Hornets STANG’N or CLANG’N | Kon Knueppel SHINES | LaMelo’s DEFENSE & Tre Mann’s Slump EXPOSED

Hornets STANG’N or CLANG’N | Kon Knueppel SHINES | LaMelo’s DEFENSE & Tre Mann’s Slump EXPOSED

Coming up today on the Locked On Hornets podcast, we open up with Stangan or clanging. We rummage through that bag first time in a while. And then I’ll give you some of my observations on the Miami Heat loss. That’s all today. LO. You are Locked on Hornets. Your daily Charlotte Hornets podcast. Part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. In a minute. We live. 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. That includes YouTube as well. There’s Doug Branson. Every hornetsboxcore.com also produces Yahoo Sports Daily with Jason Fitz and Caroline Fenton. I’m Walker Mail. Listen to me WFNZ every weekday from 12 to 300 PM sports radio 927 FM. So before I tell you some of my observations from the Heat game, if you got to listen to the postgame show last night on WFNZ, you got to hear some of my notes, but I’ll give you some of them uh a little bit later on in the show today as well. But we open up with Stanganger or Clanging. First time in a while that we’ve done this here, Doug, buddy. It’s a staple of the show. And again, I can’t even remember the last time that we did this. It’s the first version of Stanging or Clanging of the season. This is your baby. So, why don’t you go ahead and lead us off here, Doug? This is by request, by the way. We got one of the sickos in the Sicko Brigade saying, “Hey, you haven’t done Stanging or Clanging a while, and I want to know what’s stanging, what’s great about the Charlotte Hornets, and what’s clanging, what’s coming off the rim when it comes to the Charlotte Hornets.” So, look, I always like to start the positive. I see you typing something in the rundown, and I’m just going to immediately steal it. My first staying in is there it is. I entered it. There you go. Right there. Bang. It’s not that one. Okay. It’s It’s Kenipple, but it’s not what you’re going to say. Gotcha. It’s It’s Conanipple’s three-point shooting. He’s got 16 made three-pointers, which means that he’s going to hold uh the rookie record for the first five game. He could he could hit zero three-pointers uh in the next game and he’s going to have the record for rookie three-point shooting in NBA history. Yes. Like everybody’s taking more threes. So, that’s not shocking, but it’s shocking that it’s a Hornet. It’s shocking that it’s a Hornet draft pick doing that. I just I can’t believe we I can’t believe the team nailed a top five draft pick. It’s incredible. Well, no, we we should actually we should have a coniple segment if we weren’t doing Stangan or Klingan by request from the people because we give the people what they want on this show. One of the ideas that I was going to pitch was that we have a full segment on Khan Canipple and if we’ve adjusted the ceiling for Khan just through the first four games because rookie of the year odds, they’re everchanging. It was Cooper Flag as a heavy favorite coming in. Now it’s VJ Edgecomb as the favorite. I don’t I don’t even know if that’s if he’s the favorite yet. He certainly is close. And it’s because he’s just absolutely balling out of this world for the first few games of the season for VJ. Cool. But also, here’s Khan’s games, man. 11 points in his debut. That would be the least amount of points that he’s scored so far. 14 in the next game. Incredible. 20 in the third, 19 in the fourth. Oh, okay. You’re telling me right out of the gate, he’s going to be awesome in an immediate plus in the rotation alongside Seion and Caulk Brener. Let’s try to focus on this one though. I’m talking to myself here. So with Khan hitting those threes, all of the threes where he doesn’t hit one in the next game, it’ll still be a rookie record for most amount of threes in the first five games. I mean, that’s fantastic. He’s shooting 58% from three. That’s also fantastic. None of it seems to be unsustainable as far as I can tell. I mean, how many wide openen threes has he missed? I mean, he missed one in this game against Miami. I was shocked when it didn’t go in. and every other shot that he hits. A lot of them are contested, too. Like, they’re at least crashing in on him. I Yeah, I He’s been incredible. I’ll just go ahead and finish up with one here as we continue the conversation. Khan’s probing like just going No, no, not not Cartman first episode of South Park style probe. We’re talking about probing in the paint where man, he just knows exactly where to go with the basketball. My favorite pass from Khan in this game against Miami. It was I think it was ball fake drive and then Colin cuts cross his face and all he does is it’s this dribble. It’s bas it’s a handoff but all he’s doing is handing the ball off to Colin as he’s cutting across him and it’s so smooth. And then Colin finishes with a bucket at the rim. There’s the Ryan Cochrrener alley which we knew he was great at throwing alleys to Kaman Malawatch in that pick and roll you know twoman game. He’s just so