LaMelo vs. Brandon: Who NEEDS an injury-free year MORE?! | Hornets want to play FAST but can they?

LaMelo vs. Brandon: Who NEEDS an injury-free year MORE?! | Hornets want to play FAST but can they?

It’s all about the sickos today. We rummage through the sicko satchel and we rummage and we rummage and we rummaged some more. It’s a Friday, no rules Friday episode of 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 includes YouTube. There’s Doug Branson, every hornetsbox.com. Also check out the show he helps produce, Yahoo Sports 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. Sports Radio 927 WFNZ. This episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers can bet just $5. And if your bet wins, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. Head to fanduel.com to get started. No rules Friday. We do know rules Friday on Won Walker. I decided to give this show that tagline because all we’re doing, we’re going straight to the satchel. We’re asking answering I should say a bunch of questions that the sickos have asked us. They delivered. They understood the assignment. You asked, we received and then we kept receiving lots of questions. What do you have for the people here, Doug? I’ll get into that in a second, but I want to talk to this Friday thing. First of all, I want to know what does no rules Friday mean on Wes and Walker in brief. Oh, the beauty of the titles of each of the types of shows that we have is that nobody knows what they mean. Warrior, isn’t it warrior? War cry Wednesday, right? So, we have a do it to it Tuesday. What are we doing? I don’t know, but we’re doing it and we’re doing it. It’s a do it to it Tuesday. Shout out to Boomer von Cannon for helping us out with that one. War cry Wednesday. We know what we’re doing there. We just let out all of the emotion that comes on a hump day and we start the show after we war cry. And then on no rules Friday, we get a little loosey goosey on a Friday, even on a football Friday, which is also no rules Friday. So, nobody knows what any of it means. I’m letting loose on a Friday. I I’ve I’ve come to appreciate Fridays in a in a very different way. Uh working a morning show. Yeah, I remember I remember now. It is morning shows are they are a beast and I love them. Uh but I have just come to appreciate Fridays and uh yeah, no rules. I haven’t even done my if you’re watching on YouTube, you can see my hair is a is is a scatter. I don’t care uh because it’s Friday and I’m excited to get into this satchel. All right. And there are no rules. Your hair doesn’t have to abide by any rules. It’s not abiding by anything right now. Um, all right. So, let’s get into this satchel. Uh, you know, before I even put out the call, the all call for the sickos to fill the satchel, uh, we got this message from Roger from the 23rd Trey Man division. Big fan of the show. He he I I like Roger because he starts uh with the abbreviation good morning, GM. So, it’s GM Doug. And I I at first when I before I thought about it, I was like, he’s saying that I’m he I’m the general manager of the Hornets, right? Like this is he wants my general manager opinions, but I think he’s just wishing me a good morning. Uh Roger says this, “Enjoyed watching lockdown Hornets this morning. I’m hoping that Coach Lee gets the guys to buy into his system. I would like to see these guys play fast-paced transition offense. This would help create a lot of space on the floor. Kickouts galore, baby. I would love to see it. Now, Walker, I think a lot of people would love to see this team play faster, score more points, but the thing is about playing faster is you also have to play effectively. Like, you can play fast and also play terribly. And I thought we saw a little bit of that against Oklahoma City where they might have been playing a little too fast or or they just aren’t used to playing that speed. They need to play that fast. So, maybe too fast is the wrong word. They need to play that fast, but they’ve got to learn to play that fast more effectively for sure. And they were not very good at the efficiency part of it in transition. They were bad at frequency. They were bad at efficiency getting out in transition last year. So, they need to fix both. You are right about that. What will help you is a couple of guys coming back. LaMelo Ball just a walking fast break. He immediately speeds up the process. He immediately with his go-ahead passes, with his fun, remember rookie gear underhand to Gordon Hayward. the full court, the full length of the court type of passes. LaMelo has that ability. And Musa is going to get out in transition. He can even steal the basketball and help you get out a little bit faster than what Mark Williams did. One, you just don’t turn off the motor at all if you’re Musa. But also, you’re flirting with perimeter defense a little