What to EXPECT from Brandon Miller in Year 3? | Hornets Could Be MAJOR Players at the Trade Deadline

What to EXPECT from Brandon Miller in Year 3? | Hornets Could Be MAJOR Players at the Trade Deadline

Coming up today on the Locked on Hornets podcast, we’ll give you thoughts on the Brandon Miller expectations going into year three. What are Charles Lee’s expectations on the former second overall pick? There’s a Pearly Pearl. Shout out to Sam Pearly talking about the Hornets. And we’ll finish with some trade notes. Bobby Marks had an interesting article on ESPN.com. That’s all today. 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] It’s Locked on Hornets, part of the Locked On podcast network. It’s your team every day. Thanks for making us your first listen. We’re free and available anywhere you get your podcast and that does include YouTube. There’s Doug Branson. His substack is everyhornetsboxcore.com. Hey, keep your eyes open for a new pod possibly dropping on every hornetsboxcore.com. Also, check out Yahoo Sports Daily, a new show that Doug is helping produce. Yahoo Sports Daily with Jason Fitz and Caroline Fenton. I’m Walker Mail. Listen to me WFNZ every weekday from 12 to 300 p.m. Sports Radio 927 FM. We promised you more Brandon Miller discourse yesterday and we’re going to give that to you. We’re actually going to deliver on a promise that we made just like we do with who Were at best because we’re for sure going to finish that before we get to the start of the regular season. We’re also going to give you Brandon Miller content that we discussed. Just didn’t talk about a pretty important figure in this preseason game one as much as we probably should have, Doug. But that’s why we host a daily podcast on one specific basketball team. thoughts on Brandon Miller, what he did in preseason game one, and some of the expectations, the comments about what people expect from Brandon going into year three. Yeah, I mean, overall, if you look at the box score, not a great game. He was, uh, towards the bottom in in game score in 15 minutes, only putting up eight points, uh, zero rebounds, did have one assist, although that one assist was really slick. a little pocket pass to Musa Diabate for uh the the Diiamate one-handed jam spreading the legs. I mean, it was Jordanesque. Like, it was I got my poster ordered already. Putting it up this week. It was a weird game. I mean, he started out and like I think he fouled a three-point shooter twice within a matter of minutes. And so, like he was obviously trying to be a little bit more aggressive on defense. And it paid off, I think, a little bit later in the game when he had two steals. So, there was a little bit of good and and a little bit of bad for Brandon Miller, who, you know, I think in all fairness, it it’s his first uh real game kind of real game. I mean, it’s preseason real game action. I guess it’s you’re facing off against another team that is not your own team. So, real game action for Brandon Miller in in a long time because of the wrist surgery. And so, yeah, I think he’s getting his legs back under him. he’s getting some of that feel for the game back under him and you know you’re going to let him off the hook in in game one of the preseason. Uh but look for him to rebound in game two for sure. I think it’s a good point. We haven’t talked about it a lot but with expectations surrounding the Hornets, we think they’re going to be a better basketball team. Yeah, the bar is on the floor. The low bar, have a drink, won’t you? It’s a low bar to be a better basketball team than what they were last year. But also, one thing that matters is Brandon Miller’s ascent. And the weird thing is too, we’re going to have to be a little lenient with Brandon coming back after having only played 27 games. So, does it take the first 10 for him to get a real feel? Does it take the first 15, 20? Hopefully, we’re not talking about too many more games after the first 20 of the season, a quarter of the way through. And the other thing that injuries have destroyed for this team is the ability to build chemistry. I just you can’t get in a rhythm with anybody because LaMelo has to get used to playing with all the G-leaguers and then he’s out. So now you have to get used to having a different ball handler that doesn’t give you the ball nearly as much. And so everybody they’re trying to figure each other out in high stakes basketball, which I think is different than figuring each other out in training camp and playing at the Citadel. So, you know, it’s something you bring up that I I guess I didn’t think about as much as I should have. man, how patient are we going to have to be with an important player like Brandon Miller coming back from the scaffaloon? Uh, and also just having not played basketball in a very, very long time, certainly in high stakes situation, man, we might have to be pretty patient. Something that we haven’t discussed as much. Yeah, I mean, look, I think there’s got to be a level of patience with the entire team as they’ve uh first of all, I mean, LaMelo had his share of, you know, injuries last season as well. And so, you’re getting some of this core back together, uh, for the first time. And then you you’re also potentially starting a rookie in Khan Canipple. You may be