freaking good, man. It this this this one feels right. Khan Canipple, his shooting, his probing, all of it. Khan’s been staying. Uh yeah, it was one of the points as well in my recap that I did last night, which was in a game in which the Miami Heat were constantly knocking the ball out of LaMelo’s hands, out of Miles’s hands. I mean, they were just a super handsy defense that the Hornets offense really sort of got a reality check on. Khan was the one consistent player who could get inside of that defense, keep his dribble long enough to find the kick to the corner or find the kick out to the wing. And so, yes, super impressive there. And I’ll say if we were to have uh if we were to have coach Lee on this show right now, I think he’d give a stangan to Khan Caniple for something else entirely, and that’s his defense. This is a quote I’m getting from Matt Hornets’s Reddit on Twitter from his postgame or excuse me, pre I guess after practice availability, media availability. That’s what it was. Yeah. Yeah. That Lee gave. He said this about Khan Canipple. I’ve been impressed with like all aspects of his game right now. The thing that’s really stood out come game night is his defense. I think that there’s been some moments where he’s been one of our best on ball defenders. I went back to look at the film and particularly of Andrew Wiggins who had he was north of 20 points. I believe he had 21 or 22 points. 21. And I Yeah. And I I knew that Khan was on him for some of that game and I wanted to see if he was getting a majority of those on Khan or if he was getting him on other matchups. And I thought Khan’s defense on Andrew Wiggins who is a very skilled, talented offensive player that has a little bit I think uh uh length on Khan. Oh yeah. I thought Khan did really well just staying with him, staying connected, bothering him on a few shots. He did get a few on him, but honestly a majority of his points were were when he was getting switched on to other matchups. So, yeah, I mean, his communication, his ability to stay attached to the player that he’s defending, um, are going to counter whatever he’s going to lose sizewise on the wing, athleticism wise on the wing. Like, he’s going to get beat occasionally, but like he makes up for it in so many other ways. Well, yeah. And and by the way, Andrew Wiggins showed some of that length on a block shot from Khan Canipple. And there are some of those moments that you feel like Khan is eventually going to learn how to deal with as he gets further into his NBA career. It’s four games, man. He missed a shot at the rim. Yeah, it it’s God. He’s It’s Is it the best start for a rookie that we’ve had? PJ offensively like PJ came out of the game. I mean, I know it’s like the one game was incredible. You can look up the game log. I don’t know if it’s worth digging into, but that’s just the one that pops out. No, I It is. It absolutely is. No, it’s it’s not wrong to bring up. I It It just feels so different. Maybe it’s because it’s been so long. My god, that was 2019 for PJ. Yeah, he went 27, which is just an explosion in your debut. 27 108 11 23 in the fifth. PJ’s a good answer. Um cuz LaMelo went for a goose egg, then in the second game I think he went for 14 or 15. So yeah, you have to go back to LaMelo. This did turn into a con appreciation segment. We wanted to do stanging or clanging. We did three straight clangins. I’m sorry. We we did three straight stangins on Khan Canipple. We probably should get to some clangins. We we should um let’s do it in the next segment because it does tie in with some observations that I had in this Miami game. So coming up next on the Lockdown Hornets podcast everywhere, we give you some clangs. Sorry, we’re going to have to miss a few shots here in the next one to give you some of the negative to balance it out. But maybe we give you the sandwich method. Stanging, clanging, then stanging again. Observations. Sicko satchel. It’s a fun one. We’ll be back in a moment. Sandwiches. This episode is brought to you by Quo. One of the tools that helps make a huge difference for business owners is Quo, formerly open phone. 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Learn more at ripp png. rippling.com/lockdown NBA. That’s rippling.com/lockdown NBA for 6 months free. More Lockdown Hornets ahead. clanging part observations in the heat game. Yeah, you probably talked about this a little bit if you Well, you had some story lines to discuss. Man, it’s not been going well for my boy Trey. Trey, man, three of 15. All sorts of clanging in this one. Really did not get off to a good start. Taking bad shots on top of just missing even some of the good shots, the advised shots that he was letting it fly. Doug, there was the bad turnover at the end of the first half where he tries to save the ball out of bounds going behind the back and he tries to leak it out to Khan. Hit him in stride. So maybe Khan can make something happen on the other end of the court, but in reality he misses Khan completely. I think he hits Andrew Wiggins in stride going right. So he