more. And we actually saw a steal. Was it the second or the first preseason game? I think it might have been the first where Musa ate his guy up trying to drive and picked his pockets cookies all the way down the other end of the floor. You get an easy bucket. So, I think Moose is going to help too. Trey man, interestingly enough, if I remember correctly, going through his numbers last year and even the year prior, he was much more of a halfcourt guy than he was somebody that was a speedster getting out in the open floor, which was interesting. Quick, really, I mean, going to undress you with his crossovers. Yeah, that makes sense in the half court. I thought maybe he would get out in the open floor a little more. So, he he he doesn’t hurt. It’s just he’s much more of a halfcourt oriented player. Brandon Miller, the last one on this list, only 27 games. This was the selling point on him is that he was this runs like a deer type of wing that’s real coordinated and can catch alioops from LaMelo. That was the idea, the twoman game between those two. Th that’s another question that we can answer with injuries, Doug. I think yes, just the fact that guys are healthy. Yeah. The fact that guys are healthy. Um that’s going to help. And also just the way that they built their team with all of these small quick guys that has to I think invite a faster pace. All right, I’m going to break some news here on the show and I’m going to get really really sicko in a way that we have not been able to get sicko before. And the news is this. Uh thanks to the locked on podcast network, we now have access to Synergy Sports and all of the play type breakdowns statistics uh that come with that. And so uh you’ll be hearing a lot more of those stats creep their way into the show and how efficient the Hornets are individually and as a team at those different kinds of styles of play. And so I’m going to get really sicko and dive into this synergy stat data for a preseason game for the second preseason game. And I pulled up the transition stats and the Hornets actually beat the Oklahoma City Thunder uh in in that second preseason game in transition points total, 25 points to 14. But in terms of efficiency, the Oklahoma City Thunder were scoring at a points per possession of 1.286. That’s good. And the Hornets were at a8. That’s not good relative to what good transition should be. And if you dig down into who was doing the transisting, the transitioning, the transitioning, right? Uh it was La La Llo Ball with six possessions, Musa Diamate, five possessions, Trey man four possessions. Trey man was a 1.25 in transition. He was scorching hot. Colin Ston only two, and I think both of those were steel ripaways um that he crushed. And then LaMelo Ball in his six transition plays, three in the first quarter, three in the second quarter. uh he was at a 667. Brandon Miller his two possessions uh he didn’t convert on either of them. Uh Musa Debbate at a point8 uh or well and I don’t know if this is them directly converting or that the result of the play that they were involved in uh uh was not good for Brandon, good for Musa uh and really good for Trey Man who I think opens up a lot of them playing more quickly this season. Yeah. So, if you just look just to bring some of those stats to life last year, um off of steals, they did get out um excuse me, off of steals, they uh yeah, okay, I apologize. They were a little bit better getting out in transition off of steals. So, you wonder if that’s going to increase with Musa. They were in the 18th uh ranking or the 18th spot, excuse me. Um but like all transition in terms of frequency, yeah, that’s where they were a little bit further down. That’s where they were 29th. And then you talk about points per play in transition. They were dead last at 30th. So that off steals number is really the the thing that maybe they can lean into a little bit more. So yeah, there you go. Synergy, by the way. I I just I don’t even know what to do with this power. Like I I I need to This is almost like the last Mission Impossible where in order to unlock some of the synergy stats, I have one half of the key, Doug has the other half of the key. We have to put both sides of the keys together and then unlock the lock that is synergy. And then we have to figure out what it is that this thing does. First we have to know where it goes. Then we have to figure out what it does. And even then you have a split second to where you can master the entity that is synergy. That’s how I feel about all this information/p power we have. We’ve got we’ve we’ve bogged ourselves down already. We’ve got a lot of satchel to get to, but I do have one final thing on the transition piece, and it goes back to Trey Man and Colin Ston. We did at different points during the offseason go, what are they doing? Like signing all these