Are The Hornets Trending Upwards

Are The Hornets Trending Upwards

So, as promised, we’re covering some more of the Charlotte Hornets, and it’s become more of a pleasure of mine to have the opportunity to do so. That said, the main reason or the main thought process that spurred the video for today was them winning the summer league. Uh, which, you know, should have been a guarantee on the horizon for them considering their previous positions as a perpetual playoff drought experiencer. I mean, they haven’t been in the playoffs since 2016, so we’re coming up on nearly a decade. And I genuinely believe that bar health issues, this could be the year that they hit the mark uh marking the well 10-year anniversary, but also making it the time where they finally make the playoffs again. Now, I don’t expect anything beyond like an appearance. Um I think it would definitely be a first round exit, especially considering the creation and composition of this roster as a whole. But I wouldn’t be surprised if about midway through the season, we see a different iteration of this Hornets team that we’ve never seen before. The coaching staff seems to be really on board. They’ve brought in some really competent pieces. They’ve let go of some pieces that you could say were pretty expendable. And then even in the draft, they’ve taken a step forward. Obviously, a lot of people were high or low on Conanle. Obviously, them grabbing him in that top five spot was in my eyes a very good pickup. Now, his first summer league game left a lot to be desired, understandably so, but a lot of people wrote him off way too soon. And if memory serves me right, in the summer league final, he had 21 points and hit four threes, giving him the MVP of that game. Now, the craziest part of it is the fact that that is the first championship title anything that the Hornets have had since their inception. Never won obviously an NBA Finals. never won the the mid-season tournament. Obviously, that’s fresh, right? But the one that really got me, the one that really got me was that we’ve never won a division title. And even growing up, I remember the Heat always giving us belt to ass for lack of better phrasing. And the Wizards back when they had John Wall and Bradley Bill were a very competent team. The division as a whole just hasn’t been the Hornets to win. So, when you put into context all that and say, “Hey, they finally won the summer league.” It’s like, wow, that’s nice, but just wow. Like, it really took this long for anything meaningful to be won in the city of Charlotte or for the city of Charlotte rather, because obviously they didn’t play in Charlotte. That said, though, there were a few things that I wanted to touch on, and I’ll try and keep this concise. Most of my videos, you’ll find, are me just talking to the camera, having a one-on-one with you and whoever is willing to listen. Um, it’s an acquired taste, I will admit. And it’s always more so dependent and my success is dependent on you guys, you know, commenting your thoughts below and letting me know thoughts that you’ve had in your mind, whether it be while watching this video, while watching film last season, or while looking over some numbers or just based on your experience being a fan of the organization because obviously I grew up in Charlotte, so I enjoyed a lot of our uh, shall we say Renaissance years. Uh, we we’ll say I’ve I’ve enjoyed the good, the bad, and the ugly. I’ve seen every rebuild that was attempted and failed obviously, and I still believe that there is another level for the Hornets to reach, obviously, because they’ve never been to the peak of the mountain or even tasted uh anything up there. That said, the tale of last year, despite obviously them being overall a rough team to watch, was injuries. It wasn’t just LaMelo Ball. For Pete’s sake, we had Brandon Miller coming in and we were like, “Oh yeah, we’re going to see a different iteration of him. He’s going to step up.” Now, I pulled it up on my screen so that I could make sure I didn’t mislead you guys with any of the numbers. I’m a big numbers guy. If you’re new to the channel, it’s glad to have you here. Everything that I say will not be based on numbers. However, it will always kind of have numbers revolving around the topic at hand because you can’t refute numbers. Men lie, women lie, numbers don’t. Numbers can be skewed to prove an argument, and that’s the one thing you should be concerned of. But I don’t usually skew numbers. It’s I’m as non-biased as they come. And when I’m about to give you a biased take, I’ll let you know this is the bias in me speaking. I’m also willing to be proven wrong in the most respectful way possible. If you have an opinion that disagrees with mine, don’t just tell me I’m wrong. Tell me tell me what you think. I want to know what you think because I want to at least ponder and see your view in conjunction with my own to really just say maybe I won’t entirely change my stance, but I think yours is a lot more valid than I may have previously given it credit for. All that out of the way, right? Brandon Miller 27 games of action. He played less games than LaMelo. LaMelo played a little over half the season actually. I thought he played like 36. He actually played 47 games. Brandon Miller in his 27 games of action. About 35 34 minutes of play. 21 points, almost five rebounds, three and a half assists, a steal, almost a block. He shot only 40% from the field, but he did shoot 35 and a half% from three. The most important thing to keep in to keep tabs on right there is the fact that he shot 40% from three. However, excuse me, 40% from the field. However, overall, he took 10.9 three-pointers per game. So, there wasn’t a lot of downhill action from him. most of his shots, in fact, overall he only took a little over a little north of 18 shot attempts. So, 11 out of his 18 shot attempts were three-pointers. And you say, “Dang, that’s kind of crazy.” That would explain why his overall field goal percentage was so low. That means that his two-point percentage was higher than you would expect. However, it was just bogged down because of the sheer number of three-point attempts. Fair point. Makes sense. We know he can shoot the rock. We would like to see him go downhill a little bit more. We’d like to see him add a little bit of weight to his frame. We’d like to see him healthy. Then you move on to LaMelo Bal who I said 47 minutes, excuse me, 47 games last season. 