tries to hit Khan in stride going the other way. Instead he hits Andrew Wiggins in stride and of course Wiggins finishes at the rim. End of the first half. Here’s two freebies. Please and thank you. Miami, go ahead and score the basketball. It’s been rough for Trey. I actually didn’t think he was terrible in the first game. I thought he was good. I I I saw some stuff that I liked from Trey Man in the debut. It’s been rough the few games following. He had the injury. Wasn’t even for sure that he was going to suit up against Miami, but he did. Hornets PR tweeted out that he was going to be available. And it’s just been rough. Trey’s been clanging. Oh, yeah. The only worse offensive player by points per shot attempt is Liam McNeely right now than Trey Man at 70.6. Uh just for reference, Colin Ston at 142.3, uh Khan Canipo at 139, LaMelo at 120, Trey Man at 70. And you talked about the stanging of Khan’s probing. I would say the clanging is trees probing because it comes with so much dribbling, so much indecision that really gunks up offensive possessions. And that’s that’s not necessarily going to show up in the cleaning the glass numbers or in the box score. That’s just something as you watch or you’re like, man, this this offensive possession is suddenly going nowhere. uh because he’s trying stuff with no sort of endgame in mind and no ability to separate. And so yeah, is this rust? Is it the back not responding the way it used to? Even if I mean because I I just have to wonder like with this injury stuff when it starts to pile up and when you have to go through all of this rehab like if you just lose even just a little bit of whatever flexibility you have does that affect your ability to do some of the special things that we were seeing Trey do at the beginning of last season before he got hurt? I hope that I really hope that’s not the case because I think a Trey’s a great dude and b it would be great for the Charlotte Hornets to have that as an asset. Um and for them not to have it right now and to have to play him these minutes because Brandon Miller is out is hurting the offense. We had basically half a season of Trey Man with the time that he shared the court with everybody else in a Hornets uniform. We had 28 games after you immediately traded for him and then we had 13 last year. So that’s 41. That’s half a season. In those 41 games, Trey man has been good straight up. Um we we we have a decent sample size. That is before the back injury. That’s before everything he had to deal with this off seasonason. It really took a toll on him. And Trey in the last three I I don’t think he was bad in the debut. I again I liked his performance fine, but in the last three it’s not been good. And when you show everybody a three for 15 performance, everybody’s going to take notice. He hit back-to-back shots. You were hoping, okay, now he can really get going. I think it was two possessions in a row, maybe two out of the three where he hit both of those shots. And still, no, there was a lot of missed shots a little bit later on. So, bad tray to start the season. I still have faith it’s four games and he has plenty of time. You want to go back to Klingan? Yeah, I’m going to go uh to the head of the snake, LaMelo Ball. I think his we’ve praised his defensive effort at times. At times it’s been stanging, but the reason I’m going clanging is because you have to add the qualifier at times. I think LaMelo’s defensive consistency has been clanging and it showed up big time in that game against uh Miami where he was just getting abused off the bounce by Jame, by Pella Larson. Uh there were just so many Well, Pella Larson really that was more him ball watching and not paying attention and Pella Larson getting behind him and then Jame Hawz just ramming right through him. Uh so it was sort of two different uh defensive issues there. Uh but yeah, and then as the calls didn’t go his way, then the frustrations mounted and then this snowball effect that we saw many times last year started to happen and getting caught up in that snowball is his just overall defensive awareness, defensive focus, defensive commitments and um you know that that had some really bad effects on the way they were able to guard particularly in the second well in the middle I would say like sort of the end of the first half going into the second half. And so, yeah, LaMelo’s defensive consistency definitely a clanging for me so far. I think consistency is the right word. I think that’s actually real fair and maybe even generous for this Miami game because in the first quarter, I tweeted out, “Hey, LaMelo is crazy frustrated. He’s asking for a foul every time he gets to the paint. The officials aren’t giving him the benefit of the doubt. You talk about putting guys in jail, get them on your hip, and then throw up a shot. He’s not getting that contact called, so he’s real angry, and the Heat would score a transition basket because of it, or he would lose his guy because he wasn’t paying attention. I do think there were a couple screens he fought through and he didn’t allow himself to be taken out of the play completely. So, that speaks to the inconsistency in the first quarter. I think we got to a point where it was pretty consistently lacking, pretty consistently subpar. And I gave him credit because he was so mad at the officials and he did have the frustration foul, but he also was just hitting a bunch of shots. Like it didn’t take him out of the game offensively completely. He was insane. 