starting two rookies, who knows? Uh, uh, you know, in Ryan Cochrinter as well. So, yeah, I think like you’re going to have some patience with this team that has four rookies, that has a lot of new faces. Uh, there’s going going to be a level of that, but not too much because I mean, Brandon Miller was always sold to us as a player that was, you know, far ahead of his age and somebody that adapted very quickly. And so, I I think you you’ve got to hold him to that standard, the same standard that that we’ve been told by Steve Clifford and Charles Lee. Very smart player, uh, very adaptable, very quick to learn things. And so, and the Hornets, honestly, they can’t be too patient with him because they need him to do so many things uh this season. They need him uh to to shoot well from three. They need him uh to to execute his passes well. They need him to drive a little bit more. We saw some of that in the preseason game. He was more willing to drive, more willing to use his body, use his physicality to move a defender out of the way. They need that. And then on the defensive end of the floor, they need him to take a lot more responsibility on on wing defense, both creating turnovers and also just keeping guys in front. Uh because that rim protection is not going to be there like it was when you had at least you had the idea of Mark Williams and his size back there last season. Not the case this season. Uh so they just they need a lot from them. So you can be a little bit patient, but not a lot of it. You know, I I I wonder that the more I think about this, Doug, the more I stew in the patience and possibly lack thereof, the more I think we need to maybe build some more for him because of the wrist injury keeping him from shooting for so long and he had to do left-handed exercises because he couldn’t use his right wrist. That is a shooting wrist. LaMelo Ball fractured his wrist all the way back in 2021, March of 2021. Now, the shooting percentages, they didn’t take a crazy dip. I guess I didn’t see the games immediately following after he came back, but I I will say I remember that stretch of games that he came back from that it actually wasn’t very good. Um then he had an entire off seasonason, right? So he gets hurt, he comes back after we thought he might miss the rest of the season. He does come back, plays the last 15, 10 games or so and the shooting percentages were not good, but then he had a whole off season to recover. So where’s the line, right? Brandon Miller does have an entire off season. He did have all last year to recover. So maybe that balances the scales a little bit. Again, he hasn’t played regular season basketball for quite some time. O ultimately the answer is I think we’re just going to have to feel this out. And if this is somebody that’s struggling, are we going to see I don’t I didn’t see any difference in his form really in the preseason. Maybe I wasn’t paying attention closely enough to it, but I didn’t see any difference in form. But man, that that’s a long time without being able to shoot. Does he have enough time to make up for that when he was allowed to? I Yeah, I I do remember LaMelo struggling quite a bit when he came back from his, but that was all the way back in 2021. So, I don’t know. I I’m I’m hoping it doesn’t keep him from getting into a rhythm. Um, you know, I’m hoping it doesn’t keep him from that rhythm all that much. Well, when he was asked about it, he didn’t seem all that concerned. this was like midway through his recovery and he was asked about, you know, shooting, not being able to shoot. And he said, “Look, shooters, I’m paraphrasing here, but essentially like shooters don’t forget how to shoot. If you could you you can shoot, you can remember how to shoot.” Like it’s not, you know, and maybe he maybe he’s underestimating. We’ll see. I mean, we’ll see through this preseason and the early part of the season. And if he is struggling from the field, u then you better hope Lamelo Ball is shooting well. You better hope Coniple is shooting well. Uh because I don’t think Brandon Miller’s aggre you don’t want to see his aggressiveness go away. Like you don’t want to see him take less shots. Uh and and also you want to see him do more in other parts of the game. Like you want to see I think you want to see him rebound more. You want to see him be aggressive on defense and come and and make sure that he’s uh causing chaos, causing turnovers, particularly with Josh Green out of the lineup. You want to see him doing some of those other things if his shooting numbers are going to struggle. But look, man, I mean, the bottom line is this team has to score to win. Brandon Miller is a big part of that. And if he’s struggling at the beginning of the season to knock down open looks from three, I mean, I’m not even talking about like creating his own looks from three, which we saw him be able to do a lot last season like create early last season and then late in his rookie season, he was able to create shots for himself. I mean, even amongst double teams, he could step out of them and knock down shots. That’s a special part that you saw that you went, “Okay, maybe there’s something to this Brandon Miller guy in terms of like all NBA, you know, Paul Georgian type of ascension.” He was starting to do some