What Lineups Will The CHARLOTTE HORNETS Run

What Lineups Will The CHARLOTTE HORNETS Run

All right, so today we have a decently sized mailbag for the Charlotte Hornets, but not too much to really break up and make a long drawn out video. I promise I won’t go as far as that 45 minutes that I did last time. But I do have a little bit of perspective to add to things as I try to. Um, as always, we’re going to start most likely, well, we can really just jump right into it, but I’m probably going to start with a little talk about Grant Williams and his health because it seems like it’s going to be a minute for him. Uh, the Hornets losing their summer league head coach, which isn’t a crazy loss, but nevertheless, I kind of wanted him on that staff. Uh, Kim Walker’s officially on the list as a coach for player enhancement, I believe. So, that’s actually really nice. I know he was around the room and everything and he even did workouts with Khan Canppel uh during the pre-draft process. So, that was, you know, enjoyable to watch and whatnot and actually find out about. But overall, this is going to be more of the video where I talk more about the lineups that I expect him to have. And I saw the Hornets side of Sports Illustrated come up with a lineup and a minute distribution, which I found to not be too far off from my own expectations. though obviously everybody has their own opinions and I have mine. For the most part, it wasn’t as egregious as I was expecting them to make it. So, we’re going to review that amongst the other things. And I think we had a couple mailback questions. So, I’ll check in the comment section of the previous video to see if there’s anything that we can really touch on from there. But without any further ado, let’s go ahead and jump right into it. So, Grant Williams, right, I believe it was last December tore that ACL. He hasn’t started contact drills. He is doing some court work though. He is on the court doing some little things and little drills here, there, and everywhere in between, but he hasn’t gotten to the point where he can take any sort of contact or play. He’s he’s I don’t want to say light years, but he’s a decent bit away from five on fives and 3v3s. So that leads me to believe that it’s probably going to be around maybe late December, early January before we see sign a significant uptick in his grading as far as from a medical perspective. That’s not necessarily going to be the most egregious thing for the Hornets because again, this is going to be another year of learning. I do think they’re going to take a step forward. I don’t remember if I said it in the last video, but if I didn’t, I’ll say it this time. I do think they can make a run for the play. The East is obviously weaker than the West. And not weaker in the sense of they just have less good teams, but overall I think that the league, not too much of a side tangent, but a little bit of a side tangent. I think the league needs more teams because we’re seeing a lot of teams, especially in the West, they’re very, very deep, very, very strong, very, very compact, and there’s just a lot of guys that can do a lot of things. And some guys aren’t going to get their opportunities to be as good as they potentially could be career-wise in their current situations. And one could argue that you’re being robbed of some very interesting storylines if you do add some more teams to the flow. Now, obviously, the last time they did that was uh I mean with the late 90s or mid mid late 90s. So, you know, there was the whole discrepancy and that’s why a lot of people that’s one of the main things that a lot of people bring up about, you know, Jordan’s dominance during that era. Regardless, he was an athlete that was a man amongst boys even back then with his athleticism specifically. But one cannot rule out the fact that he arguably had the deepest team uh to speak of for a consistent amount of time. And it was also during an expansion era. So the one thing to keep in mind is that with an expansion era comes the you know uh reverent asterisk behind everything about well you know the league was weaker then because you had more talent spread out. And I think this is the the heaviest, the deepest the league has ever seen the talent pool be. And because of that, it’s about time to go ahead. You know, they love money so much. Just just make a couple more teams, dude. Uh at least two. I would love to see four. I’m not going to say six, even though I could see six. I I kind of want ticket prices to go down and I know they won’t, but I miss the days where, you know, you could go watch your your team play and it wouldn’t cost you an arm and a leg in a week’s pay uh to take a family of four to watch your team get clapped by 30. I mean, I I just don’t think that’s crazy. I I don’t think that’s a crazy ask, but you know, as the CBA deals continue to get, you know, redone and all these expenses and advertising and everything, those come with a understandable price and the league is willing to find a way to boost that bottom line by any means necessary and it comes at the expense of tickets. Hopefully there’s some more interesting deals though, but you know, hasn’t happened yet. Now, with that being said, just, you know, that’s the end of my little