32 minutes a night, perfectly fine. 25 points. He was the leading scoreer. He is the person that leads this charge when he’s healthy. Understandably so. Five rebounds, seven and a half assists, which was glorious. He averaged over a steal, averaged about half a block a night, but he also shot 40.5% from the field and 33.9% from three-point range. Again, on that 45% overall, excuse me, 40.5% overall shooting, 21.3 field goal attempts. Of those 21.3 field goal attempts, 11.2 of them were three-pointers. So again, over half of them were three-pointers. The issue was he shot a lower percentage than Brandon Miller. Now, Brandon Miller is right there around league average. I believe league average last season three-point shooting was like 35. It was 35.2 2 or 35.7 overall uh cumulatively um just to give a frame of reference. I could be off by a few digits decimal wise, but roughly in that mid30s range. So LaMelo overall shot below league average from three-point range, but it was more so because of his shot diet, not because he’s actually a bad shooter. When he takes conventional shots, he shoots above league average, but he doesn’t usually shoot that way. We’ve, you know, criticized him or joked and said that he shoots like he’s that kid that snuck out of class to sit with the bathroom pass, comes in the gym and says, “Hey, let me get a shot. Let let me get one shot.” He he has that hoop in slide kind of feel to his game, and he always has, and we don’t want to take that away from him, but we do want him to be a little bit more in control when he plays. And I think that the addition, as I said in my previous video, if you haven’t checked that out, I think that adding Colin Ston to the fold really will add that structure to him because Colin Ston about 18 and a half points a game, a couple boards, uh like four a little over four assists a night overall. He gave you almost 50, 40, 90 shooting splits from the field last season with the Utah Jazz. Now, he played the majority of the season. He was hampered by a hand injury early on and then later on when they were just deciding they wanted to tank out there was a couple games where you know he popped out with a mysterious you know day-to-day injury that just sat him of course because that’s what tank teams do. Now the thing about Colin Ston is he’s referred to as the young bull because his intensity never waines. Whether you’re up 30 or down 15 he’s going to be the same guy playing. He is on the shorter end of the stick and his wingspan is roughly around 67 68. So he doesn’t have the widest margin for error when he gets beat, but he doesn’t often get absolutely blown by or fried by anybody despite his height difference. Now you could say, okay, practice sessions are going to be very interesting because you have in most in high likelihood Colin Ston facing off against LaMelo Ball in five-fives, which should be very interesting because the height difference is there, the length is there, the way LaMelo’s passing senses will be more put on display in those settings. However, in actual games, I think their games complement each other very well because LaMelo Ball overall, the Hornets last season shot about 43 slightly north of 43% shooting from the field. That was 30th in the league. That was that was the bottom of the barrel. From three-point range, they were 28th in the league. So, they were bottom three in three-point shooting overall as well. And it wasn’t as if they were just the most abhorrent defense because they were allowing roughly 46 47% shooting from opponents on a nightly basis, which is smack dab in the middle of the league at 15th overall ranking. So, they were dead middle defensively from in efficiency from, you know, field goals. But overall, it just looked bad because they couldn’t hit a shot worth of darn. Now, they did address that with some of the picks that they made in this draft. And obviously, Kong Canppel took a step forward during the summer league and showed everybody, hey, I’m I’m not cooked, guys. I just needed to get acclimated. And that was one of the big things that a lot of people were criticizing him for because obviously his first game was really rough. It it was really rough. But I can say the same thing about Ace Bailey because I also cover the Utah Jazz. However, they both rided their ships and showed why they were valued where they were valued and why they deserve the opportunity to vive for starter minutes. Now, I think Colin Canppel has a very interesting path to starting. I don’t know that he’ll start right out the gate because in my mind at this current moment, you have LaMelo running the one. You slide Brandon Miller down to the three and you have Colin Ston run the two. Now, this is more as an injury prevention thing as well as creating a consistent viable offensive threat alongside the youngsters. Yes, you have Miles Bridges and in all likelihood, you’re probably going to have Diabate starting because it doesn’t seem like they’re going to add another center to their fold immediately. Now, maybe you could see the and ball torture on the floor together uh sooner than later, but I do think that Diabate at the very least from what he showed last season did just enough considering how bare thin they are because they traded away Nerkage so that they could get Conex, which was definitely a robbery. That was definitely the correct move to make, but they also sent away Mark Williams finally after they tried to send him to Lakers and he failed that physical. Got sent back and now he joins Nick Richards over there in Phoenix. I think that the front court is going to be their weakest spot by a wide margin. Obviously, if you have Brandon Miller, you have LaMelo Ball, you have Colin Ston, they end up resigning a couple guys and you have, you know, in a forward standpoint, you have Grant Williams, though he only played 16 games last season. Again, he had seven starts. He was one of those guys where when they traded for him during the season that one year, it looked like there was a little bit of a shift. It looked like guys cared a little bit more about playing reasonable