of those things. So, maybe you can be a little bit more patient with that idea. But if if he’s getting open shots and he’s not knocking them down, it’s going to be very difficult uh for the Charlotte Hornets to win basketball games under those circumstances. He’s that important. Yeah. Last couple things. LaMelo shot 24% from three in the 10 games he played to end his rookie season after that wrist injury. So, not very good. And that was a 35% season for him. Certainly brought down by the 24% he shot in those last 10 games. And also, I I will say if you’re looking for some comfort, it’s not like Charles Lee talked about we might have to wait a little while before he gets his shot back. That’s not been a talking point from them. So perhaps if that’s not a talking point for them that you you could consider them incentivized to tell the fan base, hey, it might be a tiny tiny bit, be patient, but they haven’t felt the need to say that. So perhaps we take comfort there. Let’s talk more about Brandon, the shot profile, Charles Lee’s comments compared to Brandon’s comments, and then dive into some of these trade notes from Bobby Marks coming up next on the Lockdown Hornets podcast everywhere. What specific type of trade could the Hornets make that also aligns with the type of trade the Jazz could al could make as well as the Wizards? Great company to be in the Jazz and the Wizards. We’ll talk about it coming up next. [Music] This episode is brought to you by FanDuel. The NFL season is here and FanDuel has an offer you don’t want to miss. Right now, new customers can bet just $5 and get $300 in bonus bets if you win. That’s right. Pick a bet, put down five bucks, and if it hits, you’ll unlock $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. FanDuel makes watching football even more exciting when you got a little something riding on the action, and they provide plenty of ways to bet. Whether you’re a casual fan or love diving into the stats, FanDuel makes the game day experience so much better. So, what are you waiting for? Visit fan.com to download the FanDuel app today and get started. More Lockdown Hornets ahead. Doug, wanted to get your thoughts on the shot profile discussion. Richie Randall asked Brandon about that when he was at the table. I asked both Brandon about it and I asked Charles about it cuz I thought it would be interesting to hear both of their comments in maybe a more relaxed setting, the back and forth that we had on Wes and Walker. When I asked Brandon about it, the way I phrased it the first time was, “Is this the most annoying question that you get?” because it feels like we’ve been asking him about this for a while. Like last year when he started to go away from the mid-range a little more and shoot a crazy high volume from three, like as much as anybody not named LaMelo in the league last year. And he said it really wasn’t all that annoying. Like he I I guess on media day he only answered it one time, but I felt like he had answered and talked about this quite a bit. But he also in his answer said, “I think the shot profile is largely going to be the same.” and he didn’t seem to have huge issue with the lack of mid-range jumpers. Maybe at the table he did when he was speaking to media, but he didn’t with us on Wesson Walker, at least not in my opinion. So then I asked Charles Lee about it. Charles was a little more specific in what he wants to see. He he did specifically say that a lot of the shot profile stuff from Brandon he fixed last year and now what we’re asking him to do is get fouled more often, have a variety when it comes to finishing in the paint, variety of paint finishing touches, finishing through contact. Those are focal points that helped him grow because of him drawing the number one assignment for the opposition. that helped him grow and also growing in pick and roll decision-making. Uh he also addressed shot profile specific to working out of the pick and roll and how that’s added awareness for him. So just what are your thoughts on where Brandon Miller’s shots are coming from the shot diet in total? Doug, thoughts on uh comments from coach and Brandon? Yeah, I’m just not sure we got a large enough sample size last season to really make any kind of determinations about whether it was hurting him or helping him. And I think that, you know, Brandon Miller has enough basketball IQ that whatever what whatever’s being pre-installed into him pre-season is like, “Hey, this is the goal.” But I’m going to take what the defense gives me. And if he’s if he’s firing on all cylinders from three, defenses are going to adjust to that e and we saw that even in the limited sample size that we got from him last season. like we saw defenses adjusting to that and guarding him even more that even when he was sharing the floor with LaMelo Ball and when defenses start to adjust to that then he can adjust to that and there will be open looks not only from the mid-range but but as you were saying you know getting him a little bit closer to the rim and getting fouled because that’s when that’s when your efficiency truly skyrockets. Like you can be a great three-point shooter and we’ve we talk about this a little bit with LaMelo Ball too, like but unless you’re getting fouled, you you’re you’re not going to