rant uh in regards to that. Going back to top to to the main topic at hand. Uh Chris Jen was the name of the summer league coach that was the head coach during their run to the you know championship and winning it and it being the first thing of note that I guess you could say they’ve won uh since the Hornets and Bobcats were a thing which you know still kind of sucks but it was a step in the right direction. However, he has been poached by the New York Knicks. I believe he is actually the associate head coach. So, I’m sure we were going to offer him something on the staff, but it wasn’t going to touch it. It it probably wasn’t going to be the associate head coach role. So, because he got offered that, the money, the status, the notoriety that comes with that, building onto his resume, and I believe he played for them back in like 97, 98, 96, somewhere in that range. He didn’t really play much. Uh that’s why I can’t pinpoint the years, but I I know for a fact that he was on the Knicks at one point when like back in the day. So, this is kind of a homecoming for him. But, you know, it’s just nice to see him be successful. Unfortunately, it would have been nice to have him on the team, you know, with the guys that he just led to get their first taste of winning because then there’s a little bit more continuity once they get into that locker room, once they start going through those reps and start going through some serious growing pains because they are going to exist. It’s just a part of the battle. You can’t escape it, especially when you’re the Charlotte Hornets. The two topics that I do definitely remember from the comment section. Uh, one being the concerns at the fiveman position, which I also myself have some pretty serious concerns when it comes to the Hornets in that way. Yes, you know, you have Moose Diabate, you have uh Ryan Caulk Brener, and you have I believe it’s Mason Plumbley that they brought back. So, they do have some bodies, but each of those bodies has their own presented issues. The person that will most likely play in closing lineups obviously is going to be Mason Plumbley. Uh, Diabate, yes, he screens well. Yes, he rolls to the rim well, but that’s really all he does. He’s not necessarily the passing hub that Mason Plumbley is, and we know he doesn’t have a jumper. Uh, and he’s undersized, so defensively it doesn’t really make sense to play him in those situations. though he does have some tremendous upside that could be unlocked as time goes on. He’s not quite there yet. However, I do think they are going to start the season with him as the starter. Now, out of all the starters, he’s probably going to play the least amount of minutes. That just makes the most sense. And we’re going to see the least amount of minutes out of the fiveman position played by obviously Ryan Culbrunner because while he does have some upside, he still has to put on some weight. Um there’s a lot of growth for him to do and overall I would say physically he has more issues than the other two when it comes to things though he does have the height that you know Diabate doesn’t have. Diabate’s frame is a lot more reliable and a lot more consistent than his. Some people were suggesting potential trades or things of that nature and I don’t know anybody that really pops into my head as a person they could definitely go after. So, this may be the season where they just kind of thug it out and try and see what opportunities are available. Of course, you know, in free agency and in the trade market, but for the most part, they might have to just walk the plank and live with, you know, what’s what’s available to them and what’s currently at their disposal, which isn’t going to be terrible because they have a very bolstered front or back court at this point. And if everybody can remain healthy or be healthy for the most part, it can kind of mitigate some of those issues. Which kind of drags me into the caveat that is the second question that was or the second topic of discussion, which was LaMelo Ball being off ball. And I really like that take. I cannot remember off the top of my head who said it, but kudos to you for bringing that one up. I forgot to talk about it last time. But his ability to shoot three ball is really, really good. His selection of three-pointers is the question mark. And the fact that we didn’t really have much playmaking to offset and allow him to get more quality looks was also a glaring issue in the, you know, less than reasonable amount of games that he played last year because obviously he’s also injury proon. That’s the number one issue. So, by adding in Colin Ston, and I think while Colin Kipple won’t have a lion share of uh ball dominant moments, I think that he can share a little bit of the burden. He’s going to have some growing growing pains, growing moments. And then you have another year of Brandon Miller who’s going to be healthy and able to step into that role and be more of a leader. Though, I think he’s going to play a lot more time at the small forward spot and allow Con to play at that two guard spot alongside LaMelo. Um, and then you’ll have Miles Bridges at the four and like I said, Diabate at the five in the starting lineup. Could I see Colin Ston and Kppel, you know, just