minutes, not just being out there. If you’re going to lose because that’s the plan, that’s perfectly fine. But there’s a difference between losing just to lose and losing while learning something in the process. There’s nothing more pointless than losing games just to lose games. Because then that means once you start trying to win games, you still have to find yourself and understand who you are as a collection of players in the process. And that makes things incredibly more difficult to deal with if you’re a head coach, if you’re a front office, and honestly as players because you’re going to get frustrated because you didn’t know that if you swing the ball to a person in this particular way or if you make a skip pass across the court or if you attempt to put this person in this sort of situation to score the basketball, that’s not what they like to do. And if you don’t know that early enough, by the time when you actually want to win games and you’re trying to be a competent organization, it bites you in the butt because you never tried. And I think that having Colin Ston on this roster alongside LaMelo Bal will kind of create a monitored structure. It’s not putting, you know, uh, there’s rough analogies to use, but like it’s kind of like having the fun dad and the strict mom. Now, Kyle Saxon isn’t really the strict mom, but he’s healthy enough in the middle of those two type of people to be alongside LaMelo Ball where it’s like big brother, little brother, even though little brother’s bigger than big brother, you know? I mean, LaMelo’s kind of lived with that for the past few years because he’s even taller than Lonzo at this point. But overall, Colin Son will provide a certain level of structure while still letting LaMelo be free with the way that he plays. But when LaMelo sits there and he dribbles into a double team or there’s a switch action going on, he will have a viable shooting threat that he can swing the ball to and he will knock it down with borderline 40 to 45% accuracy depending on where he is outside on the three-point line. And it’s an issue that they didn’t have that they had tremendously last year because the shooting just wasn’t there. I told you the two main three-point shooters on the roster were both Brandon Miller who only played 27 games and LaMelo who played 47 games. And combined they shot 23-pointers on beneath league average efficiency because they were the two main guys that had to do it. Now you could say, okay, there was Miles Bridges. He took seven three-pointers. How did he do? 31.3%. Overall, Miles Bridges was probably the healthiest out of the core players besides Josh Green, and we’ll get to him. But Miles Bridges, for the sake of argument, 64 games, about 32 minutes a night, scored 20 points, 7 and a half rebounds, about four assists, had almost a steal, almost a block, 43% from the field. So, that’s up from the other two, right? 17 field goal attempts. Okay. And like I said, on seven three-point attempts, 31.5% shooting. That’s not good. You’re not a three-point shooter if you’re hitting that way. Now, he I believe should be above that. I need to go over some more tape because maybe it might have just been the situations that he was in, the areas of the court that he shot it from because obviously everybody has their hot zones and also if he just felt like he needed to shoot more shots, if he just needed to force more shots because the opportunity was there because obviously again the injuries were really riding up on everybody. Grant Williams only played 16 games. He started in seven. 10 and a half points, five boards, two assists. He shot 44% from the field on about seven and a half field goal attempts. Five of those being three-pointers and he shot 36 and a half% on those. But again, only 16 games of action. You look over at Josh Green and he’s the one where I think Colin Kiple could outplay him in this preseason. and ended up being the starting person there or if you really want to force Colin Sexon into starting lineup right out the gate which I think is a good idea but I don’t know if their front office feels like they want to do that considering the fact that their front court is so weak at the center position that you may end up wanting to just bottom out again this year and you can look at the league and say yeah I mean we’re tanking but it’s not cuz we want to be bad we just don’t have the right pieces on our roster yet we were we were really close and like we’re healthy this year and everything and we’re trying and we’re shooting a lot of threes, but we just can’t really rebound. Like, you could make that argument if you’re the Hornets. And I haven’t heard enough buzz to say either way whether they’re going to try and vive for the playoffs because I I honestly think they should. And maybe around halfway midway through the season, if for some reason you’re not around 500 and you’re like around 40% winning percentage, then you say, “Okay, well, let’s not get anybody injured, right? We know some of our players are made of glass right now. Let’s just let some more of the young guys play. Let’s see some more minutes from guys that don’t get that many opportunities. We’re gonna have a couple day-to-day injuries. We’re gonna have some people tweak their ankles, you know, lower back spasms, whatever the case may be. And we’ll kind of mismatch mismatch lineups and just throw some guys out there and see what we can make happen. I could see that happening for sure. But I think that this roster, the way it’s constructed right now, and with the pieces that you’ve added, and the fact that you have a collection of guys that I want to say there was four I know there was more. I think I know for certain there was three guys that got drafted, but I want to say there was four people that got drafted this year by the Hornets. um you you have a collection of guys that are coming from the summer league where they actually won something and a lot of them were winners in college, but they’re coming into the NBA and they’re coming to the franchise that’s historically known to be god awful. And you’re not the Detroit Pistons where it’s like, oh, we have a Kade Cunningham who Kate Cunningham looked like he aged 20 years in a four, five, how how many years deep in his career is he probably like five or six years now? Five is because I want to say it was 2021 draft 2020. 