have those huge scoring nights consistently and you’re not going to be as efficient as you could be offensively if you’re not getting to the free throw line and knocking down your freebies. So, we can talk all day long about like, oh, he should be shooting more in the mid-range or he shouldn’t be shooting more in the mid-range. Honestly, all to me, I don’t that that conversation doesn’t even matter to me. It’s how much is he getting to the rim and how much is he getting fouled. That’s more important than any of it. Yeah. First part for me, too. I I think just because if you’re going to be 69 out there on the wing, what is your size helpful for offensively? It’s helpful for shooting over the top of defenders. Okay, great. Can we use some of that height in the half court at the rim? And we can use it in transition. We can use it when you jump over dudes. Can we use it off the dribble in half court sets? That’d be that’d be cool. That would take your game to a different level. Certainly within the realm of possibility. Haven’t seen that a ton. And I think Charles Lee, specifically with what he talked about with us, too, has already mentioned we want to see a variety of paint finishes where you don’t have to just dunk on everybody. It was a little Kai Jonesesque in that regard in that you don’t have to dunk it every single time or try to jump over dudes. There is there are some finesse moves that you can bring to the table to increase that percentage at the cup. And I I’m going to be interested in the layup package more so than the dunk package, but just the finishing package Brandon brings to the table if that is a point of emphasis from his head coach. And I think what is exciting, what will be exciting to see, and you could already see a little bit of it starting to get fleshed out in this first preseason game, but the minutes that he’s on the floor with Colin Ston, I think, will be really important because Colin Ston does have the ability to drive and draw defenders and then kick out to Brandon on the wing where he’s not going to have to like get by his defender solely with his handles cuz we saw him struggle a little bit with that uh last season. So, you know, having a little bit of space to work that and then finding the advantage there, that’s where I think he’s got a window to get to the free throw line a little bit more. Uh and use some of that athleticism to just jump over the top and and and yam it is when he’s with Colin Ston and Colin Ston is driving and drawing. Colin Ston, a whole bunch of people that you can play with that uh like you have different skill sets with whoever you put in the back court. We’ll see if Brandon expands his skill set and some of these other guys on the team as well. Hey, speaking of Colin Ston, speaking of new acquisitions and some of the old acquisitions, let’s get to that coming up next on the Lockown Hornets podcast. Still to come here from Bobby Marks everywhere, Trey man, Colin Ston, also just possible trades that the Hornets could make according to ESPN’s Bobby Marks. We’ll get to all of it coming up next. Lol. [Music] This episode is brought to you by Monarch Money. Most people can’t name all their financial accounts or even what they’re worth, whether it’s 401ks, properties, or investments. And when you don’t have the full picture, you can end up leaving money on the table. That’s why there’s Monarch Money. It’s an all-in-one personal finance tool that brings your entire financial life together in one clean, easy to use interface on your laptop or your phone. Monarch is built for people with busy lives. If you’ve put off organizing your finances, Monarch is for you. Monarch does the heavy lifting for you, and you can link all your accounts in minutes, seek clear data visuals, get smart categorization of your spending, and finally feel in control of your money without ever touching a spreadsheet. Don’t let financial opportunity slip through the cracks. Use code lockdown NBA at monarchmoney.com in your browser for half off your first year. That’s 50% off your first year at monarchmoney.com with code locked on NBA. More Lockdown Hornets ahead. All right, Doug, we got some interesting content from your sweet baby Bobby Marks. uh and he wrote about some of the teams that could be making interesting trades during the trade deadline or within the next I don’t know 6 months or so. And here’s what he wrote about the Hornets. The Hornets, the Jazz, and the Wizards are teams to watch for either in a three-team trade or a deal that would take back salary. Charlotte and Washington, they each have uh they each have Did I say E? Goodness gracious. They each have $14.1 million in the non- tax mid-level exception that they could use in a trade. Utah does have $18.4 million in a trade exception that they have. So 14.1 million, those three bad teams over the last few years. Uh they could be a third team in one of those types of deals or they could be taking back salary. Your thoughts on the Hornets being included in this writeup? Googling NBA center payroll, right? Like what kind of center can center contracts? What kind of center can you get for 14.1? Musa does need another backup. I will say like uh that would get you I do have it pulled up. That would get you in the Oh, beef stew. Little Isaiah