alternating between who starts and who doesn’t? Yes. But I think that it would be more reasonable to see Conpple play like 26ish, maybe even 28 minutes. Uh, I don’t think he’s going to play 30 minutes on a consistent basis, but I do think like mid to high 20s is going to be a really big thing for him. and he’s going to play those against starting caliber guys. So, he’s probably gonna get his tail whipped, especially at the beginning of the season. But when he, you know, gets switched over to the bench, you’re gonna have Trey Man. You’re gonna have Conlex coming off that bench. So, arguably, well, not arguably, they are both better scorers than him at this current point. And Conseen is obviously significantly the most efficient person on this team shooting the ball. So they’re going to be feasting on guys that are second unit and occasionally even against the first unit guys they’re going to get off conx and I know can play as a starter perfectly fine without issue. He he does this but I think that it’s going to be important for Kanpple to get those starter reps and play the majority of his minutes against starters because he needs that level of experience. If you play him against bench guys and play him for more minutes, yes, he can also grow, but the experience you you view him as a potential starting core piece of your roster. He may not be the lamelo ball to you, right? But you could talk you should be able to eventually talk about him in the same breath that you talk about Brandon Miller’s promise. And in order for that to happen, he needs to have a lot of experience against real dogs, against real grown men. And like I said, he’s going to have some growing pains. He’s going to get busted and beat and he’s not going to get certain foul calls. He’s going to get stripped. He’s going to get made to look like a fool a lot of games. He’s going to have some really ugly shooting nights. But this is the perfect time to do it because you have the veterans around you now and you have the other guys on your team that can shoot the rock fairly well. And since everybody’s all in it together now and hopefully can stay healthy, you know, big asterisk there because last season, you know, as much as Charles Lee tried to do as a rookie head coach and understanding that, you know, maybe playoffs weren’t necessarily the expectation, but you were supposed to show promise and uh the injuries just prevented a lot of that from happening. So, he was throwing he was just throwing darts at a wall hoping one of them landed and some of them did, some of them didn’t. There was a lot of stuff going on and the injury bug spared nobody. Usually we just talk about LaMelo. Everybody caught it. So I think that it’s going to be interesting to see how the minutes distribution is and we’ll get a little bit deeper into the woods on that one. But I think LaMelo being able to play off ball because of the competency of his fellow players will be a big one. I think Colin Ston’s ability to be a competent playmaker will bode the uh biggest it will pose the biggest difference to the shot selection that LaMelo Ball takes. If memory serves me right, at some point really late in the season when the majority of his games were just, you know, played for for what it was, uh he was shooting roughly 38 and a half% from three on catch and shoot attempts. However, on the off the dribble, you know, off the bounce type three-pointers, he was shooting like low 33. Like it might have been borderline 32 32.9 like it was probably like 33.2 33.1% I believe memory serves me right. And overall in the season he shot probably right there at that I believe I said last time it was around 35% 34 high 34 low 35%. So right there at league average probably. But when you’re taking, you know, 11 threes a night, well, you need some more efficiency on those ones. Even if you’re the star player, we got to have some consistency and a guarantee of what we can what we know we can get out of you so we know what we can expect and require of the other guys on the roster. Now, when it comes to LaMelo Ball and if we can get him to put that 38% on steroids, I have no issue with him taking double-digit threes per se because I know he can shoot threes, even though his percentage doesn’t really tell the full story because again, a lot of them were, you know, off the dribble because he didn’t really have a lot of assistance when it comes to being the commander of the offense and being the playmaker last season in particular. I think that it makes the most sense that when you add more playmakers and you’re healthy uh as a as a unit, he will have the opportunity to number one get off more offball movement, kind of relax a little bit on offense so he can be a little bit more overexertive on defense. He’s also going to be able to make the extra pass instead of being the guy that has to create something out of nothing. And of course, if he’s able to relax just a little bit more when the shot clock winds down and Colin says, “You know what? I don’t really feel comfortable where I’m at right now. Yo, where’s LaMelo at? Give him the ball and let him let him have, you know, the last seven, six seconds on the shot clock to h just have have fun, you know, cuz that’s what he loves to do anyways. He’s a creative player and I think that overall him having somebody that can kind of direct traffic a lot more and take a lot of that strain off of him and in turn his body and in turn prevent him from being injured at the very least. Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully. My prediction, LaMelo Ball over 62 games. I’m not going to say 70. I’m not even going to say 65. I’m going to say LaMelo Ball over 62 games this season. I think there’s some backtobacks that he’s going to sit out. I think there’s going to be a stretch where he does get hampered a little bit uh with a lower body extremity in injury. It might even be a wrist injury or something like that, honestly. But, I do see him missing a little bit of time this year. But I think it’s going to be a year where we look at him and we say, “Hold on now.” Like, we know he’s good. We know he can be great at times. But we’re seeing a level of maturity, a level of poise, and a level of uh just competency that we haven’t seen from him on such a consistent basis before. And for that reason, you’re he’s going to have a lot more believers. Not that he doesn’t already have a decent bit of believers, but it’s a lot easier when you have a lot more numbers and particularly in the efficiency category to back up, you know, what you do. And then also just being healthy, being available. They say the best ability is availability. And while I don’t entirely agree with that, in his case, I kind of do because availability has been his worst nightmare. But like I said, I think that him being able to be off the ball, him being able to just run different actions and enjoy more of a Curry role because, you know, when he was coming up and he was in the NBA and all that sort of stuff, his dad was talking about how all how Lonzo first was better than Stephen Curry and then he was talking about how LaMelo was going to be even better than Lonzo because he’s the he has the opportunity to soak up what all his what all his older brothers enjoyed and experienced and now he gets to be it himself and he’s the the best shooter and thing this that and third. So I think that if you can get you it doesn’t need to be Warriors entirely, but if we can get some sort of movement where you see LaMelo just using that energy to just run around that he always does with the ball in his hands but without the ball in his hands and get some nice screen action going. You might see another gear unlocked that doesn’t burn him out as much as it did as much as other possessions did. Like imagine he just runs through he runs through a pin down gets over to the wing. Swing swing he catches on the wing. He doesn’t like that immediate that immediate shot. Pump fake one dribble side step. He pulls that three. That’s a shot he love he would love to have cuz at at his height, it’s going to be there. It’s going to be available. And if he has the opportunity to not be the main emphasis of the play 247, he’s definitely going to enjoy that because he’s going to be the main person that benefits from somebody else taking the pressure off. And yes, like I said, you’re going to have opportunities where Aon Canppel is going to have command of the offense. It’s going to be not a large number of times and it’s going to be potentially few and far in between, but it will happen, right? And even in those moments, I think that Lamelo will benefit from that. A healthy Brandon Miller again will also make him will also make things easier on him. Uh, I would like to see them take less of a more of a your turn, my turn approach and see more of an intentional offensive set that they get into and then when things break down, we see a little bit more of a fluid movement between teammates. If we can get that, we’ll see a different version of the Hornets that has not been seen yet. And because the efficiency will go up by proxy, of course, you won’t have to worry too much about the offensive rebounding category or just rebounding in general when you have Diabate on the floor. Not to say that he’s a terrible rebounder, but he is undersized. And at some point, if you play him, if you’re forced to play him significant minutes of the game, say uh Mason Plumbley experiences a lot of fouls or uh somebody’s out with injury, whe whether it be Plumbley, whether it be Cogunner, uh somebody’s down with injury or somebody’s hampered, right? You’re going to have to find ways to win games. And the best way to alleviate that stress on your big man that isn’t quite there yet is to not force him to do a lot of the things that he struggles with doing or that he’s just going to get beat up in the process of doing. And the first thing is going to be hitting your shots. Right? If you don’t hit your shots, your big man is going to experience a tremendous amount of stress, not just mentally, but also physically because he’s forced to bang down there. It doesn’t matter how good you are, how bad you are, how how oversized or undersized, how much how athletic you are, how unathletic you are, the the strain is going to be increased when your teammates aren’t hitting shots. And obviously, if you have a larger frame and obviously if you are taller, you can kind of bang down there a little bit more. You can absorb you can absorb, excuse me, a little bit more of