2021, early 2020s, no matter what. In about 5 years, K Cunningham looks like he’s about 40 in the face because he’s just he’s been worn on that much, but he’s such a great leader and he’s a solid defender at this point in his career, but as a overall leader for his team and for his organization. He has been that one consistent piece where he’s always going to be there night in and night out. He’s not too injuryprone and you can’t really fault that too much on LaMelo for being, you know, hurt a lot of the time, but for the most part, Cade Cunningham is just looks more mature the way he handles press conferences and stuff like that. And that’s not to sit there and rag on LaMelo because he’s not PR trained. And I know a lot of people make the jokes about it and everything, but it’s nice to see that genuine nature in somebody because so many times you have people that’ll they’ll go up to the podium and they’ll say exactly what they need to say to not get fined or they’ll say exactly what the media wants them to say or they’ll say just enough to get people off their backs and they’ll keep going. I like the realism of LaMelo. I enjoy that. But the realism would be a lot better if they were a winning team because then if he said if he sits there and he’s honest, he says, “Yo, I’m not going to lie. I was just terrible tonight. We couldn’t hit threes worth of lick du.” and he, you know, he mixes in his explicitives here, there, and everywhere in between. But for the most part, if he’s just honest that that part as a fan, you love him for that because he’s being real with you. Most analysts, their job is to go on screen, say something completely controversial, and then try and defend the take. And that’s stupid to me. I understand it because you want to draw eyes in and they say, you know, any any publicity is good publicity, whether it’s good, bad, or ugly. If Stephen A. Smith says something completely offthe-wall, everybody’s like, “Yo, Stephen’s still talking. What did what did this what did this guy say this time? And then you watch the take. So, you know, money in their pocket. Money in their pocket. With guys like LaMelo as a fan of the game, if you like watching basketball and he sits there and he says something completely outrageous. You’re like, yo, what is he talking about? You watch the highlights, you go like, not going to lie, he was right. The way he delivered it might have been a little bit bright, a little bit crass, a little bit over the top, but he’s he’s keeping it a stack. He’s keeping it honest with us. And I think that by having Colin Saxon in the fold with him, you’ll see a more structured LaMelo where he’s not playing so herkyjerky. He’s not forcing things. He doesn’t feel like he has to run the offense entirely the entire time, right? He will have somebody and Brandon Miller is going to continue to develop. And last year, he obviously, despite only playing 27 games, he had three and a half assists tonight. So, he can playmake. I think he can stand to get better. And I think Colin Ston is a healthy medium kind of in between Brandon Miller’s level and LaMelo Balls because over the past over honestly his entire tenure with the Utah Jazz, he became a better playmaker because at one point they wanted him to be the point guard and then they kind of backed off of it which I felt was kind of silly. But nevertheless, he became a better player. He added a change of pace. It wasn’t just driving downhill and attacking the rim and you know either he gets fouled or he gets blocked and the ball goes out of bounds. There’s a lot more there’s a lot more thought that goes into his game play. And when you take somebody who’s so tenacious and he hates losing, I can only imagine the frustration that he must have experienced being on the Utah Jazz some nights where we would throw out a lineup at the end of a game that was close and we lose the game. And he’s still his job is still obviously to try and win the game. That’s his mentality 24/7. But when you roll out two people that shouldn’t be in a certain lineup or the coach is forced to put out certain guys that shouldn’t be out there and it’s under the guise of letting the youth play and letting them get reps in certain situations, but in behind closed doors, we all know the team’s objective is to tank. Now you’re losing a game that you should be winning. And as a player that likes winning, but has always been on teams that weren’t in position to win, it has to suck. So now he comes to the Hornets and he has the opportunity to be that veteran leader who’s still 26, 27 years old. So he’s still entering his prime. so to speak, and he can be not only a just a cog in the machine and a leadership piece, but also a big part of the engine that leads these guys in that direction towards winning. And I would argue that this is probably it it’s I want to say that this is the most talented team that he’s been on thus far, but that first Utah Jazz team that he was on when he first came in when they had uh Simone Fonteo amongst some other guys was really, really good and they were a competent playing roster. So, I would have to see this team and how these guys cohabitate together, how they play well or not so well with the ball on the court because there is one ball and there’s a lot of guys that like to shoot the ball on this roster. Um, I would have to see a lot more of that before I guarantee that. But overall, I feel comfortable saying this is definitely one of, if not the most talented roster that he’s been a part of. These guys are younger though, right? These guys have the opportunity to take that next step forward, but they need that one constant. They haven’t had a constant the entire time. Like I said, LaMelo Ball has been the ball. He’s been the king of the court for this roster. But he’s never been he’s not been healthy for an entire season. And that’s the biggest issue because you say, “Dang, when LaMelo Ball plays, this team is great. They’re they’re really a they’re a top six team in the East.” LaMelo Ball doesn’t play. LaMelo Ball plays half the season. So what happens the rest of the time? The team never had a competent backup point guard or enough competent composite guard play