Stewart. I don’t think Detroit would I don’t think they’re willing to give him up. Uh, what about just a trade with Utah and then you could go I mean I know they acquired Nerkach not too long ago if you just needed some center depth and you needed some big brute that could shoot a little bit. You could go after Nerk if you wanted to. I’m telling you Luke Cornette I mean the Hornet killer. You get Cornet the Hornet killer you he no longer kills you. Steven Adams. How about that? Well Cornett is interesting in the next point we’re going to bring up about guys that can’t be traded for a certain amount of time. And that does apply to Luke Cornet because he just signed with the Spurs. But yeah, still we wanted him here. We we did in the offseason. So yeah, do you envision the Hornets making this type of move or do you think, hey, anything’s possible with this flexibility? Yeah, I mean, anything’s possible. Like I could see them contract eating. I could see them I could see this roster getting even kookier because I don’t know that the end all beall for this team is making if the end all be all of this team were to make the playoffs I don’t think that they would be constructed with as little defense for Charles Lee to work with as they’re currently constructed with right like I think the compet they’ve they’ve increased the veteran knowledge they’ve increased the competitiveness But just in terms of the real skill, the real skills, it’s tough to say that that you need and skill is what we have so far in this segment. Real skills that you need tough to feel the playoff team. They don’t currently exist on this roster. Okay? I mean, we could just be real about that. It’s going to be it could be a fun team, uh, but it that doesn’t exist on this roster. So, yes, like all of these options are open. That is by design. uh that is a good thing in in the sense of their ability to roster build and asset collect. But the the the question that always sort of sits out in front of that idea is like what are they going to do with it? Because like all of this looks good if they end up doing something fantastic with it and bringing in a player or multiple players that results in a playoff series appearance. a playoff series win. I mean, that would be crazy. Uh then then all of this all of this looks good. But if that never materializes, then then we’ll have the same thoughts about this front office that we’ve had about, you know, many front offices for the past two decades. It’s not unlike some of the tasks that the Celtics had on their table. Same thing with OKC, same thing with Philadelphia. Some of the teams that tanked and they were in asset collection mode. Now, it’s all about what you do with those chips that you have. When do you go all in? To use the phrase Jeff Peterson did in the first episode of Hornets Real Access. It’s funny because Phoenix, they can’t make a move that doesn’t involve a former Hornet even when we’re talking about coaching hires. That that’s a little strange. I don’t know why you would want to copy the Hornets who have not been to the postseason in a decade. That does not seem like a good idea. Matt Ishbia, if you’re listening, um the Hornets, I will say they’ve copied a certain team’s moves, except that team just won the championship last year. They’ve done a lot of moves that involved former Thunder players by just straight up doing business with the Thunder, bringing back a Trey man, and then they eventually trade Meich, but also they kind of have they’ve followed the same philosophy to a certain degree in acquiring as many picks as possible, not being mediocre anymore. So, we send Terry Roier out. We send Gordon Hayward out to OKC. We’re collecting all of these second round selections. And now here we are with still a little bit more asset collection mode to roll with, I think. And then you have to figure out one what to do with all of these picks. And also, can you just hit on the picks if you don’t trade them for some larger asset to go actually win in the postseason? And this is always the task at hand for those types of teams. That’s great. you have a bunch of material to work with. It legitimately is great. I don’t want to devalue that, but you do have to capitalize on it at some point. Well, the problem is if Brandon Miller is not looking like he’s, you know, anywhere close to all-star level play, if LaMelo Ball is a massive disappointment, continues to be a massive disappointment on the defensive end of the floor. If the Hornets have 12 wins, um if Khan Canipple looks like the ceiling is suddenly very low and Tan Salon can’t even get on the floor, you know, if if all of those or or just multiple of those start to pile up and then you make a move that eats some salary that doesn’t, you know, make that’s not at the center position, that doesn’t make the Hornets considerably better, you’re not going to, you know, the same kind of reactions that we had about the Colin Saxon deal where it seemed like they got Colin Saxon for free and we were like, “Woohoo! Chef Jeff, he’s cooking.” Yeah. And then and we’ve praised so many of these moves it’s going to start to be like, “Okay, great.” That’s another second round pick, right? Super. Yeah. Um the the shine has the shine if if those if some of those are are the case when