Predicting which Hornets will IMPROVE or REGRESS | OKC Thunder Preseason Preview!

Predicting which Hornets will IMPROVE or REGRESS | OKC Thunder Preseason Preview!

Coming up today on Locked on Hornets, who will perform better and who will perform worse on the Charlotte Hornets this upcoming season. We are mere hours away from preseason action for the Charlotte Hornets and I’ve got some serious questions that I want answered before the season starts. And we’ll have a full game preview against the Oklahoma City Thunder coming up today on Locked on Hornets. You are Locked on Hornets, your daily Charlotte Hornets podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. In a minute, cuz we live. [Music] Welcome in. Welcome in. Welcome in. This is Locked On Hornets. We are part of the Locked On Network, your team every day. Thanks so much for listening. We’ve got a lot to get to as we approach the first preseason game on Sunday night. Five 6 pm Eastern tip off against the Oklahoma City Thunder. This game not taking place in Charlotte. Uh I’ll tell you why coming up because we will preview the game later in the show. I say we, but I really mean me because I’m Doug Branson and I write for Every Hornets box score. I also produce help produce the Yahoo Sports Daily Show on Yahoo Sports. I’m typically joined by Walker Mail who is on WFNC in Charlotte, the Wesson and Walker Show 12 to3. He has the day off uh really the weekend off. Um I’m doing a weekend edition here in anticipation of the preseason game. So I got a few topics I want to get into. Who will perform better and who will perform worse than they did last season? And then what questions I want answered during this preseason campaign. So, let’s start off with who will perform better and who will perform worse this upcoming season. I really struggle to oversell how much room for improvement there is with the Charlotte Hornets. And you may say to yourself, well, duh. Nice job, Captain Obvious. They won 19 games, and on a 19- win team, of course, there’s going to be plenty of room for improvement up and down the roster. But I think even on bad teams in the NBA, even rock bottom teams, there are a few little diamonds in the rough that you can look at and say, “Well, all right, like that’s, you know, bad season, a tough season for a lot of different reasons, but we have something to build on.” And I think the Hornets certainly they have they have star potential on which to build upon, but all of those stars struggled particularly when it came to the offensive end of the floor and being efficient at the offensive end of the floor uh last season and and obviously they they struggled defensively as well. They really they could not stop anyone and they could not score in the half court. They could not score um in transition. So, let’s Well, first of all, I just want to say this, like when you go to cleaning the glass and you look at points per shot attempt, a decent measure of someone’s offensive efficiency, there were only five, one, two, three, four, five players for the Charlotte Hornets that had an average or above average points per shot attempt relative to their position. Okay, those players were Seth Curry, no longer with the team. He’s a Golden State Warrior now. Mark Williams, no longer with the team. He’s now a Phoenix Sun. Nick Richards, no longer with the team, also a Phoenix Sun. Everybody’s going out west. Wendell Moore Jr., not on the team anymore. Not sure where he is. And then the last one, Walker’s favorite, probably yours too. Mine too, spiritually. Musa Diabate who was not above average for points per shot attempt but he was average at 119.2 too. Uh, average among bigs, you know, and if you say, well, he’s a little bit of a smaller big, maybe he should be more ranked in the more in the forwards, then I think that number in terms of relative to his position, you know, 50th percentile, he’s probably a little bit even above average. Musa Diaate, that’s it. LaMelo Ball was in the 45th percentile. Greg Williams 44. Josh Green 44. Trey man 44. Brandon Miller 34. Ysef Nurkish no longer on the team. Miles Bridges 32nd in points per shot attempt relative to forwards. Nick Smith Jr. 18 no longer with the team. D Tan Salon. KJ Simpson both fourth percentile and sixth percentile. KJ Simpson six. Tan Salon fourth. Ouchie. Uh the good news is that Colin Ston, their their recent addition was actually like in the 70th or 80th percentile offensively in terms of points per shot attempt. Um and so you know like the story of the Hornets last season, a lot of that story was guys that were getting high usage just couldn’t put the ball in the cup for a lot of different reasons and uh so they struggled offensively and couldn’t stop anyone. That’s a good recipe for 19 wins. So now I’ve set the table back to my question, who is going to perform better and who’s going to perform worse? I mean, I struggle to find anyone uh really that I wouldn’t say, man, that that guy could