guards. They don’t sign a center. Da da da da da. Now, just kind of looking at how they want to play over these first two games. Like, they’ve got to get in sync. I mean, there was a play early on where LaMelo threw it way over Miles’s head. Like, when they get into the regular season, they’re going to be f that’s going to be fine. They’ve got to get this stuff worked out again. They’ve got to get more effective. But if they’re going to play this quickly, then I I trust Colin Ston to do that. I trust Trey Man because for every Trey man transition possession, for every Colin Ston transition, I mean, the steel ripaways, but even if he’s just putting the ball into action quickly, I trust that over I don’t know. I mean, I trust it a little bit more than Brandon Miller right now. I trusted a little bit more than Mile. I trust a lot more than Miles because I thought that was where the offense got bogged down a lot last season was Miles like Miles should not be running the break. That’s not I don’t think that plays to his strength. He should be accepting the break, right? He should be highflying being the ooper, not the alier. So, um yeah, I I just I like this Trey man. I like this Colin Ston running more transition offense around LaMelo Ball. Um they’ve just got to get more effective at it. Yeah. All right, and we have more thoughts coming up next on the Locked On Hornets podcast. We have thoughts. Bees everywhere. Is it asking too much to have such a dramatic improvement in an area that they were not only bad at last year, they were the worst at last year? I want to explore that and then I want to explore more satchel questions. That’s coming up. LO, [Music] this episode is brought to you by Prize Picks. Every day we make decisions, but on prize picks, being right can actually get you paid. Don’t miss the excitement of this football season with prize picks where it’s good to be right. Playing prize picks is such a fun, simple way to add more excitement to football. You just pick more or less on player projections like Josh Allen’s passing yards or Saquon Barklay’s rushing for a touchdown prop and you’re in the game. I I actually, you know, I uh I might have I might have said Saquon’s going to run for a touchdown and it didn’t happen last night, so that hurt. Don’t be like me though. That’s a big story line right now. Big story line. You know, it’s it’s bad to be wrong. 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[Music] I I know we keep beating this to death, Doug, and we’ve talked about it quite a bit this off season, but it is such it’s such a difference, right? because I I can’t help but just see how the block where orange is red hot and blue is ice cold everything every transition category it’s ice cold whatever you want to look at and so can can a team I don’t have the numbers on some of the other teams that might have done this but can a team with yeah a lot of changes but also they still have a decent amount of their core in place can a team dramatically improve something that they were dead last at last year. And I’m talking 30 out of 30, baby. And they were quite bad at all of these little categories. The best that we can get to again is the frequency in which they got out in transition off of steels. And they were ranked 18th. They were still below average and the thing that they were best at and everything else they were 30th. So now here you have LaMelo who is going to improve a bunch of stuff. And we can go down the list of all the signings that they made. Is it too much to ask for them to go all the way all the way all the way at the bottom to average top 10? Especially with how much they’re going to relinquish defensively, you would imagine like is it okay to expect and or ask them to get to top 10 in a lot of those categories? Well, top 10 maybe, but I think dramatic improvement would be even just jumping into the 20s or, you know, being middle of the road. And I think you can you should expect that from them because what in so far as LaMelo Ball stays healthy because he is that talented and he can make that kind of impact at running faster paced offense. And if if a few other guys hit some shots, yeah, they can make those they can make those improvements and you should expect that from the guy that you’re paying the most money to. He should be efficient in transition. that plays to his strengths or and and honestly like I know he’s a little bit bigger but it plays to his lack of strength in that if you’re playing quick and you’re playing in transition you’re not you know you’re not going to face the same kind of pressure that tended to bog him down last season. So you know you already create an advantage for your best player. So yeah that should create an advantage for your team overall. By the way, I’m digging into these synergy stats and it looks like Kase