15 points in the first quarter, hit the four-point play. Goodness gracious, you can just go ahead and cook that much. Yeah, that that’s fine. And if you’re dealing with the frustration this way, then get mad and put it to good use. He wasn’t putting it to good use after the first quarter. And outside of that three-point deficit, the Hornets brought it within in the middle of the third. You know, it it was rough. I I’ll ask you this, too, before you go a little bit more on LaMelo. What were your thoughts on Charles Lee sitting him as long as he did after what was a great first quarter? I’m curious. Charles Lee has always presented himself as a pretty smart basketball mind. Uh I mean he’s improved uh their ability to execute offensively. I think the speed adjustments been great. We’ve talked about their improvements in slob and blob plays after timeout plays. And so I I just wonder if that was basketball or if that was interpersonal that I’m just curious by that. Um I think it obviously took him out of rhythm a little bit. So, if you just want to take all of that other stuff out of it and just look at it sort of in that way, then I guess it was a bad move. Uh, but if it was to try to cool him off, uh, then then, you know, you could sort of see where he’s coming from there. So, I’m of two minds about that. But on the LaMelo defensive consistency, you said like it it didn’t take him out of his offensive game. It rarely does. Like, but the thing about the the reason why the defensive consistency is an issue is because when you’re defensively inconsistent, de defense is about everybody knowing where everybody else is going to be. Look at Oklahoma City. It’s they operate, we call, you know, you hear this term all the time on a string. Everybody knows where everybody’s going to be and if you’re not there, I’m going to be here and d and and then if you do that enough, then you have a six sense about this thing. That’s where OKC gets crazy where guys just it’s like you’re playing seven dudes instead of five dudes because guys are just so quickly moving into the open space that is left by the help going somewhere else. Right? So when someone’s not when one person is not being consistent about it, not paying attention, it just has it has ripple effects on on the rest of the way and then there’s trust issues that develop particularly when you have a team full of rookies who are trying to adjust. That’s the biggest adjustment that rookies have to make from college to NBA is what? It’s not offense. It’s not shooting. It’s defense. It’s knowing where to be and win. And so when you have the veteran, the best team, the most highest paid player on your team also being inconsistent about it, that’s honestly, it’s almost worse than being just terrible all the time defensively because at least then the rest of your team understands, hey, this guy’s just not has no idea, so I’ve got to be ready. You know, it’s like, no, I trusted LaMelo to pay attention to Pella Larson and now all of a sudden Pella Larson’s on the loose and and we’ve got to figure that out. So, u you know, it’s not about asking LaMelo to be great defensively all the time. It’s about asking him to be aware and engage defensively all the time and and he wasn’t that against Miami. The good news is he can fix it. He can fix it against the Magic and moving on, but he’s got to fix it and keep it fixed. Yeah. Uh, last thing because I asked you about the rotation. I just know Hornet Twitter was pretty frustrated with Charles Lee’s not only rotation with LaMelo taking him out, not bringing him back until midway through the second quarter. He did the same thing in the second half with Miami. And I know people were frustrated with playing Trey Man over Colin Ston in the fourth quarter of the Philly loss, which that certainly wasn’t the right decision. Um, looking at it in hindsight, I feel like Charles Lee, he’s got a plan for LaMelo and he wants to stick with it because you saw pretty much the same pattern in the second half against Miami that shooted in the first half, right? And it just didn’t it didn’t matter to Charles that LaMelo was cooking in the first quarter. He took him out with about a minute left to go. Uh, just to look up here, I got popcorn machine up. So, he had 15 in the first quarter. I know that. So, so, so, so he scored 15. He left at the 138 mark, didn’t come back until the second quarter, 6:22, left broadcast mentions it. When the broadcast mentions it, it is kind of a thing, right? Because they don’t they don’t tend to mention and they didn’t say it necessarily in a negative way, but it’s like at the end of the game