probably play a little bit better. Um maybe Musa Diabate, you could say it depending on what he tried to skill up. It seems like he did not seems like he was practicing his three-point shot a little bit, but I don’t think anyone is going to be like surprised if he doesn’t really take a single three. You know, I think it’s one of those things he’s skilling up over time, maybe never comes. Um, so, you know, can he be effective enough in whatever minutes he gets, you know, and has he skilled up a little bit toward, you know, closer to the basket because he struggled there, too. Um, so, you know, maybe maybe there is a little bit of room for improvement, but you’re looking so much on the defensive end of the floor there. Um, has and that’s certainly there’s there’s a ton of room to improve for all these guys defensively. So maybe Musa does just contribute a bit a little bit more on rebounding. Playmaking is a big area that he can improve in. Only 15th percentile in terms of assist percentage. That would be great. Like Musa would be even without the three-point shot. Like if if he can catch off the roll and send it cleanly to the corner for three-point shots for Trey Man three-point shots. Like that makes him so much more effective if he’s skilled up in that area. So there there’s the room for improvement, but LaMelo Ball, you know, he’s got to get more efficient. His his assist percentage was great. His defense uh was not great. He was one of like, if you just look at the range between how well someone performed offensively and how poorly someone performed defensively, I’m not sure you could find a player that was farther apart. I use um X RAPM to make a lot of these kind of like how good were they on offense, how good or bad were they on defense and uh LaMelo Ball was towards the bottom of the league in defense specifically. He was fourth percentile in defensive impact. Okay, so that’s bad. You’re fourth percentile. There’s only a few people between you and the very bottom. And funny enough, he’s joined. Right next to him is Colin Ston, who was right on the border between fourth and third percentile. And both of those guys really effective offensively. LaMelo 98th percentile, meaning there were only a few players more impactful on the offensive end of the floor than LaMelo Ball. Uh, and then Colin Saxon 90th percentile. So, you know, will they will either of those guys cuz wouldn’t maybe you wouldn’t. I I would take like 90th percentile LaMelo Ball offensively because look, to be an all-star in this league, you’ve got to be super effective at the offensive end of the floor. This league is about scoring. So, you cannot have an 80th percentile offensive LaMelo Ball. He has to be super effective offensively. But wouldn’t you take instead of 98th percentile, wouldn’t you take a 90th percentile of melo ball if it meant that that number on the defensive end of the floor went from third or fourth percentile to like 20th percentile? Because then you’re getting into like the Tyrese Maxi zone, you’re getting into the a little bit better Tyler Herro zone, but you know Tyler Herro super effective player on has been a super effective player on good teams. you obviously you have bigger dreams than Tyler Hero for LaMelo Ball, but defensively it’s just like can he be a little bit more impactful. It’s not about, you know, I don’t think he’s going to be um to be allNBA and to be an MVP consideration. You have to be, you know, a 9060 9070 9080 kind of player. I don’t know that he’s ever going to get to that. But, you know, just to just to improve to like the 20 orth the 30th, again, that puts you into Tyrese’s Maxi territory. And that’s that’s something at least defensively around the rest of the team you can build around that kind of player. I think certainly the Philadelphia 76ers hope that they can do that. Um, with with Tyrese Maxi. So, as I look at the rest of the roster, you know, Brandon Miller, I mean, I think there’s all the world. I think he’s going to improve. like Trey Mann w with his role shifting to catch and shoot. I could see his efficiency getting better. Um Josh Green and Grant Williams are interesting because below average offensive efficiency, but they’re both starting the year injured. So, and they didn’t really get a clean summer. So, I could see both of those one or both of those guys taking a step back. Um and then down the rest of the roster, I mean, Tan Salon, God, you hope he improves, right? I mean, fourth percentile points per shot attempts, a lot of mechanical stuff, a lot of skill level things, a lot of awareness things. Looked a little bit more comfortable in summer league. There’s some hope there, but you haven’t heard a lot about Tan Salon, immediate day, training camp. It’s not a lot of focus, not a lot of like getting out in front and saying, “Hey, Tan, big improvements. Watch out.” Coaches will like hype up certain guys. I just haven’t heard a lot of that for Ton. Uh, doesn’t mean