Wallace one for one in shots that were uh angels in the outfield type of shots where an angel grabs the basketball and floats it into the basket from 90 ft in the air. That’s that’s pretty crazy stat. It could happen. It could happen. That was nuts. That’s the first thing when I when when we were talking pre-show on Yahoo Sports Daily, first thing that came up was, “Did you see the shot?” I was like, “Yes, I saw the shot.” Yeah. it. I mean, it’s it’s legitimately one of the best one of the best shots that I’ve seen. I I thought I saw Christopher Lloyd out there. Okay, what’s next? What’s the next question? Uh, this is from Bam Bam of uh the uh Let me get this right because it’s so good. I don’t want to get it wrong. He is Bam Bam of the 21st Ricky Pierce Division, aka the Flying Big Paper Daddies. And he’s got a couple of things for us here. Hot take this season, Colin Ston gets careerhigh points per game. It took one preseason game for me to realize he’s more serious than most of our team. And also Bamb Bam says possible unpopular opinion. Colin Ston is our second best player. Maybe it’s just the honeymoon phase. He stands out amongst all the other players on the team. Is it that our roster isn’t that good or is it that he is just that much better than everyone else? Okay. I don’t think he’s going to have a career points per game average this season. It’s going to be really tough. So 18.4 last year, 18.7 the year prior on a team that was totally totally devoid of scoring prowess and he was the guy to lead them in a lot of ways. So if Colin had so many opportunities to get up 13 14 shots a game, he did have I’m sorry at Cleveland. at Cleveland. I I’m I’m missing some of the stuff that he did earlier on in his career, which was a similar situation. Cleveland in 60 games that he started, he actually averaged 24 points per game. I apologize. So, it’s a big jump. I Okay, career, huh? More than 24 a game is going to be wild. More than 18, Doug, I think is not going to happen. And I feel pretty good about that as well. What’s the high end for him? I think you’re probably looking at 15 if nobody’s hurt, which we don’t want to predict based off of this guy is going to be injured this many games, whatever. I’m not going to do that. But it would just be really tough for him to do that with LaMelo, even if he comes down, sits around 20. We want Brandon’s numbers to come up. Trey man is still going to be a guy that has the basketball in his hands quite a bit and is going to bring on a lot of the scoring load. So, no, I don’t think any of that’s going to happen. And maybe you can answer the second part here. Is there a chance you think Colin Section is the second best player on this team? And if that’s true, what does that mean for the Hornets overall? He can be the second most fun player to watch on the team. I would buy into that. I don’t buy that he’s going to be the second best player unless some injuries happen. I I just think that like we’ll just see if he starts Saturday when they play the Mavericks because they’ve been they started with Khan, then they went to Trey to start the second preseason game. I’m really curious if Charles Lee just wants to see what each of these guys looks like in between LaMelo Ball and Brandon Miller. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he started, but I don’t know that he’s going to start, you know, game one and certainly not all the way through game 82. I don’t think that’s how it’s going to work. I think that’s what he would need. He would need significant possessions and I just that the Hornets got a gift in Colin Ston, but I don’t they don’t they don’t view him as like the future of the franchise. They view LaMelo Ball and Brandon Miller as the future of the franchise and the possessions unless Brandon unless LaMelo or Brandon gets hurt or unless one of unless really Brandon I think takes a step back then I think they’re going to feed those guys the rock and and let those guys command possessions and so you know I don’t think he’s going to have the opportunity but I think again if he really commits to the to the defensive end of the floor like we saw in that second preseason He could be one of the more impactful players. He can be one of the more fun players. I don’t know that he’s going to have a career year. So, if you go back to the year where Colin went for 24 points a game, he got up 18 shots a game. Next on the list was Andre Drummond at 15.2. Darius Garland, but remember, very, very young Darius Garland just entering the league. And then old Kevin Love. Those were the guys that were top five on that team. They finished 22 and 50, Doug. The 2023 24 season with the Jazz, they were better. They were 31 and 51 when Colin went for about 18 almost 19 a contest. He put up 13 field goal attempts per game. It’s actually lower than what Lori