that punishment in for the betterment of your team just enough to really get you guys in a position to be winners and stay in games. But across the board, it might not be the most easily sustained style of play. And once you realize that, well, you try to find other avenues of success. And I think off ball will allow not just the offense to be more efficient, not just allow his scoring to be more efficient, but also allow for a little bit of stress to be taken off of the bigs that are already going to be stretched thin. Because calling a spade a spade, you would love that would be if you could upgrade any position on the Hornets right now, this very moment. Center is that position. So, just food for thought, something uh to keep an eye on. Um, but I did want to talk about that at length and perhaps I’ll do a little bit more looking into numbers, particularly when the preseason starts. I am interested because obviously preseason schedules are dropping. The Hornets I don’t believe have any notable like uh you know Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s type games if memory serves me right, which I kind of like. I know some people would hope that they would be in it, but for me I don’t think that they need to be thrust in front of everybody everybody’s eyes just yet. There’s a few more kinks and and just just issues that need to be ironed out from the team and they need to lock down their identity and lock down their health before I feel comfortable saying, “Oh yeah, they deserve to be in those games. They’re not just up and coming. Darn it, they might just be here already.” But when that time comes, I do definitely believe that the league will reward them uh reasonably. Now, on to the last part. And we’re actually making a great time thus far. Crazy, I know. But, uh, we have the starters and just the overall rotation, uh, as stated by the Hornets team for Sports Illustrated. Now, usually I don’t love their articles, but this one, this one wasn’t too bad, you know. Uh, starters, they obviously had LaMelo, Conn, uh, Brandon Miller, Miles Bridges, and then Musa Diabate. They had LaMelo at 31 minutes, Con at 22 minutes, Miller at 31, Bridges at 33, and Diabate at 23. Um, this isn’t too crazy of an ask. I could see LaMelo playing closer to 33 minutes. Con, I think, is also going to be mid 20s. I don’t think he’s going to be 22. I think he’s going to be closer to that 24 to 28 range. maybe closer to 26, but I don’t see like him I don’t think there’s going to be too many games where he plays like a flat 20 or a a low 20. I think it’s going to be mid 20s for the most part. As far as Brandon Miller, 31 minutes seems a little bit low, but I could see it working out that way. I think he’s going to be closer to 34 though, similar to LaMelo. I think Miles Bridges at 33 minutes is going to be interesting considering the fact that with Grant Williams actually, you know, still being out with injury. Uh I think that he might be the person that sees a little bit of a higher burden at that four spot. Uh but Diabate at 23 minutes does make sense to me considering the fact that they do have a lot of guys to lean on reserves wise. Um, off the bench they said Trey man at 19 minutes, Colin Son at just 24 minutes, which I found to be a little bit interesting. Uh, we we can discuss that at a later date. Um, Josh Green, they said at 17 minutes. I don’t know if he’s going to be ready to go uh day one though. Um, I heard he was being hampered by a upper body injury. I think it’s like shoulder or arm or something like that. If he is ready to go then, you know, I could see him, you know, with that 17 minutes. If not, uh, you know, somebody will end up sliding into those spots. Uh, they have Salon sliding in at that three spot or excuse me, uh, at somewhere in that three to four spot actually they said, uh, with about 15 minutes a night. Then you have Plumbley and Caulk Brener. Plumbley with 17 minutes, Caulk Brener with eight minutes. I think K burner is going to get closer to 10 minutes, but I think it might average out to eight just because there’s going to be some games where he like barely comes in and then some games where he plays like 14 minutes because whether it be foul trouble or just matchups. I think Charles Lee is going to be the kind of guy to put guys into a position to just, you know, throw bodies at some teams just to see what they respond to, who who performs the best, who kind of doesn’t really take well to whatever is necessary in the moment. and just honestly how matchups dictate you’re required to play. Now, they said Josh Green is going to be down there with Brandon Miller at the three spot uh for small forward Salon with Miles Bridges at the four, which Salon at the four, I don’t know how I feel about that. Um I have to see it to really gauge how that looks with a healthy, you know, with a healthy roster. Um, and then obviously, uh, Liam McNeely could end up sliding into that small forward spot. He was the one, uh, at for Josh Green’s minutes if he’s not ready to go at the beginning of the season. Now, Caulk Bunner, I think, is going to have the opportunity to earn some more minutes. Uh, I don’t think Diabate is going to relinquish the starting role, though. I think there could be some nights where