where Dell was like, LaMelo needs to sit on the bench like like everyone knew he was he was hurting the team. He was hot. And uh and then he did the same thing, right? So, he comes out of the game in the second half. In the third quarter, he comes out of the game at the two-minute mark, right? It was the 138 mark in the first quarter, and he came back in the fourth quarter at 7 minutes, then sat early because the game was out of hand. That’s Charles Lee’s normal rotation for LaMelo. Now, do you want to stick with that? So, LaMelo knows what he’s getting, so everybody knows where their spots are. I think Steve Clifford was a big proponent of this. He liked getting guys in a rhythm and sticking with that rotation. Charles Lee, I I considered more of a mad scientist. I’m not going to act like this is so crazy new. He’s been doing this for the most part for LaMelo. Does it change based off of feel? It doesn’t seem like it is right now. And still very early, four games in. I think he’s tweaking with some stuff, but you know, uh some people think he’s tweaking period. Why aren’t you playing him? You know, what kind of tweaking are you doing? Well, I wonder if they’re concerned about physical health, ankle, not wanting to put too much pressure too early. He’s just, you know, he had the procedures. He got to work out a lot, you know, over the summer. So, it’s not like, it wasn’t like Brandon where it’s like, oh man, he’s coming in right at the end of the summer. But at the same time, you wonder if they’re concerned about that. I’m just like, I’m not going to get all hot and bothered in the first 10 or 15 games over rotation decisions because I tend to, you know, you don’t have Josh Green, you don’t have Grant Williams. I tend to think that all that stuff gets shaken out and then when you get into the, you know, oh, they’re they need to position themselves for the playoffs. Those games start to matter. Uh, you know, it’s just like he’s been with Boston, he’s been with Milwaukee. I’m just going to trust that that’s going to come through until he’s given an opportunity in a playin game or in a playoff series to make the adjustment and then he doesn’t, you know, then I’m going to start. Maybe I’m going to log these things in the back of my mind right now, but I’m not going to make those big bold judgments about his coaching ability based on the fact that he that he sat LaMelo a little too long there against Miami in the fourth game. Well, and and here we are saying experimenting. It’s trial and error. Hey, there is the error part of this. So maybe it is an error and he learns from it. Maybe it’s not, but he wants a larger sample size. Experimenting means trial and error. And some things are going to go right and some things are going to go poorly. Coming up next on the Locked on Hornets podcast. Rapid fire. Beast everywhere. You know it. A 30 minute segment with rapid fire coming up. Uh in the sicko satchel. Oh okay. Some rumaging going on in the final segment next. L. This episode is brought to you by Pelaton. Pelaton is shaping the future of fitness with the brand new Pelaton crossraining tread plus powered by Pelaton IQ. It’s the most advanced equipment yet. Designed to give you real-time guidance and endless ways to move whether you’re running, lifting, or crossraining with your favorite instructors. This is training reimagined. Pelaton is built for breakthroughs with tools that help you plan, stay motivated, and reach peak performance. I love how the Pelaton IQ system offers real-time strength coaching, and it actually tracks your reps, suggest the right weights, and corrects your form, making every rep safer and smarter. The swivel screen, it’s a gamecher. You can go from running on the Tread Plus to strength training without missing a beat. And the personalized class recommendations, they keep you engaged, and you get workouts tailored to your vibe and energy level each week. So, let yourself run, lift, flex, and push forward. Explore the new Pelaton crossraining tread plus today at onepelon.com. More lockdown hornets ahead. Sicko satchel time. What you got for the people? I do actually want to go rapid fire on some stanging or clang because I don’t know. I want to do it. I just don’t trust that we can stick to the spirit of it. But I do want to do it. No, I can do it. You want to go back and forth? Do you have a few in the chamber? M. Woohoo. Impromptu rapid fire. Let me let me let me hit let me hit a few. Let me hit a few and see then if you’re if you’re ready to go. Okay. So, Stangan, I’m just going to go with Scion’s. Seen I want I want it to be I know it’s Seion. I’m sorry. I know. You’ll learn. It’ll be We did this with Duke last year. I did Scion a handful of times. Anyways, it’s not it’s my fault. This is a me thing. I want it to be Scion, but it’s Seon. Seion’s general Seionness. He is just all over the place. He’s got that dog in him. He is fighting defensively and he’s hitting shots. Oh my god, he’s hitting shots. Uh so he’s been staying. I got to give a stanging to my guy Cog Brener. Uh because I just have to give you this incredible stat. He is the top big when it comes to points per shot attempt according to Cleaning the Glass. 