Markin did at 16 a game and then he shot 20 scored 23 points. So looking at the situations they were in, perhaps the Jazz Hornets comparison is a little closer than I thought upon just surface level taking a glance at it. I I do think even still there are more guys that you want taking shots towards the upper echelon of your roster than you did have with the Jazz that year. Lori Markin, okay, that’s understandable. Jordan Clark Jordan Clarkson, maybe he takes on the Trey Man role, stealing some shots. Um even so, like I I think it’s going to be tough. So, we can move on after the Colin Ston question. Anything else you want to get to before we get to the last segment? I’m just really diving all the way into the deep end of the pool of these synergy stats cuz I was curious in our LaMelo Ball discussion like you I would think just watching him play that he would embrace the chaos that he would be significantly better as an offensive player and more efficient as an offensive player in transition. The the the numbers don’t bear that out just in terms of efficiency. Maybe overall production, you can make that argument, but he’s been in his all-star year, he was almost dead average in transition in terms of efficiency, but every other year, he’s been below average as as an offensive engine in transition. He’s been better in half court situations. Uh, and and that’s probably going to wax and wayne depending on how well he was shooting his three-point shot. Uh but LaMelo Ball has some work to do. If if they want to get faster, you’ve got to look at him as someone that at the end of the season, you say if they if they if they accomplish their goal of playing faster, more consistently, then it’s because they were doing it well enough that it didn’t justify, hey, we got to slow things down. Like this is not good. And which is that’s what happened last season. And some of that was injury, but some of that was we tried to play quick and couldn’t. So, if they do it, then we’re going to see, I think, at least a return to that all-star season where he was playing at least average in terms of points per possession. And that’s both taking into account did he score, did he not score, did he turn it over, did he not turn it over, did whoever he facilitated to score. So, it’s kind of all of that mashed up together, but he certainly has to get better on that end, too. And you know what? I I think that’s pretty explainable in my opinion. all the stats that you just mentioned from Synergy, it’s the best team that he’s ever played with when he was at least dead average and it was still his second season in the league. So much of what LaMelo does well in transition is not him scoring. That’s not what we talk about with LaMelo. It’s who can finish and provide LaMelo an assist. And if those guys are G-Leaguers, you’re probably going to rank pretty poorly in that category. If you get Miles Bridges, who didn’t play 92 games because of off-the-court situations and also got a little banged up here and there when he would come back, LaMelo wasn’t on the floor. So now you don’t even have your running mate who you created sweet music with in the open floor. Like there’s a lot of reasons as to see LaMelo towards the bottom of that list. I I think all of that is extremely explainable, which goes to show you just stay freaking healthy, put enough talent around him. It’s why I’m so hopeful with this season is that I think they got the right pieces to give him the dime, give him the assist in some of those situations. God, what I’m gonna give you one more number and then we’ll go and we’re going to do rapid fire sicko satchel because I want to get to some of these questions. But so if you look at the turnover percentages on those transition opportunities for his first couple of seasons, those two like rookie of the year and then all-star, it hovered around 15% turnover percentage in transition. You go to the last couple of seasons, it goes up to 18, almost 19%. That doesn’t seem like a lot, four percentage points, but it’s a significant it’s a significant number enough of turnovers that it’s going to make the difference between you being effective uh you being an effective transition team. It’s not all on LaMelo, but that’s a significant bump up. Yeah. And again, I’m not even trying to look, it feels like I’m I’m knocking everything out of the park that you throw at me in terms of trying to defend LaMelo. Um I I don’t want to absolve him of all of it, but yeah, think about that. Even a lack of chemistry with the guys that are coming up from Greensboro or that are your second or third stringers. And one thing we’ve been sure to note with the injuries with LaMelo is then you have to go back a few steps in order to create chemistry and rhythm with these guys. Like I So, okay, now you’re talking about more responsibility. Yeah. You’re