anything. doesn’t mean uh that he that they’re trying to hide from that that it’s like the movie situation when a movie comes out and they’re like they didn’t send any screeners out to the uh critics. You know what that means? It’s a stinker. I hope that’s not what it means. But certainly you got to have your eyes on Tan Salon and what kind of improvements he’s made because if he hasn’t made any improvements, if he can’t crack the rotation, then you’re starting to get into that. Wow, they took a big swing at six in that draft and it is not working out. It would be one of the first failures under uh this Jeff Peterson front office regime. So, uh who gets better? Who gets worse? I gave you a few better players, worse players. I think Grant Williams, Josh Green, guys to take a look at. Honestly, like I think Colin Ston can be a more effective player, have more impact on the Charlotte Hornets than he did the Utah Jazz. and his numbers actually take a step back cuz like if you look across a lot of metrics on cleaning the glass, Colin Saxon had an amazing year but he was there was just not a lot of clean air in front of him, right? I mean a lot of room to be very good offensively and not be very good defensively. So that there again like I’m going to take you know a with him more so than LaMelo like I’d rather have a 70th percentile offensive Colin Ston and get a 30th percentile defensive player where he is making some impact particularly when it comes to turning over the ball getting the Hornets into transition where they want to play with more pace. Okay so I thought that hey there we go better worse let me know what you think in the comments. Who do you think is going to play better? Who do you think is going to play worse uh this upcoming season? Coming up, I’ve got questions about not questions about the preseason, questions that I want answered in this preseason. I’ll run those down next and then we’ll wrap up the show by previewing Sunday’s game, the first preseason game against the Oklahoma City Thunder. That’s all coming up on Locked On Hornets. [Music] Today’s episode of Locked On Hornets is brought to you by Monarch Money. 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[Music] Okay, before I get to my questions that I want answered during the preeason, there was one player that I forgot to mention uh in that better worse category, and that’s Miles Bridges, who I found a really interesting stat on uh from David Lee on Twitter, DLE43, who put together some data via cleaning the glass on blue collar NBA players, hard hat, lunch pail, glue guys doing the hard stuff, ranked players uh by that metric which was that metric that he come that he came up with the blue collarness metric is a combination of looking at screen assists deflections loose balls recovered charges drawn box outs and contested shots. So, doing the extra stuff, doing the stuff that I’m sure that Charles Lee as a head coach is preaching to a lot of people. And in the top 35 here, my eyes only spy one player, and I’ve already spoiled it from the Charlotte Hornets, and that is Miles Bridges, who last season averaged a little over a half screen assist per game, 1.4 deflections per game, loose balls, half a loose ball per game. Charges drawn, not very many. Box outs, point8. That’s good. Boxing out a lot of people. And then uh contested shots. I think that’s the big one for Miles Bridges. 6.3 contested shots per game, ranking him 15th. And here are some of the players that he’s ranked along with. Shay Yas Alexander, Jaylen Williams, Jaden McDaniels, Cade Cunningham, Lowry Markin, Jamal Murray is in there. The Thompson twins are on this list. Dyson Daniels leads the list. OG Anobi, Paul George, Josh Hart, Tummani Kamara, Keegan Murray. The Hornets need a lot more Miles Bridges type of players, particularly these kinds of contributions from their role players if they want to improve overall as a team. Like obviously LaMelo has to stay healthy. Obviously, Brandon Miller has to stay healthy and and both of those players have to become more off offensively efficient. And Brandon Miller in particular has to become a better wing defender. Those are sort of the top line. These have to happen. But also, I would throw into that category, you’ve got to have a few more role players like Miles Bridges who are willing to do the little things that help you win basketball games. was as inefficient as he was offensively last year and Miles Bridges took a step back in that category, he was maybe you could excuse that because he was having to do so many of these little things because no one else was doing them. U no one else was healthy enough to do them or or had enough skills really to do them last season. Uh, and that’s why again you look at whether it’s Denwitty, Conetan, you know, if both of those guys make it, Colin Ston, um, these are all guys that are like NBA veteran guys that if you ask them to do these things, they’re going to be capable of it. Their