100th percentile 181 points per shot attempt. He is at the very bottom among bigs in the NBA in usage. He is zero. There’s zero percentile 8.4% usage. 84 8.4% usage. 181 points per shot attempt. My god. Uh GDS, man. Just straight trash. All the trash buckets, you know, here dunker spot trash. He’s our little trash panda. He’s coming up out of the garbage can going, I got you. Um, by the way, can we just go ahead and call him Scion Truck? Cuz he’s as square as the actual Scions that exist on the road. That’s what he is. He if you want to call him Scion James, that’s fine. Except I call people because people told me someone told me a long time ago, you got to you got to call people by you got to call people by their name. So, I respect that. And I’ll just say like I want I desperately want it to be Scion, but it is Seion. Um, I respect it as well. I really just wanted to go with the he’s as big as a truck analogy. So that’s why I brought in, you know, shoulders are little square trucks. Yeah. Eric Collins saying that he was cut up like Klelaw. It’s a great line. So good. Mac and Bone are trying to get that nickname off of the ground calling Seon Kleslaw. I don’t know. Seion did an interview with him. I don’t think he liked it very much, but he did like That’s the KD That’s the KD thing. like they we’ve had so many great ideas for KD and he doesn’t he’s just such a little he’s a sour guy. He just doesn’t like them. I’m still mad the tarantula never took off. I just love the tarantula so much. I understand it a little bit. Okay. Um some stanging stuff for me. You took the rookie stuff from me. So, I’m totally with you on that. How about a surprising staying from Salon the first couple of games of the season? I think I think we took a little bit of a dip the last couple of games, so I’ll focus on the first two, but you heard Eric and Dell say it on the broadcast last night, this little stretch of basketball from Ton, it’s the best little stretch that we’ve seen from TanTch in his entire career. So like a a surprising sting for Tan Salon. I You don’t think so? Not the first couple games. You want to help him out a little bit? Uh you I don’t know if you heard my qualifier, but the shooting 120 120 points per shot attempt like when he gets open and he can hit him deep and and teams aren’t guarding him there. So he’s got he’s got an advantage and he’s taking advantage of it. But god, there were so many moments in this Miami game. Like if we’re going to talk about Trey man gunking up offensive possessions. Sure, Ton does the same thing too, just in those little ways where he doesn’t understand when to cut, when to move, when to just get the hell out of the way. And I just see it on LaMelo Ball’s face. I love when these two are together. They’re like the odd couple when they’re on the floor together because I can just see it in Lamela’s face. He’s like, “God, I just go go away. Just go away. Just sit on the bench for a minute because I’m trying to do some work here and you are getting in the way.” Uh um final two. I I’ll give him the early part. I’m with you. It’s the last couple games. I think the first two games I don’t think he was as bad of a decision maker in the first two games as he was the last. It wasn’t great. He hasn’t he hasn’t forced himself off the floor. Right. No, I don’t think so. It’s not It’s not great, but at the same time, it’s not It’s freaking progress. Like, that’s progress for him. That’s progress, which I’ll take. Okay. Really rapid fire. Um Miles Bridges clanging with the shooting just not happening for him. Miami. Yeah. Talked about Well, and actually, it’s been pretty bad. Yeah, it’s been pretty bad overall if you if you look at it. And it’s why I guess LaMelo said that he was playing like a b- word. And no, I don’t mean bum. It seems to go half to half, right? Like some halves you get bad Miles Bridges and some halves you get good Miles Bridges. That’s fair. Uh he’s hit six field goals in every single game so far. Uh no more, no less. Uh some of the attempts have been more or less, but he shot under 40% each of the last three games. He’s shooting 40 on the year. And he’s shooting 32 31.8% from three on seven attempts per game. This is noteworthy because we discussed how red-hot he was in the preseason. I gave you reasons as to why I thought maybe this is transferable. Making and missing shots, you never know what to do with it in the preseason. So, you just kind of neglect it as real analysis. I thought there was something there because you’d be put more in a spot you typically want him to play and maybe those shots would lend him to have that transfer. No, it’s not happening. I was wrong. Staying in Colin section, point A to point B, straight line driving and just everything else. I How can you not love Colin? Good. Great. Yeah. Say it again. My favorite thing about Colin, and I’m sure people who watched him in college and watched him in Cleveland and Utah