you’re throwing to a space on the floor that your teammate was supposed to fill and he didn’t because it’s young Nick Smith Jr. or it’s KJ Simpson or it’s Wendell Moore, whatever. I it’s or it’s Mark Williams not getting back, you know? It’s Don’t even get me started. I know. No, I agree. No, listen. I’m not killing LaMelo here. I’m agree. I totally agree with you. And and so it’s I’ve always said this like LaMelo should have been beating down the door a long time ago to the general man. It was it’s difficult when he’s in a boot, but like he should have been beating down the door a long time ago saying, “Hey, you got to get me some dudes I can run with.” Okay. So I think now he has them. So I don’t know that that excuse is going to be inbuilt anymore. And so best player has to return to at least being an average transition. And then it then it sparks the question like what if he’s above average? You know what? If what possess, you know, that’s when things get interesting. The That’s the thing, man. Yeah. Cuz like even even the strong players for that team, I I wouldn’t say, “Oh, yeah, those are the guys that are real speedsters.” And Terry Roier, who would give us some flash moments, but that I I view him as a halfcourt bailout. Uh Gordon Hayward was the connector. He wasn’t the one that you wanted to get out on the fast break. I guess it was younger Miles. I PJ I isn’t I don’t think that’s the first thing you think of when you talk about tsunami. I think they you know they got to hope that Colin Saxon is the next tsunami just well he wasn’t even on that team right Kelly Kelly wasn’t on that team that uh when LaMelo was an all-star I don’t think so. Oh, no, no, not the Allar team. I’m thinking of the next Yeah, when he was average is what I was going back to. Uh to to to further your point about what if he’s above average, right? Like that that’s the point. He was average with a squad that I don’t think of running and gun, let’s go Lyola style. Like I don’t think that when I think of that core here. I do I do think that you have a lot of fast guys. So maybe to bring this back full circle. Yeah, there is room for dramatic improvement to the point where maybe you can flirt with the Oh, you got me confused. 21 22. No, Kelly Ubé was on that team. He was on the All-Star team. He was I didn’t I did not realize that. I didn’t know he was there. I apologize. You got me all You got me all twisty twisty. Yeah, Kelly Ubé. Uh Jaylen McDaniels, Cody Martin, Miles Bridges, uh Gordon Hayward, Nick Richards, Terry Rosier. I’m sorry. Tsunami Poppy, I apologize. Thor. More Thor. [Music] That didn’t help his uh rankings seeing more Thor. Let’s move on. Coming up next on the Locked On Hornets podcast. Beast everywhere. More Synergy stats. Probably Doug went drunk and decided to just dive into the pool of synergy. More Siko Satchel questions as well 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 writing on the action. 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 fanduel.com to download the FanDuel app today and get started. This episode is also brought to you by Quo. One of the tools that helps making uh excuse me, one of the tools that helps make a huge difference for business owners is Quo, formerly known as Open Phone. It’s the same great business phone system you’ve heard me talk about before, just with a new name. Here’s why it matters. Every missed call is money left on the table. When every customer conversation counts, you need a phone system that keeps you connected 24/7. Quo is the number one business phone system that streamlines customer communications and it works right through an app on your phone or your computer. So, no more carrying two phones or relying on a landline. See why over 90,000 businesses trust Quo, formerly open phone. Get started free and get 20% off your first 6 months at quo.com/lockdonba. That’s quoqu.com/lockdonba. And if you got existing numbers with another service, Quo will port them over at no extra charge. Quo, no missed calls, no missed customers. More Lockdown Hornets ahead. Sicko Satchel or Synergy? Where do you want to go? Kelly UB. So that I you’ve sent me down an uber rabbit hole now. Of course I did. That was no rules Friday. That’s right. 2122 season was such a Kelly Ubé aberration. Although last season he was unleashed in Philly because they didn’t have a lot else and he had a great I think he had a great year there too. A similar year I think. Right. Very similar position. Very similar year. Yeah. Yes. Except he didn’t shoot well from three. 