willingness to do it is another question, but they’re capable of doing it. They’ve done it for other teams. So, Miles Bridges, he puts on the hard hat. That’s why I’m not surprised that a lot of people within that locker room look at him and say that’s our senior leader because often times we look at the leader as the guy that does a little bit of everything and does the little things that make it happen and that’s the guy if he’s preaching that if he if he’s the one saying that it’s good that he’s doing it right. So, there is data to support that Miles Bridges has a lot of different little impacts on this team that have been positive and and maybe one of the reasons why the Charlotte Hornets have decided uh to stick with him uh through this contract and may stick with him all the way through uh the end of it and hoping that him doing that will leak into the rest of the team. Uh and so hopefully he has a better shooting year this upcoming season. Uh certainly the Hornets are hoping for that as well because look, it’s great to do the little things, but if you can’t put the ball in the hoop, you know, he can do it by volume, but by efficiency, it was a little tougher for him last season. All right, some questions that I want answered during this preseason. I would say I would go to one of the guys that I mentioned. I don’t know if that I’m not really ranking these by order. I’m just kind of popping off on some of the questions that seem obvious to me that I want answered. And one of them is Tan Salon. Like I’m looking to see where they play him. Are they trying to play him in small ball center situations? Are they playing him as a three? Are they playing him as a undersized four, under size five, oversized three? Like where what’s his role? Does he have a role within this rotation? And I think particularly in these first couple of games, you’re and without Josh Green and Grant Williams to fill out the rotation, I think he’s going to get a shot to show what he’s done. Uh, you know, how effectively, how cleanly can he move the basketball, make quick decisions, and not turn the basketball over? You know, those are some questions that I think we’ll we’ll get significant answers to uh by the end of the preseason. What does this guard rotation look like? You know, obviously LaMelo Ball, Brandon Miller, that’s your one, two. Where do you go from there? Is Colin Ston is it Colin Ston two? Is it Brandon Miller three? Where does Khan Canipple factor in that? How much run is he going to get um in the in this preeason and then moving on into the regular season? Liam McNeely, big question mark there, right? because he looked so good at the beginning of that summer league and then injured almost immediately which is you know just very appropriate for the Charlotte Hornets right but looks 100% healthy now so you you have a big question there like what does that look like um what is Liam McNeely’s impact on the floor and then we talked about it’s you know basically the entire show last episode the center rotation Don’t know if Mason Plumbley has fully joined the team yet off of the personal issue that kept him out of media day. Do we see him at all against Oklahoma City? Um I think that’s that’s a question you could look at. But then they are really talking up Ryan Caulk Briner, his ability to uh block shots, to roam around the paint. And I think too, like coming off of that center question, which is I think an important question that may be answered via preeason, that may be something you have to experiment with in real life game action because Charles Lee brought up this point. You know, when you’re in training by particularly by the end of training camp, everybody knows the play calls. So, defenses can react more quickly to offenses because you know all of the plays. So, to really judge someone’s ability to read and react to an off to a opposing offense, you’ve got to get them in these live situations in preeason. So, we’re going to see, you know, what Musa can do, what Ryan Cochrrener can do. And if they stick with that, it sounds a lot like, you know, drop coverage junk, a little bit of zone where guy where those two guys down low. If they’re not up top guarding the screen, they’re playing well off their man and hoping that, you know, the rest of the guards can can react to that and, you know, one guy take two guys up top and then let that, you know, really cut off the paint using weak using very like tight weak side help that’s closer to the basket, right? So, you know, it’ll be interesting to see Yeah. not only who they play and for how long at the center position, but exactly what their strategy is when it comes to guarding the rim and how that affects their pace of play. And that would be my final question that I want answered during preseason. How committed are they to playing fast? And does it fundamentally transform how they look? Like I think if they are really serious about playing as fast as possible or at much