to say, “Okay, we can keep the ship afloat while LaMelo’s out.” And then make a late season run when he comes back healthy. No, there was never a point where you can say, “Oh, LaMelo’s ankle’s hampering him just a little bit. Ah, he’ll be fine. Uh, matter of fact, you know what? Just to be cautious, let’s go ahead and sit him today, right? We can have him back next game. We can we can sit him for a few games, right? We can still be a competent organization. We can still be a competent team. we can go out there and play and even if we lose, we’re losing by six or seven. We’re not losing by 12, 13, 15, 17, sometimes a ward of 20 plus, right? You want to be able to have enough guys, enough accumulation of enough players that work so well and so cohesively together that even if one guy’s out, the next man steps up and he can carry the load. Maybe not to 100%. But at least to 80, at least at least 70, give me 75%. And I think Colin Ston will also be able to be that, like I said, secondary playmaker. And obviously, you’ll have some interesting lineups where Brandon Miller has to take that step forward and he’ll be able to have the keys to the offense. But I think Colin Ston has experienced enough particularly with the Utah Jazz and their young guards to be the the number one guy, to be the number two guy, to know when somebody else needs this opportunity, they need to make that mistake so they can learn from it. to also have the opportunity to just put more knowledge into the heads of certain guys and give guys the understanding that, hey, you can make that mistake, but let’s not make it again. Hey, why did we make that mist? Hey, why did we make this mistake? Why did you take that shot? Why did why in your head did you think that was the right shot with 17 seconds on the shot clock? And there’s going to be a back and forth. There’s going to be an argument. If your team doesn’t argue at all, either you’re a really good team and you all share one hive mind or you’re fine losing and everybody’s disgruntled. And I can’t stand that about some organizations and some teams. I’m not going to say any names, but I want to see this team get buck. I want to see them get hyped when somebody’s when somebody hits a bucket and you are the person that got subbed out of the game so that they could have that bucket and have that opportunity. I want to see that person jumping up off the bench hype. Right. The Hornets had that type of energy where it’s kind of close to that D’Angelo Russell uh Brooklyn Nets roster where they were just a fun they were they weren’t a great they weren’t terrific, right? But they were a really solid team and there were celebrations from the bench and everybody on the court, everybody was going crazy. They’ll let him go on a heater cuz it was going to be crazy. You weren’t just watching for the guys on the on the court. The cameras panning to the bench because that’s the next reaction that you wanted to see. And I think as a Charlotte or Hornets organization, that’s the next step for them. I think overall this team has the opportunity to take that next step forward. But there’s a lot of question marks and a lot of them are injury based which is why I don’t want to put a finite game win mark though. I can say something I can say something much too early. All right, we’re going to say something much too early. Let’s say Hornets if healthy, right? LaMelo over 65 games. LaMelo LaMelo at 65 games, right? If LaMelo plays 65 or more games, the Hornets are going to win 45 games. They’re going to be slightly north of 500, I personally believe. Now, LaMelo is not the only guy that has to be healthy. I’m not saying that, but LaMelo is going to be the biggest reason why they do or do not. I would say that Colin Sex could definitely fill in for LaMelo and take that scoring load at a higher level of efficiency. The playmaking is going to be a little bit rougher. And in those situations, let’s say we have a couple, we have a weak stretch where they wrestle LaMelo because of a hampering injury and you have Colin Sex at the one, Brandon Miller at the two, you slide Miles Bridges up, you have Diabate, and let’s say you go um Khan Canppel. Let’s say you go Kppel at the three, slide Miles Bridges, leave him at the four, go Diabate at the five. Right? Colin Sexton is a competent playmaker. He will give you five, six, six assists that night. Brandon Miller is also gonna have to step up though. And Brandon Miller is gonna have to show, hey, I’m not the number one, right? That’s my that’s my bro. That’s that’s LaMelo’s job. But I’m like that, too. I’m like that, too. And I can I can get a bucket when I need to, but I can also make the correct play. I don’t have to make the ego play. I don’t have to make the play that makes me feel good or the play that I really want to make. I don’t have to make the home run every time. I can be methodical and I can show you this bag work and we’re going to get a bucket out of this possession. Whether it’s me, whether it’s my five, whether it’s my three, whether it’s my PG, it doesn’t matter. one of us is going to give you this work and we’re going to show you the best way to do it. And I think the coaching staff and how they orchestrate how these players as a culmination operate together will be a big question mark because again there’s been so many culture changes with this organization or more so from a front front office standpoint and coaching staff that there’s no guaranteed continuity. There’s no guaranteed game plan where I’m like, “Oh yeah, they’re definitely going to run this five this fiveman lineup. They’re definitely going to have these guys coming off the bench and then this guy, these two guys might get a couple minutes here there depending on matchups. And when they’re on the court, there’s going to be a lot of DHOs’s going on between Diabate and LaMelo or LaMelo and uh Miles Bridges or there’s going to be a lot of there’s going to be a lot of motion play. There’s going to be a lot of back door back door cuts going on between these two players. There’s going to be a lot of shots taken from the left corner. Not as many from the right corner, but the right wing is going to get a lot of high action. There’s going to be a lot of high post action going on. There’s going to be a lot of