29% uh last season. But the aberration for him is he nearly shot 35% from three on uh seven attempts. And you know, he he did have a 35% year in 201920 with uh Phoenix, but that was only on five and a half attempts, but it’s his only top 10 award year when he he was voted seventh in six man of the year voting for Charlotte during the 21-22 season. Also top 10 Montres Herrell, who only spent 25 games with the Hornets, but was also in the top 10 in six man of the year voting. Well, this is this this is the comparison that I’ve made with Trey Man and Colin Section. and also vying for that spot. Can you get both of them to finish top 10 like you had with your last playin team seeing both Montre Herrell and Kelly Ubé get there? Now, I may be wrong, but I think the the confusion that we both had was I I don’t think during that season we referred to him as Tsunami Poppy. I believe the tsunami Poppy name may have come up like he’s always I think it was revealed to us maybe in the following season. I I could have that wrong. Well, I mean, you know, time since we’ve done any kind of fun postseason, you know, kind of activ one of our listeners has tsunami daddy, I believe, as one of the taglines on YouTube. Who? I thought it went I thought it went Kelly Ubé, Tsunami Poppy, then Tsunami Father. It’s you know. No, no, Tsunami Father was last. That’s right. We eventually transitioned to Tsunami Father. Okay, Siko satchel time. What you got? I said rapid fire, but that’s that’s doing a disservice to all of the people. We never mean it. No, no, we don’t mean it. When we say rapid fire and when we say we’re really going to do it this time, I need you, the listener, to know we do not mean it. We never mean it. It’s never going to be rapid fire. Well, because I don’t want to short change it. These are such good, sick, disgusting questions that I do not want to short change them. So, we’ll do It looks like we got time for one more and then I’ll save them. They’re not going anywhere. They will rapid fire for sure this time. Yeah. Here we go. This is uh I don’t even know that I have a nickname on here. So, 488, you know who you are. Uh, you also you also texted the Sicko Brigade line here with uh shouting me out for my Julius Hodgej shout out during our Hodge Podge episode that we did uh maybe last week or early. Yeah. Yeah, I think it was last week. Or Hodge Pod is what it was. It was a Hodge Pod. Yeah, exactly. And I then I said Julius Hodgej. Uh so you shouted that out so you know who you are. Um send me what your nickname is and what uh sick sicko brigade member you want to be referred to as. Uh if here’s the question. If you could pick just one Charlotte Hornet, just one to be guaranteed injury-free for the entire season, who would you uh pick and why? Oh, I’m sorry. It came at the end of the text. It’s this is Andrew from the 31st Rambis Brigade. There we go. Andrew from the 31st Ramis Brigade wants to know, “Injuryfree Hornet for the entire season. Who would you pick and why?” Well, I appreciate the question. I I short of being creative and and being devil’s advocate, like this is this is one answer, man. I don’t and and I love the question. I love the sickness, baby. I’m here for all of it. I I don’t I don’t see a real reason to bring any other name up than LaMelo. I Brandon would be the one. But still, I thought you were going to go Musa there for a second. Why is it not Musa? Well, this is stupid. It’s Musa Devante. No. Uh Brandon Miller. Yeah. Like I I I get his importance to the team. really it might just be who’s been in the league longer and who have we had to wait on longer for a healthy season. And it’s it’s LaMelo, man. He’s making the most money. We have to figure out if he’s going to be a pillar for even beyond what this year is. We’re talking about him being we’re talking about him as trade fodder constantly. If you guaranteed that LaMelo would play 70 games this year, I would take that way way like significantly more before I would take Brandon being guaranteed 70. Miles, even my sweet baby Musa Diaate. All of it. This answer has to be LaMelo Ball. Does it have to be? It has to be. I know. It has to be. Has to be. Let me see if I can Let me see if I can make another argue. I can make two arguments. I don’t know that they’re going to be good enough, but I’m going to try to make two arguments that aren’t LaMelo Ball for the sake of this conversation. Okay. Brandon Miller. We’ve been talking about him as if he has the potential to supersede LaMelo Ball. And by the way, this question is not if you could pick one Hornet to be it is be completely injuryfree. Meaning like it doesn’t mean that if they’re not injury-free, they suddenly miss 40 games. It just means who would you want to have a completely healthy season? And we’ve at least seen one to one and a half of those from LaMelo Ball. Uh we saw one rookie season, but I want one outside the rookie season. Like 2122 for LaMelo was mostly healthy and it was an all-star season, right? I would like to see the I would like to see that from Brandon Miller. And so I think it just in terms of like figuring out what Brandon is, I think