faster than they did last season, then we’ll come away from this preseason game and the preseason in general going that team looks a lot different than the one last season where they, as Charles Lee noted in his last media availability out of training camp, they would often take way too long if they weren’t already in transition. if they had to get into the half court, if a defense was able to get back, they just took way too long to get into sets or to get if they weren’t running a particular set than just to get into whatever kind of, you know, improvisational actions that they have set up where LaMelo Ball or whoever can sort of read and react to what the defense is giving them. They just took way too long. um you know, so it’s it’s both indecision like who’s going to do what and it’s also you know maybe the whoever’s handling the basketball just wanting to probe things a little bit and taking too long to see what the defense is going to give them. And so you know I guess like what would be the equivalent of a of a quarterback holding the ball too long and getting sacked in football? What’s the equivalent of that in basketball? I don’t think it’s a player getting trapped and coughing up the basketball. I I think it’s actually just a player sitting on the ball too long, the defense is able to fully get back and then it’s like a coverage sack at that point because if you give NBA defenses that much time, you’re going to have particularly if you don’t have a player that’s like Giannis Joic, uh, Sheay, uh, James Harden, LeBron James, Luca Donic, type of offensive player that’s ISO that can just like I’m going to break you down. There’s not a lot your defense can do about it. LaMelo Ball can do that sometimes if his three-point shots going and if his floater’s going, but and maybe there’s a different LaMelo Ball this season, but the LaMelo Ball of the past has had a difficult time doing that if defense is stack against him and he’s, you know, uh, running towards running towards the paint. So unless you have that level of player, I if if the defense is able to really get set, you’re going to have a much more difficult time scoring the basketball. So can they do that? That’s a big preseason question as well. Let us know what questions you have in the comments on YouTube. YouTube.comhornets. Coming up, I will preview tonight’s game against the Oklahoma City Thunder. I’ll tell you where to watch uh where to watch in person and an exciting announcement about every Hornets box score. Stick around. Locked on Hornets. [Music] Today’s episode of Locked On Hornets is brought to you by FanDuel. The NFL season is here. 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Back here on Locked on Hornets, I left one guy off of my preseason questions. I thought it was just so obvious, I might not even mention it. But it’s Khan Canipple, the fourth overall selection. Uh, and and maybe the reason I left him off is because I feel pretty comfortable about what I think Coniple can be in his rookie season just based on his performance in summer league where he did not win summer league MVP. He won the He won the championship game MVP, but the overall summer league MVP uh went to Kyle Filipowski of the Utah Jazz. But Khan Caniple, I mean, just showed everything that you wanted to see from him in summer league, which was and and a bad first summer league game, very similar to Brandon Miller, but uh recovered and had a great summer league overall, just being uh somebody that could take uh players off the dribble. he could uh find uh guys open whether he was driving towards the basket on his own or whipping it around uh the three-point line. I mean, he was somebody uh that was super effective in in various points and and worked hard on the defensive end of the floor as well. Um and and gave up his body a few times and you know, obviously uh you know, had a he was head wound hairy there for a little while. uh but still wanted to play like I just had a desire to win that championship that summer league hardware for the Charlotte Hornets. So maybe that’s why it’s not it’s not a huge question. I guess the question would be as he starts to ramp up and get uh more against NBA level talent does and people were surprised Hornets players including LaMelo Ball were surprised by his athleticism and look you have to be athletic to play in the NBA and to even be drafted into the NBA. Scouts are good. I mean there’s no there’s no hiding it like you have to be athletic to play in the NBA. So there’s no question that Coniple is athletic. The issue is like relative to what rel I mean you know everybody in the NBA is athletic but everybody it’s like when you you know go to high when you’re like the top person in your high school you’re smartest kid in your high school and then you go to college it’s like oh I get it. Everyone here is super smart. That’s why they’re here. So now I have to level up again. And so that’s, you know, the big question for