opportunities for guys to operate out of the high post. What if we put Miles Bridges high post? We put Lamel at the top of the key. You go Colin Saxon on the left wing. Miller kind of kind of having a little bit more space to operate. And then you have Debbonte lowb block, right? what what kind of actions can we create of that? I can’t justifiably say something with certainty because there’s too many moving parts and there’s not enough tape for us to go on and say, “Oh, yeah, this is a guarantee.” Now, there are certain tendencies that LaMelo has that we could, you know, judge and base things off of. But I would like to believe that we’re going to see a more controlled, like I said, lightning. He’s a a whole thunderstorm, but I need to see that lightning put in a bottle and then a a little bit of air let out, right? just just a little bit because I want him to play a little bit free, but I don’t want him to be as free as he was before. I want it to be a little bit predictable the way we w when we watch the game because a lot of times you watch him play and you’re like, you look at the screen, you’re like, what is he doing? You you don’t know because it’s the way his brain works. He’s just creative in that way. But I want us to be able to script it a little bit better. I want to have a scripted plays that you follow more often than not. And then when those plays break down or if the shot clock is winding down or if we just really need something to happen and the offense is stalling and we can’t buy a bucket, that’s when you have guys like Colin Saxon step up to the point, step up and take that next stride for you and show you what it’s about when you need that bucket or that’s when you let LaMelo Ball do LaMelo things, right? But if LaMelo is always doing LaMelo things just as much as we don’t know what’s going on, sometimes I feel like the teammates don’t know what’s going on and at times it can be very beneficial. But at other times, if you’re not necessarily of one hive mind, which they weren’t last year or the year before, you don’t really have that guarantee of saying, “Oh yeah, these guys are really going to be ready when that sort of play comes up, when that is a requirement, when it when everything falls apart. Can LaMelo buy me a bucket in that moment? And can he stay healthy again?” And I know this whole thing has been I’ve been bouncing off the walls pinball to pinball. That’s usually how my style is. I’m toying with the ideas of different things, but I wanted to make sure I made this video and covered as many different thought processes as I had when I think about the Charlotte Hornets as they are. So that way once you watch this video, as I start making subsequent videos and focusing on these different parts like the LaMelo areas, the Conan areas, which I didn’t touch on, I’m going to touch on in one second just very lightly. um Brandon Miller, Miles Bridges, all these guys, all these pieces, all our a couple of our guys that we also just brought in as well. Um the fiveman from Kraton, right, who’s going to be backing up Diabate. There’s going to be a lot of moving parts. And as we get closer to the season, and as the preseason gets underway, I think I’m going to have some more tape where I can convincingly tell you a thought that I have and back it up with numbers and say, “Oh, yeah. I think this is a highly likely thing to occur or I think we should do this or I think this is a this should be a staple of the offense that we haven’t really seen before or we’ve seen a couple times, but I’d like to see it happen between these two people. I’d like to see a two-man game between these two guys as opposed to these two guys. Those really, it was okay, but it really didn’t eat as much as it should have. I think these two guys in particular will have the opportunity to really put things in a different light. Now, with that said, bringing back Trey Man also really good. I was confused at one point because I thought that they weren’t going to, but they did. So, crisis slightly averted. Now, Salon was looking really shaky. When you have a lot of injuries and you have the opportunity as a rookie to come out and showcase what you’re really good at and you don’t really do that, things get a little bit risky. Things get a little bit tough, right? 60 games of action for him, only 10 starts. Now, he played 20 and a half minutes a night, six points, five boards, one assist. He shot 33% from the field on almost six attempts and then he shot 28% from three on three and a half attempts. So the shot diet was there and as a rookie you have to be able to go out there and produce when your numbers called. And a lot of times it just didn’t look like he was there. Defensively he wasn’t bad though. I knew he was going to be solid defensively for the most part. Um I thought he was going to shoot a little bit better though. I didn’t think he was going to have a great rookie year but I thought he was going to shoot just a little bit better and he left much to be desired. But in the summer league, he stepped up and he shot I want to say he averaged somewhere between 13 and 15 points, but the efficiency was there. That’s the point that I really wanted to harp on. And overall, I think that it should translate coming into obviously your training camps and the preseason and especially into the regular season, he’s going to have the opportunity to vive for that small forward spot under the assumption that obviously maybe Colin Saxon doesn’t start, right? If they don’t start Colin Saxon, then you’re probably going to have LaMelo Ball, Brandon Miller. Colin Saxon coming off the bench with Trey Mann, Spencer Dwitty kind of is going to be that fifth guy as at the guard spot. Like he’s a lot of insurance, but let’s call a spade a spade and just say Spencer Dwitney while a solid NBA player shouldn’t have a sizable amount of minutes on this roster. If he does, that means either somebody’s injured and we’re in rough waters or somebody’s having a really rough stretch of basketball, which means we’re also in rough waters, right? That said, I think that Salon needs to show something this year because he’s going to slowly become an afterthought, especially if Conano does exactly what I think he’s going to do. And I think he’s going to take a if he