already knew this, but I did not watch him in any of those places. I mean, occasionally maybe, but not this closely. My favorite thing about Colin Ston is that when he drives, his face looks like, you know, when you ride a roller coaster and there’s a camera that they attach and everybody’s like like that’s common sex. I’m sorry for the listeners. I just did like a crazy screen face. Yeah, the Colin coaster. I did the crazy scream face with your eyes wide open for the listeners. That’s Col. Look at the replays. That’s Colin’s face every time. He just It’s even on casual drives. It’s not about him like, you know, going coast to coast. It’s even on like casual drives. He just has the Colin Coaster face. It’s amazing. Yeah. And I will I will pay the $15 for the family photo at the Colin Coaster, please. And thank you. Let’s hang it up in a tacky way in the living room, but it’ll still be there once we come visit um grandma. So, yeah, the Colin Coaster is great. He gives you two buckets a game where I just don’t understand how he beats everybody down the floor where they are positioned. It’s not It’s not like I can say the defense is being o like egregiously lazy in getting back. It’s just I don’t know how he squeezes his way into some of these angles to hit a couple of layups. No, they got set. They got back, Colin. Don’t Don’t go for the lay. Oh, okay. You are just going to find a way to score in transition despite it not really being transition. All right. Awesome. Uh continue to do it. He’s he’s been great. And I I don’t know if you saw this tweet, but I feel like you would appreciate it. He came in the first game of the season and he was pacing back and forth. He was talking to himself and it looked like my guy in Water Boy. It looked like Water Boy hearing the voices in his head before he decked somebody. Scary. It’s a little scary. I want to make sure he’s okay. Gatorade. That’s what he was hearing. Gatorade. Utah. Don’t go back to Utah. Colin will hardy. Isaiah. He wishes he’s back. I mean, I wonder if he wishes he was back in Utah now. They’re off to like a crazy hot start. I know. Siko Satchel question. Uh, let’s let’s let’s get one question. No, hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Because you keep triggering things in my brain. When you said that Colin has two buckets like that, it made me think like why is the Hornets offense so much better right now than it was really even when LaMelo was cooking because LaMelo is same same. Miles Bridges as you pointed out with the shooting same same. Yeah. Uh and then Musa Ibate same same giving you the same kinds of contribution maybe a little bit better when it comes to finishing in transition. There are a couple of things but Colin Ston and Khan Caniple are giving you buckets that did not exist at all last season. They just are doing things that were just non-existent in the offense and that both really with Khan it’s more the pass but with Colin it’s it’s going coast to coast. is doing the things you talked about. Those simply did not exist last season. That’s why they’re better. Uh yeah, and even Collins passing kind of surprising in the early going assist against Miami. Yeah. So, okay. Do you want to do a Siko Satchel question? Yeah, I have one. This is a great question. Love this question. Um and actually, you know what? I’m going to I I don’t want to short change. I actually want to look up uh Oh, boy. Now I have to log in. This be a whole thing. Well, it’s good. It’s a rapid fire, so it shouldn’t take any time at all. Right. Um, I just want to make sure because look, when you join the Sicker Brigade, uh, you get to, you know, put your name in the whole I got it. You get to put your name in the thing and you get a nickname and I just don’t want to short change that and I copied it over in the rundown and I didn’t have it. So, here it is. This is from Jay Brown, Buzz City of the SEO Brigade. You can join joinsuptex.comlocked on Hornets. Salute. We just had a new member join up with the SEO Brigade. Uh, shout out Lynn um for joining up this week. Here it is from Jay Brown City. Question from the next generation of the infected. My son Brooks of the KJ Simpson platoon. I This is So this question is from Brooks Brown. He’s the best. Ready? Yep. I’m turning eight years old on Thursday and I want to stay until the end of the game against the Orlando Magic. When you guys were kids, did your parents leave before the game was over? My dad will usually stay till the end, but my mom is coming for this one since it’s my birthday. Can you please tell her it’s okay to stay until it’s over, even on a school night, and that it’s okay to have popcorn and Sprite during the game? Yeah. Okay. One, the happiest of birthdays to our little sicko out there. Our little larvae sicko in the Hornets verse. I love it. Happiest of birthdays. Um, he was born into it. He didn’t choose this. He didn’t choose this. He was born. You’re one of us, buddy. Well, I did I did choose this to be honest with you. I I you know, so I don’t know what that says about choose it. It