Khan Canipple is can he either level up his own athleticism in these first couple of seasons or can he be so effective at shooting the basketball, moving the basketball, you know, scoring in a savvy way, drawing fouls, you know, all the things that players do to overcome some slight that they have in their game, uh, or slight that they have in their athleticism. Can he do those things and make himself um a super effective a player super effective player as opposed to just an effective player? So, that will certainly be something that I’m having my eyes on during this preseason. And it starts on Sunday at 5:00 p. p.m. Eastern time against the Oklahoma City Thunder. No better way to open your preseason than against the defending champions. And I mean that in all seriousness because the reason the Oklahoma City Thunder won a championship was not only that they had the MVP in Shay Gilis Alexander on their team. It’s that if you go back to that hard hat lunch pale bluecollaress stat that I was mentioning in the second segment, there are Thunder players littered all over that list from the best players in Shay and Jaylen and JDub. But I’m sure if you extended that out to top 50, top 100, like you’re just going to see all the Oklahoma City Thunder. Up and down that roster are guys that care about the little stuff that do everything. Level of competitiveness and drive and desire. The kind of stuff that we hear Charles Lee talk about a lot and he wants to see manifested in these role players. And that’s going to that’s going to take a team that was bottom of the league defensively and make them average. like you need eventually you need really good defenders to become a really good defensive team. That sounds simple and as I’m saying it, that sounds simple. But what I mean is you can have average and below average defenders and if they’re if they’re going at 100% or even more then, you know, you you can raise that level. Like it’s not a given that okay, maybe I’m undersized at this position or multiple positions. That’s going to that’s going to lower your ceiling, but you can still raise the floor. Um, so you know, I think it’s good to measure yourself against Oklahoma City who probably if they play Sheay and JDub at all will probably play them in limited minutes just to get you you got to get people into game shape. That’s what this preseason is all about, by the way. We’re going to toss wins and losses, probably toss shooting percentages, too. And really, you’re going to just kind of lock into what what the effort level is as guys get into game shape. It’s one thing to do training camp. you’re coming off of a summer where maybe all these guys were super locked in. It seems like they were like everybody was working out together. No one’s questioned the commitment level of these players uh really at all. And so now it’s just about getting yourself in uh to game shape. So uh this game will be against Oklahoma City Thunder. It’s not being played in Charlotte, although technically I think it’s a home game for the Hornets. No, they will be playing in North Charleston Coliseum. How about that? Why? Because the renovations at Spectrum Center still ongoing. It is not ready to house a preseason game and it will not be through the rest of the preseason. They’ll play three away games and then they’ll play one more home game at the Greensboro Coliseum. And I could be being tricked by the internet here, but I believe that game in the Coliseum, unless Okay, now I’m confused and I’m not for sure if it’s the Greensboro Coliseum or they were talking about this North Charleston game. I guess we’ll see. Sunday night, but one of them is sold out. So whether it’s North Charleston or Greensboro, shout out. You guys want to see the Oklahoma City Thunder or the Charlotte Hornets. And um yeah, that’s great. Now, in terms of where you can watch this game, um you can do it on the Hornets app. It looks like they’re going to live stream it there. Um I’ll put a link to the web address for the Charlotte Hornets. I sound 40 400 years old saying web address. https colonfor surfing on the internet. I am uh I’ll put the link in there so you can check the website out uh where you can watch it and then uh league pass if you have League Pass. Now, here’s the question, and this is always the question. Will League Pass allow you to watch the preseason game if you live in Charlotte, even though the game’s not even being played in Charlotte? Please, I’m in Nashville. I’m not in Charlotte. It’s going to let me watch the game on League Pass. If you have League Pass and you are in Charlotte, please report back if it’s blacked out because that would be the funniest, most NBA Adam Silver thing in the world. Just watch the highlights. It’s a highlights league. Don’t worry about it. You don’t need to watch the whole game. Nobody watches the whole game anymore. Get out of here, Adam Silver. Yes, we do. We’re sickos. We want to see game one of the preseason. A few of