Mason Plumbley just takes, you know, the lead on that. And if there’s any injuries, then obviously that’ll shake things up. But for the most part, I think that he’ll remain that number one guy. However, in closing lineups, they had LaMelo at the one, Conseen at the two, Brandon Miller at the three, Miles Bridges at the four, and Mason Plumbley at the five. And that was exactly actually the lineup that I was expecting to see. It’s going to be the most efficient. It’s going to allow LaMelo to both be on ball and offball. You’re going to have three on ball creators, Brandon Miller, LaMelo Ball, and Colin Ston. Colin Sixon obviously being the present most efficient guy and the most tested veteran um on this roster uh competencywise and I think that he will allow LaMelo and Brandon Miller to really take that next step as offball players and just as you know growing individuals in this league because they do have a significant amount of learning still to do. Miles Bridges is going to be the interesting wild card kind of piece. I already talked about Mason Plumbley, but last year I believe he only ended up shooting roughly 31.2% from three-point range, which can’t happen a second year in a row. Now, part of it again is because there was a lot of significant injuries to guys that usually will be taking those shots, but he ended up taking like seven attempts and shot that. So, at what point do you recognize, hey, I’m settling. Let me not do that. But at the same time, again, he’s getting banged and he’s getting almost said manhandled. He’s he’s struggling down low. Yep. He’s he’s having to do a lot of the dirty work on defense. He has to be switchable. He has to be able to guard on the perimeter. He has to be able to to a certain point assist in the paint because we don’t really have a lot of, you know, rim protection on this roster. Um, and then you also had significant injuries to your two main uh, guards in both Brandon Miller and LaMelo Ball last year. So, it stands to reason that he was probably just dog tired. He was worn out, dude. So, I can’t really fault him too much for that because it just makes sense. That said, though, with more playmaking comes easier shots for you catching shooters. And I believe that as long as everybody stays healthy, he will have a lot more opportunities to take easy close to butt naked open and if not, you know, lightly contested three-pointers that are of high quality shot selection off the hands of a Colin Ston pass or LaMelo ball pass or a, you know, descending upward Colin Canpple or even Brandon Miller. Heck, maybe even Trey Mann decides not to be the scoring punch that he always is and relinquishes some of that. Now, I don’t think he’s gonna have to because he will probably share the court mostly with Colin Ston, but nevertheless, hey, who’s to say? But again, the most important things again to take away from this video, LaMelo offball, something to pay attention to. Can I just shoot three-pointers? Something to really pay attention to, especially not just for LaMelo, but for the team as a whole because of the increase in playmaking that’s been added to the roster. Thirdly, do we add a center? And if you currently while watching this video have a center in mind that you think that they could potentially trade with or trade for, or do you think there’s somebody that’s going to be coming up whether it be in college or will be available next offseason that you think they should gun for or potentially would gun for? Go ahead and drop that in the comments below. Let me know what your starting lineups look like and what your bench looks like. I know I saw a couple of starting lineups before, but you know what? Take it a step further. Tell me what your minutes distributions are. It’s fine if you have Connele coming off the bench or you have both Con and, you know, Brandon Miller alternating spots. Just let me know where you have guys at and let me know the minutes that you think most guys are going to be ballpark playing in. It doesn’t have to be a specific mark, but give me a little range. I want to see how health is going to play into a lot of these conversations as well as just the sheer depth of players that we have because I didn’t even touch base on the the likes of Spencer Diddwinny and you know so on and so forth because there are some extra pieces down there that will get a couple minutes here there and everywhere in between but for the most part it’s going to take fouls it’s going to take uh injuries and so they’re not going to be a heavy part of the rotation at the very least early on in the season. That said, I appreciate you if you made it this far. Go and smash that like button, subscribe, turn on post notifications, become a member of the channel to get the videos faster than anybody else. And as always, drop any questions for next week’s video in the comments below as well. I forgot to say that. But with that being said, 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.

Subscribe to the channel for more NBA Content!!!

In this video we discuss the holes and strengths of the Charlotte Hornets roster as well as the likely rotation for the season.

Socials:
Instagram: instagram.com/colewra1th
Twitter: twitter.com/colewraith

#nba #lameloball #charlottehornets