doesn’t end up taking Josh Green starting spot in my head, right? You have LaMelo, you have Brandon Miller, you have again um Josh Green, you have Miles Bridges, and you have Diabate. Right, that’s the five that most people are going to think of when they think Charlotte Hornets because they don’t think of Colin Ston immediately right now, though they should. Right. With that said, right, in my head, Josh Green is not a starter. You slide Brandon Miller down to the three, you put Colin Six at the two, and now you have a lot of playmaking that you can do. have a lot of actual shooting on the floor with you now. And hopefully Miles Bridges actually hits his threes now. Now, Diabate is again going to be the question mark because while he did get some sizable minutes, he didn’t do enough to make me say, “Oh, yeah, he is your solution at the center spot. He’s he’s the guy that you can rely on heavily.” And again, the young man from Kraton, while I do think he has the opportunity, I want to say he averaged, I’ll tell you right now, actually, cuz I had his Kraton numbers. Yep, I got it right here. 19.2 2 points per game, 8.7 rebounds, 1.5 assists, 2.7 blocks in 34 minutes a night. So, he can be reliable, but he doesn’t really have the size that I think is necessary to bang with a lot of bigger guys in this league. I would like to see him show his his opportunities. And maybe he showcases something crazy. And if that happens, I’m all here for it. Don’t don’t let me sit here and say I’m selling somebody short and I don’t want them to be good because I would like for anybody to blow out and to pop out and just show us something that we were not expecting because that’s what we really need. But overall, we need health above all else. Now, going back to the topic at hand, Josh Green last year, right? The only person more healthy than Miles Bridges was Josh Green. Now, listen to these numbers. In 68 games, he started 67, right? 27 and a half minutes a night, almost 28. 7.4 points, 2.5 rebounds, 1.6 assists, 1.1 steals,2 blocks. He shot 6.2 field goals a night. 42.8% shooting. The only good part about his game was the three-pointers. 3.6 of those 6.2 attempts, so slightly north of like what was that? 58% of his shot attempts probably were from beyond the arc. And there were 39.1% shooting. there just wasn’t a lot going on there. Defensively, he wasn’t as great as I was hoping he would be individually. Now, overall, if you’re on a team that is suffering a lot of injuries, overall, you’re going to be a bad defensive team. So, I don’t like when some people say, “Oh, well, yeah, he might have been a good defender, but was he really a good defender if the team was really that bad defensively?” It’s like, yes, it can be a thing. Luca is a notoriously bad defender in the playoffs. I think he’s going to be better this year because he lost a lot of weight. But overall, he’s been a notoriously bad defender in the playoffs, but the rest of the people around him were competent enough to carry him and kind of mask his deficiencies on that side of the ball. If you don’t have a lot of guys that can mask deficiencies, in fact, they are the deficiencies. You being good isn’t going to be enough to cover from for three guys being bad. That’s that’s just not how math works. That’s not the type of fraction you want to deal with. Now, Josh Green overall didn’t do enough with the ball in his hands. He Now, some of it was scheme a little bit, but I refuse to believe that you’re one of the only healthy pieces. You are one of the only consistent reliable people to be on the court night in night out. Again, 68 games of action, the most of any player. Actually, the the next closest was Miles Bridges, and there was two guys that played 60 games, granted, not on as many minutes a night. So, you played in 68 games, but you only managed to get 28 minutes of action and you only managed to acquire six slightly north of six field goal attempts tonight. There’s question marks there because to me that doesn’t concretely seal you as a three for my team. Especially if I have Colin Kiple coming out of summer league and he’s feeling himself. He’s confident now. He knows his shots falling. He’s going to out he’s willing to outplay you. He wants to outplay you, dare I say, as he should. He was the highest drafted person on the roster coming in from this year’s draft, right? He’s a top five pick. He knows he’s a top five pick. He’s getting paid like a top five pick. He sees you, he look he pulls up his phone, he looks up your stats, he says, “Oh, okay.” And that’s that’s the end of the thought. He doesn’t think, “Oh man, it’s going to be tough to steal his minutes.” I think he thinks he can take those. And if you do have if if like I said if Khan Saxon doesn’t start and you go with the five of ball Miller then you go green at the three green’s minutes can be very easily taken. Colip just needs probably a 10ame sample size. Honestly if if the thought process for the Hornets is yeah Josh Green can start at the beginning of the season. I would question more things because I think that the impact of Josh Green versus Colin Ston in the starting lineup is night and day. Just slide Miller down to the three, put Colin Ston in at the two, LaMelo Ball at the one, right? But let’s say you don’t want to sacrifice for length. We love the length that we have. So that’s why we kind of lean Josh Green. Okay, fair argument. If Colin Canpple continues this play into the preseason and he looks good, Colin Canpple is your day one starter at the small forward spot. I’d be hardressed to think anything else. Josh Green would have to outplay Colin Canpple and I don’t think that he will. Judging by the fact of the the sheer volume of numbers and what I watched on tape last year, I don’t think that he has that that oomph in his game to make him want to do that or to desire to do that. And I could be wrong. He could come out the game and he could he could come out the gate and start dropping 15. He could. I just don’t think it’s likely. I think Colin Kppel is more likely to do that off off the bench. And if they do, you know, say, “Oh, you he still has to earn his stripes, right? Yes, you won something in the summer league, but that’s summer league, dude. Yeah, you played well in the preseason, but