the trade deadline comes up. No one’s going to be sitting back and praising that deal, right? Uh we we can praise it for this season alone, but in the larger picture, it will start to go out of sight. Um a couple of other nuggets here that I found interesting. So, Bobby did talk about the and remind us of players that can’t be traded past a certain point. So, a player who signs a free agent contract in the offseason before September 15th, they can’t be traded until December 15th. If a player signs with his prior team and his salary is greater than 120% of last year, he cannot be traded until January 15th. We do have a player that does fall under that category just out of any future conversation because this sort of thing happens. Trey man cannot be traded until January 15th because he falls in that category as a guy that made $4.9 million last year. He’s now making 8 million and he did sign with his previous team. I believe, unless there’s something I’m overlooking because the NBA cap can get a little wonky, I believe that he falls under that category. So, Trey Mann um is not going to be able to be traded until January 15th. Not that the Hornets are shopping him, but he wouldn’t be able to be traded until that deadline. There’s only two players, just for reference, that can’t be traded at all this year. It’s SGA because he signed his extension past a certain point before the NBA trade deadline. And drum roll, PJ Washington. PJ Washington cannot be traded this year by Dallas because of how late he signed his extension. So, another interesting note there. That’s savvy. I mean, he essentially has a no trade clause for a year, but like a true no trade clause in that he can’t I don’t even think he can wave it because he literally cannot be traded because the deadline goes past the the deadline to trade him goes past the actual trade deadline. So, uh, one way to make sure that you stay with a team is to just extend extend extend and don’t and don’t sign that extension until very late. Um, on the Trey man stuff, like I I wouldn’t be shocked at this point. I wouldn’t be shocked if anyone Well, Brandon Miller, Brandon Miller is the only one that would like, oh, what? I can’t believe that. Yeah. But but but apart from Brandon Miller, I wouldn’t be shocked if any player is moved at the deadline. Uh but Trey man would surprise me. He would be in a surprise category. LaMelo Ball would surprise me. Uh you know there are a few other players I think I if I thought about it like Colin Saxon would not surprise me at all. Uh Josh Green, Grant Williams would not surprise me. U so yeah, Tan Salon would surprise me a little bit in that you’re giving up on the first pick that you made. But uh yeah, so should mention Khan. should mention Khan would be you’re not just to mention it. That would be insane. That would be truly it’s not as if look first round picks get traded in the first year that they’re with the team. That’s not that’s not the craziest thing in the world, but they’ve they just invested so much in this rookie class that it would be a little bit insane to to move on from it that quickly. Trading Con, I have to imagine, would only be for a player that like would help you win a lot of games right now sort of Toronto, you know, steel. Oh, or the other way that those first round picks get traded is if you’re Dalton Connect, it’s not really working out. They don’t have enough patience for you to grow and they’re a piece away from possibly making the postseason. Uh but even those trades don’t even work out sometimes. See, that’s the question. It’s not it’s not can Chef Jeff uh actually, you know, is he going to make a trade? Is he not going to make a trade? It’s can he make it stick, you know, in season? We’ve seen him do it in We’ve seen him do it in the offseason. Can he make it stick in season? Yeah, Jeff, listen to me. Listen to me. Next time you get on the phone, you have to make sure to say n takeback seaties. I if he only did that. I don’t know. You can’t pinky promise. Maybe you get over Zoom and you pinky promise to hold out this. Just do Yeah. I pro I promise this. This counts, Rob. This counts. All right, that’ll do it for the most part. Unless you got something else. You got anything else for us, Doug? I had Pinky promise. That was all I had. Oh, we got to We got to get to the Pearly Pearl. Uh so here’s Sam Purley on Twitter a couple hours ago tweeted this. Hortis took 51 three-point attempts in last night’s preseason opener which would have matched their third highest nonOT single game total in the 24-25 regular season season high was 53 at the Lakers on February 19th. So 51 three-point attempts in a preseason game. Is that a good or a bad thing? Walker. [Music] I It’s preeason, man. I don’t know. I It’s funny because this is what they did at the beginning of last year. It does fit with all the shot diet talk. It does fit what Charles was trying to implement last year. I They went away from it and a lot of that I think is personnel based because you just couldn’t trust the the shooters that were made available to you. But you know, Brandon hopefully playing more than 27 games. LaMelo playing hopefully more than 50. Trey man playing hopefully more than 13. Colin Ston is going to play more than zero. You have some guys that shot