him other than Moose. He doesn't appear to have any idea how to get kon Involved in the offense beyond sticking him in the corner.

Assuming the Hornets win less than twenty five games again this year...On one hand it would be incredibly unfair to fire a coach after only two seasons when giving him a roster that is not designed to win games. On the other hand it's hard to justify giving a coach a 3rd year when they finish in the bottom 5 of the league two years in a row.

I will say this though, I would be more in favor of shaking up the roster with a trade AKA trade Miles Bridges (and anyone else playing dumb selfish basketball), before I would fire the coach.

[fatlever]

perfect quick summary of our offense for 2 straight years

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And when Lamelo is out, it's the same play but with either miles or mann or sexton

[JDR720]

Feels like both Lee and Canales are motivational speakers more than head coaches. I don't see any real evidence either of them are good coaches, they're just guys.

[yosemiteben]

Just for consideration, we're currently ranked 12th in the league in 3PAs per game, and we're top 10 in 3P%.

We're also top 10 in assists per game.

[fatlever]

Just for consideration, we're currently ranked 12th in the league in 3PAs per game, and we're top 10 in 3P%.

We're also top 10 in assists per game.

I don't think anyone is arguing that we take a lot of three pointers.

Assists don't necessarily equal ball movement.

But my comments based more on my feel of meter for now. Offense just feels so bland and predictable and puts way too much pressure on Melo to create everything.

Sent from my SM-G973U using RealGM mobile app

[yosemiteben]

I agree that the offense has been an issue lately, just level setting that our offense is much less ISO heavy in terms of how we're getting our points and we're not just a spam 3s team, we're currently taking 10 less per game compared to teams like BOS.

It seems pretty obvious how our staff wants us to play - the ball moves around when guys like Kon, Melo, and James are on ball. I've been pretty disappointed in both Mann and Sexton in this regard, the ball gets a lot stickier when they play and particularly when they play together.

[Bassman]

I agree that the offense has been an issue lately, just level setting that our offense is much less ISO heavy in terms of how we're getting our points and we're not just a spam 3s team, we're currently taking 10 less per game compared to teams like BOS.

It seems pretty obvious how our staff wants us to play - the ball moves around when guys like Kon, Melo, and James are on ball. I've been pretty disappointed in both Mann and Sexton in this regard, the ball gets a lot stickier when they play and particularly when they play together.

We also have no front line to bring the ball inside successfully. Miles is far more a perimeter shooter while Kalk can’t overpower players to get his own shot off near the basket. Yes he can rebound but not a dominant one. There is just no balance, and as others stated, the scheme is too limiting.

[yosemiteben]

I agree that the offense has been an issue lately, just level setting that our offense is much less ISO heavy in terms of how we're getting our points and we're not just a spam 3s team, we're currently taking 10 less per game compared to teams like BOS.

It seems pretty obvious how our staff wants us to play - the ball moves around when guys like Kon, Melo, and James are on ball. I've been pretty disappointed in both Mann and Sexton in this regard, the ball gets a lot stickier when they play and particularly when they play together.

We also have no front line to bring the ball inside successfully. Miles is far more a perimeter shooter while Kalk can’t overpower players to get his own shot off near the basket. Yes he can rebound but not a dominant one. There is just no balance, and as others stated, the scheme is too limiting.

IMO the scheme isn't limiting, I think guys just aren't executing it. We have a good roster to facilitate drive and kick, movement oriented offense, we just have too many guys that prefer to hunt their own shot and that bogs down the offense.