it’s the preseason, dude. We need to see something in the regular season.” and he comes out and you have a 10 you have a 7 to 12 game stretch where Colin Canpple is more efficient, equally competent defensively and by proxy scores more points than Josh Green. Josh Green seeing the bench. He’s going to be sitting on a nice pad. And again, he’s still going to be sizable and workable into the rotation, but I don’t think that you should intentionally play somebody who’s obviously weaker in a starting role if you can go stronger or if you have more combinations that you could test out that might warrant better that that might create better statistics, respectfully. Of course, don’t take that as me hating Josh Green. I don’t hate Josh Green. I just think that he didn’t do as much as he should have or as a quite a few other players that I think of in his same scenario would do. And part of the reason why I I another thing that I want to touch on that really rubs me the wrong way about his numbers overall and why I still partially blame it on this game is because you had LaMelo Ball for only half the season. I don’t know if they played the same games off the top of my head, but let’s just say for the sake of argument, out of your 68 games of action, LaMelo played 47 of those games, right? So, 21 games of your season, 21 Yeah. 21 games of your season, you played without your star point guard. Let’s say you also shared the games that Brandon Miller played. Brandon Miller only played 27 games. He was taking about 17, what’ I say, 17 shot attempts a night. So 17 shot attempts disappeared after almost 30 games. And then you had other guys that started picking up all the shot attempts and you didn’t get any. That’s not questionable at all. You don’t you don’t scratch your head at that. You’re not perplexed. Do you view yourself as just a 3 and D guy? Because maybe you do, right? But you could be 3 and D off the bench if if you’re not going to give me 3 and D numbers in double figures as a starter even on an extremely hampered team where most of the ball dominant players end up getting injured. You’re a bench player. You’re you’re a role play. Excuse me. You’re not a bench player, right? Bench when I say bench player, a lot of people think ninth, 10th, 11th guy on the bench. I’m thinking or no, 10th, 11th guy on the bench because usually most rosters go like eight, nine guys deep. I’m thinking you’re seven. You’re the second guy off the bench or the third in in this case under the assumption that you know Canelo starts and Colin Son’s off the bench and Trey man’s off the bench. You’re the eighth guy and that’s fine because we need quality guys. We just watched the Pacers go to the finals and in my opinion they didn’t have a top 15 player. Now maybe you say Pascal Seakum and Tyresese Hallebertton are borderline top 15, right? One of the one of them. I’m I’m not going to entertain both of them. You could say one of them, right? Is borderline a top 15 guy. They still don’t make it that far without the culmination of guys being number one on the depth chart all the way through number nine borderline almost 10 all being guys that you could put on other people’s rosters and they would still be able to fill that niche role that they filled on the Pacers. If the Hornets have that and they do have a buttload of talent, I think that we’ll see something very very interesting. And I think I I said all that stuff in this video to basically say I think that the Hornets are a playin team if healthy. I think that the the height that I would entertain for them is seven seed in the East. Now, I might toy with that that statement a little bit later on. Don’t hold me to it. That’s not concrete. It’s wet cement, right? Because again, like I said, injuries are number one. Miles Bridges shooting is right in there. The development of Brandon Miller and his health. Um, and then how they use Colin Ston and how the center situation fills out. the center situation will determine a lot because if you miss a lot and you don’t get a lot of rebounds, well, it’s going to get ugly really really quickly. But if he rebound, if your re front court can rebound just enough or you miss just an just few enough shots, you’re having a different kind of conversation. But again, you know, I do all this and I I definitely overtalked as far as I did. I apologize. Most videos will not be nearly this long. usually will try and be in the 26 to 34 minute range because I want you to be able to put something on in the background while you’re just doing whatever you’re doing in life. Um, or just watch this whenever you’re bored. That’s the the basic thought process. But I made this one this long just so I could give a lot more thoughts that I have because I usually will drop one maybe two videos a week about whatever team I’m covering. Um, but yeah, um, it’s also heavily based on the thoughts that you guys give me in the comments below that may also either change my mind or make me think about things in a different way. I’m always interested to hear what you have to say and what you may think. Let me know what the starting five you think will be at the beginning of the season. And if you think it will change, what do you think it will change into around mid-season or late season? And also give me a healthy give me a healthy like if the roster stays healthy everybody plays everybody that’s supposed to be a starter or play heavy rotation minutes plays 65 games right tell me what you think the Hornets will be from a standing standpoint where do you think they’ll place in the Eastern Conference and then what do you think they’ll be what what is the over under for their wins and losses? But with that being said, I appreciate you if you made it this far. I do it for you. Go ahead and smash that like button, subscribe, turn on post notifications, become a member of the channel to help support the content. And as always, good morning, good evening, and good night, no matter where you’re in the globe watching. Thanks for tuning in, and I’ll catch you guys in the next one. Peace. [Music]

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In this video we discuss the next step forward that is expected from the Charlotte Hornets.

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