it’s more important that he stays healthy for the entire season, just get as many games in this crucial development stage that LaMelo has already graduated out of. Doesn’t mean he can’t improve. Doesn’t mean that he has reached his complete ceiling, but Brandon Miller is in the crucial. They’ve already paid LaMelo Ball. They’ve already signed the check. with Brandon Miller, they still have to make the decision to sign the check. He still has something to show for them to sign the check. So, that would be my argument for Brandon Miller. The only other argument that I would make is Miles Bridges only because he does so many little things for the team, but more so than that, he is reaching the part of his contract that makes him the most tradable. You don’t want that guy to be injured going into the trade deadline, have that sort of situation where you suddenly cannot move him. Uh, so maybe there’s a small argument there. I don’t think it’s better than the LaMelo one, but honestly, I put the Brandon Miller argument up against LaMelo. Yeah, I it matters that Brandon is healthy. There’s no doubt about it. Just I would argue LaMelo and his clean bill of health is one of the more important clean bills of health in the entire league because we just need to figure out what in the hell can he do on a team with any type of potential and this is the first time that we’ve had that. So, let’s say he’s hurt now. You you risk next year. You don’t have Colin section. Maybe the rookies can replace him. But it it’s now to take that jump. And this is a year where we’ve talked about it. Make or break. Do you end up trading him? I don’t mind the Brandon Miller case. I really don’t. But I I think he’s clearly second. I just think there’s a clear first. It’s been three years. 47 games, 22 games, 36 games. That’s how many games that he’s appeared in in each of the last three seasons before you can get to that 75 game mark. 75. My god, what a beautiful, beautiful number. Give me 75 again. Um, I like the Brandon Miller case, though. All right. Anything else before we end it today? No, that’s it. We’ll get to more Siko Satchel uh in the next couple of episodes. We’ve still got a lot of preseason action to get to. Maverick’s game. Just really quickly, are you excited about the Khan Canipple versus uh Cooper Flag matchup? Is that does that titilate you? It does titilate me. Uh s surprisingly close to the coniple surname as well. Titilating. Canipple is titillating. Anyways, I am Go ahead. Last last synergy stat for me before I forget it. Uh Khan Canipple was one of only three players in that second preseason game to have a post up possession. It was like Musa, Ton, and Khan Canipple with one post up possession. There you go. Coniple. Trying to remember where it came from. Uh, what I What was the titillating percentage from Keniple in the second preseason game? Not as much as the first for sure. That was titillating for sure. Yeah, there was still some titilation, but yeah, I am looking forward to the matchup because I think they’ll embrace it if they get on each other. They seem like the kind of cats that would like like that match up against each other. So, I I’m I’m I’m going to be excited to see that if it happens. Same. All right, that’ll do it for Lockdown Hornets. Thanks for making us your first listen. We’re free and available anywhere you get your pods. That includes YouTube. Uh Doug Branson is on every hornetsboxcore.com. Go check it out. Also, go check out Yahoo Sports Daily with Jason Fitz and Caroline Finton. I’m Walker Mail. Listen to me WFNZ every weekday from 12 to 300 p.m. Sports Radio 927 FM. Have a great weekend. We’ll be back with you on Monday. [Music]

It’s a “No Rules Friday” as we empty the Sicko Satchel and dedicate the entire episode to answering your best questions. First, we address a popular topic: will the Hornets finally play with the fast-paced transition offense that fans have been hoping for? We look at how a healthy LaMelo Ball, athletic bigs like Moussa Diabaté, and versatile guards like Tre Mann and Collin Sexton give them the personnel to do it. However, with our new access to Synergy Sports data, we also examine why LaMelo has historically been inefficient in transition and what needs to change for the team’s pace to be effective.

Next, we respond to a listener’s hot take that Collin Sexton could have a career year and be the team’s second-best player. Finally, we tackle a crucial question: if you could guarantee only one player on the roster an injury-free season, who would it be? We present the compelling cases for both LaMelo Ball, whose availability is paramount to the team’s direction, and Brandon Miller, who needs a full, healthy season for the front office to evaluate before a massive contract extension decision.

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