pretty well last year that hopefully see more than 50. I I would expect that to go up again. So, is it something? Is it nothing? I’m going to I’m going to take your question. I’m going to rephrase it so I can answer to my own comfort. I think it’s something that they did shoot a bunch of threes, but at the same time, I can’t say that I imagine them shooting 50 all the time. They’re not going to shoot 50 all the time, but they are going to shoot a lot of threes because that’s just unless they play faster consistently and execute in transition, which would take some of those possessions away. But if there even though they added Colin Saxon still fundamentally they are a team that are full of players that can drive and kick but they can’t necessarily finish at the rim. They’re not that they’re not that big of a threat. LaMelo Ball Brandon Trey actually Khan is uh I mean just based on that first preseason game he could be that level of player that can he just has a sort of nose for getting into the paint and then being able to finish there. He’s so crafty around the rim. But we’ll see. But that was against again that was against the OKC scattered showers. That was against the B team. Let’s see what it looks like against NBA competition. But just fundamentally they’re a team full of drivers who have to kick and so that’s going to result in a lot I mean it’s going to result in a lot of open three-point shots. And then the question is can they hit those? Because like taking 53 is not a bad thing if you can hit them. Uh, by the way, I was looking at NBA teams to uh how what NBA teams were averaging the crazy amount of three-point attempts per game last year. I Is this right? The Celtics took 48 threes a game. And here we are talking about 51 being like franchise record-breaking territory for Charlotte. The Warriors were second on this list at 42.4, Bowls at 42. like you get into uh realistically uh or relatively similar neighborhood. Were the Celtics taking on average six more three-point attempts per game as everybody else? Like that just seems off. But also that was such a talking point with Boston. I guess that’s right. Just wild. God almighty. That’s crazy. No, they they just fully they fully, you know, worshiped at the altar of the of the math gods. And um you know, it it worked to a certain extent when they won a championship. But I think you’re when you do that, you’re always going to give yourself up to some level of variance. Like on some nights it’s going to be awesome and then on other nights it’s not. And that’s why the Charles Lees of the world are always going to say, “Look, boys, shoot as many threes as you want, but you’ve got to you got to get back in transition. You’ve got to communicate on defense because that will carry you. That will keep you in ball games when you are shooting 20% from three on 40 plus attempts.” So, that’s I mean, just look for that in the preseason like can these rookies uh get up to speed quickly and start communicating with each other? Um, can Colin and LaMelo raise the level of their defense? Trey man, same thing. Brandon Miller, can he be a threat as a wing defender? You know, all of these things are going to make the difference between whether the Hornets uh can hang in some of these games or not. That’ll do it for Locked On Hornets. Thanks for making us your first listen. We’re free and available anywhere you get your pods. That includes YouTube. Check out Doug’s other other pod. This time it’s every hornetsboxcore.com. Keep your eyes out for a new episode there. Again, every Hornetsboxcore.com. Also, check out Yahoo Sports Daily. Daily with Jason Fitz and Caroline Fenton. I’m Walker Mail. Listen to me. WFNZ every weekday from 12:00 to 3:00 p.m. 927 FM. Have a great rest of your day. We’ll be back with you tomorrow. [Music]

We set the expectations for Brandon Miller’s crucial third season as he returns from a long injury layoff, looking at his preseason performance and what the coaches want from him. Then, we examine a report from ESPN’s Bobby Marks that identifies the Hornets as a team to watch in the trade market and discuss how their financial flexibility could be used to improve the roster.

On today’s show, we are setting the expectations for Brandon Miller as he enters his pivotal third season. After a rusty performance in the preseason opener, we discuss the level of patience he’ll need as he works his way back from a long layoff following wrist surgery. The team needs a lot from him, and we look at what Coach Charles Lee is emphasizing for his development—specifically, a greater ability to get to the rim, draw fouls, and finish through contact.

We also examine the team’s overall offensive philosophy, which was on full display with 51 three-point attempts in the first preseason game. Finally, we turn our attention to the trade market. A recent article from ESPN’s Bobby Marks identifies the Hornets as one of three teams perfectly positioned to act as a third-party trade facilitator, thanks to a $14.1 million trade exception. We explore what this financial flexibility means for Jeff Peterson’s asset collection strategy and whether the team might use it to acquire a much-needed center or simply continue to gather more draft picks.

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