these preseason games will be broadcast by uh Bali or whatever they’re called now, BA Bankrupt Valley. They’re going to be broadcasting a few of these games, three in total. So, you’ll get EC who you’re going to get, if you’re a Panthers fan, you’re going to get EC uh doing a Panthers game uh Sunday as well. Uh so, but he won’t be doing this obviously. He’s doing the Panthers game. He will not be doing the Hornets game in North Charleston. you’re going to get some kind of uh arena feed, probably maybe a radio call that they’ll patch in to this first preseason game. So, it might not look great, but hopefully the Hornets do and they put up some competition. I I looked up what the line was in this game in case you’re a complete degenerate and want to do some preseason betting. Uh they are only a six-point dog against the preseason Thunder. So, there you go. The Hornets. I expect, honestly, I expected them to be a double- digit dog, but they’re they’re giving the Hornets a fighting chance. The 19- win Charlotte Hornets, they’re giving them a fighting chance in North Charleston. Enjoy the game. Uh, by the way, every hornetsboxcore.com, I will be doing the first of, let’s see, five plus 82 is 87. Uh maybe a playin game 88 maybe the first of 88 which is would be uh you know would be something a number that’s very significant of the Charlotte Hornets as they were founded in the year of 1988. I’ll do be I’ll be doing 88 game recaps. We’ll just we’ll just mark it down now. Hornets getting a playing game. uh 80 at least 88 uh game recaps for every hornetsboxcore.com and Evan Hail of uh Super Hornets and uh you you see him all over social media. Evan is going to be helping me out this year on every Hornetsboxcore and he’s actually going to be at the game in North Charleston. So, he will be uh putting some notes into my game notes uh reporting what the what the atmosphere was like in the arena, anything else he saw uh from his good seats and I will be reporting uh from my living room couch. But every Hornets box score, go sign up. All of the pre-season game notes are free and so you get a little taste of what the game notes are and then once we get into the regular season um then you know you got to pony up because I have a baby. The baby cannot baby doesn’t eat for free. I checked. She won’t she will not eat for free. She um uh you know, you got to pay for the food still. All right. Thanks for joining me here on Locked On Hornets. Walker and I will be recording an episode Sunday night right after the game ends with our thoughts. So, it’s just all over the place. You You’re going to have Hornets content for days and days now as we get uh some actual basketball to talk about. It’s here. Yes, we did not finish uh the who wore it best. We’ve got a couple of more days. We got to We got weeks before the season actually tips off. So, don’t worry. We’re going to get to it. We only have two numbers left, zero and one, which I think we’re going to save one till the very end. All right, thanks for listening for Walker. I’m Doug Branson saying go Hornets, go America. Let’s swarm Charlotte and good luck against OKC. [Music]

With the first preseason game against the Oklahoma City Thunder right around the corner, we are taking a look at the roster and predicting who will perform better and who might perform worse this upcoming season. After a 19-win campaign where nearly every key player was offensively inefficient, there is massive room for improvement across the board. We explore how players like LaMelo Ball and Collin Sexton could become more impactful by trading a bit of their elite offensive production for much-needed defensive improvement, and why Miles Bridges’ “blue-collar” contributions are so valuable to this team. We also identify players like the injured Grant Williams and Josh Green, along with rookie Tidjane Salaun, who could face challenges this year.

Blue Collar Stat Tweet: https://x.com/dlee4three/status/1974246457063391737

XRAPM: https://xrapm.com

Weblink to Watch Hornets/Thunder preseason: https://www.nba.com/hornets/news/hornets-vs-thunder-livestream-10-05-5pm

Next, we lay out the most pressing questions that need answers during this preseason campaign. What will Tidjane Salaun’s role be? What will the guard and center rotations look like? And most importantly, will the team show a true commitment to playing with the fast pace they’ve been talking about all offseason? Finally, we give a full preview of Sunday’s game against the defending champion Thunder, including where to watch and what to look for in the Hornets’ first game action of the year

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Top 35 Hornets Nicknames of All-Time According to Doug Branson: https://hornets.substack.com/p/the-top-35-nicknames-in-hornets-franchise

Top 35 Hornets of All-Time According to Walker Mehl: https://hornets.substack.com/p/the-top-35-players-in-hornets-history

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