chose me. When I saw the glow on the TV of Glenn Rice and Vlatty Dy, it shows me. It was MASH and B Diddy for me. So, look, Mom. Okay, mama. Mama KJ Simpson Brigade Brigade. Um, he’s got to be able to stay for the whole thing. He does need the popcorn. He does need the Sprite. He needs to have the experience of a light lifetime. You only get one eighth birthday after all. And he’ll remember eating the popcorn and drinking the Sprite, watching his favorite team play, possibly possibly getting a victory. It reminds me of my mom allowing me to stay up all the way from tip to the end of the game for the NCAA championship every single year through one shining moment. And I was so scared I was going to have to go to bed cuz I had a bedtime. Man, these things were strict. You know, we ain’t playing around with moms. But she would always let me stay up. So go ahead, do the mom thing and say, “Okay, wink wink. Here we’ll allow you to stay up past your bedtime.” Um, I think that’s okay. That’s what I’m I’m going to give mom a lot of credit here. I think mom understands the gravity of the situation. I think mom but mom has to hold the line and I think mom’s going to like wink wink a little bit and try but then at the end of So what I would tell Brooks is just stay patient. And what I would tell mom too if I have any advice for mom if she’ll take it and by the way don’t have to take it. you know, you don’t need it. You’re the queen bee. I’m using that. I got to be very careful. I’m abusing that analogy. I’m sorry. Um, but you know, I think you want to not only go Sprite Popcorn, I think you want to go Sprite Popcorn Candy. I think, Brooks, I think you’re going to, honestly, this is for you too, Brooks. I think you’re going to want to be in Sugar Overdrive so that when you get home, you crash. You want to be on that down slope of the of the sugar high so that you crash and get a good night’s sleep for school. And I’m just going to give you a little piece of advice here, Brooks. And this is from uh both being a parent and being uh remembering being a kid. When you get up in the morning after the game, if you ever want to do this again, just like really psych yourself up and be like, “All right, I’m going to get ready. I’m going to get in the zone. I’m going to be ready to get on the bus or get in the car, whatever you got to do, you just want to make sure that you are an upstanding citizen the the morning after.” You know what I like to do is when I go to bed and I when I go to bed late and I know I have to get up in the morning, I’ll lay in bed and go, “You have to get up at 4. You have to get up at 4. You have to get up at 4.” I just really like plan it in my brain and it has worked forever. I get up at 4. I actually usually get up at like whatever, you know, 10 minutes before I tell myself. My body is just sort of like in that mode and then I’m bango ready to go. So there’s some advice for Brooks. Um I’m not even going to call it advice for mom. I’m just saying sugar overdrive. get the crash going in the car even. And you know there there you go. But but hopefully Brooks, thank you for being a sicko. Thanks to Jay Brown Bus City. Thanks to mom most importantly and I hope you get to stay up late for the game. I hope it’s a game that you that you actually I hope it is. Come on. Do it for Do it for Brooks. Shout out to Brooks. Happy birthday, my man. 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. There’s Doug Branson. Every hornetsboxcore.com is a Substack. 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 FM. Have a great rest of your day. We’ll be back with you tomorrow.

Walker and Doug bring back the fan-favorite segment “Stang’n or Clang’n” to look at what’s working and what’s not. Kon Knueppel’s historic shooting is definitely “stang’n,” while LaMelo Ball’s defensive consistency and Tre Mann’s offensive slump are “clang’n.”

Walker Mehl and Doug Branson bring back a show staple: “Stang’n or Clang’n.” They start with the positives, and there’s no bigger positive than rookie Kon Knueppel. He’s set an NBA rookie record for threes in his first five games and is shooting 58% from deep. The hosts look at his impressive probing, passing, and even his defense, which has earned praise from Coach Charles Lee.

Then, it’s time for the “Clang’n.” The conversation turns to Tre Mann, who is in a deep slump, punctuated by a 3-for-15 night. Walker and Doug consider if this is just rust or a lingering effect from his back injury. LaMelo Ball also lands in the “clang’n” category, not for his offense, but for his defensive consistency. His frustration with officials in the Heat game led to a “snowball effect” of bad defense and easy transition buckets for Miami.

The hosts also touch on Charles Lee’s rotations, the hyper-efficient (and low-usage) Ryan Kalkbrenner, the surprising play of Tidjane Salaun, and the electric driving of Collin Sexton. Finally, they answer a heartwarming question from an 8-year-old fan who just wants to stay for a whole game on his birthday.

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