LaMelo Ankle Issues RETURN, Should They Deal Him for Ja Morant? | Why Kalkbrenner is TOO BIG TO FAIL

LaMelo Ankle Issues RETURN, Should They Deal Him for Ja Morant? | Why Kalkbrenner is TOO BIG TO FAIL

We haven’t had a chance to talk about the impingement, the lamelo injury of it all, the subllexation, all the medical jargon that we have to learn these days. Haven’t had a chance to talk about that. This is that time. And yeah, the LaMelo for Morant thing that everybody wants to happen. We’ll give our two cents for exchanging injured point guards. Plus, is Ryan Kulkbrinter too big to fail? Not only is he too big on the court, is he too big to fail? We’ll get to all of it 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 Horn. and it’s 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 pods. And that includes YouTube. If you’re watching us on YouTube, you could see Doug Branson. Every hornetsboxcore.com where people in the comment section are backing me up when I say how good you look. Oh, okay. Well, they’re backing you up in a lot of different ways. Uh and and blaming me for a lot of things, but yes. Are they mad at you today? I I I thought they were backing me up. I just saw one comment that said, “You’re right, Walker. Doug does look fantastic.” So, I chose peace today. I didn’t choose any violence. No, I No, I appreciate it. I appreciate all of the all the comments. Um the positive ones, you know, even the negative ones. It’s fine. It just drives me. Fuels me. This is what fuels me. Oh, that’s a sad life, brother. The sewer section. This is what I do it for. The sewer section. That’s the thing. That’s That’s what I keep telling people in the comments. Nothing you can say can hurt me. You don’t understand how long I’ve been doing this without playoff basketball to talk you. There’s nothing you can say in those comments that will hurt my feelings. I’m impenetrable. I I’m glad you brought that up. I’m Walker Male. Listen to me. WFNZ every weekday from 12:00 to 3:00 p.m. Shout out to Dylan Hall who is the assistant coach on Lynchberg men’s basketball team. Okay. Lynchberg men’s basketball who gave Queens all they could handle tonight. I was thus I’m not just wearing a mock neck for the sake of wearing a mock neck. Mock neck male only shows up on TV. So anytime I get some screen time, not YouTube, then I’ll bring out the mock neck or a shirt and tie. You guys get the idea. So anyways, that’s why I’m wearing this. Broadcasted Queens Lynchber. Lynchberg had a great game and I have to imagine it’s because smart people are on that staff and one of the assistant coaches said that he’s a certified sicko. So, shout out to Coach Hall. Yeah, let’s shout out to Coach Hall. Um, he did say that he feels like you’ve been a little defeated here recently that he was worried about you with your solo show and that after the opener you felt a little more defeated than usual. Is the sickness getting the best of you? Well, I know it’s already gotten the best of you, but what is your response to at least this assistant coach saying, “Hey, Doug, is everything okay?” Uh, no, I hear you. Uh, I hear you, Dylan. Um, I have a baby. I would say that. Um, I have a I have a a Yahoo show. I have an Every Hornets box score. I have It’s a lot. It’s a lot. It’s a lot. But I We both It’s Yeah, Go ahead. Yeah. Look, we’re doing our thing. uh you know, we’re making hay while the sun’s shining and that’s fine. Um but I think really the the source of it for me is that we’re so early with this like fire Charles Lee stuff. It is Oh yeah. Uh and I don’t want to I don’t want to get us into the mud on this again. We had a whole show about it. You can go watch yesterday’s episode. I’m just like, do we have to get here so early? Particularly when there are like four guys, including your two best players hurt. It’s just like uh why do we why do we have to get here so early? I’m I’m here for the conversation on some things that we can point to and say what was the coach’s fault. What I’m not here for is firing Charles Lee. Like all of the angry comments, you need to hold him accountable. You need to fire him. I dare you to say that he should be the coach. Well, guess what? Dare accepted. I do want Charles Lee to be the coach. That’s right. A little truth or dare. Dare. I dare you to say you want him to be the coach. Granted, I want him to be the head coach. I like Charles Lee. We’ll see what happens. We’re handful of games into his second season. And you’re right, Doug. He doesn’t have his two best players, which we should get to now because not only do you have a Yahoo Sports show, not only do you have a baby, you have an impingement in your life again. And that’s frustrating. We all have impingements. Okay, so I go back. I’ll just set the scene once more in case you missed one of the episodes that we’ve done on this already, but LaMelo Ball was on the injury report at the end of last season and he was listed on that injury report with having ankle soreness and then I believe March 27th against Toronto. That was the first time that we saw LaMelo listed with ankle impingement. He would miss every single game the rest of the way, the final 10 of the season. And that was it. suited up, ready to go. This year, we get an ankle impingement again on the injury report. He plays after being listed questionable, has not played each of the last couple of games. Yep, you guessed it, because of ankle impingement. So, some people were speculating that this was load management, which possibly there there was that shot once he missed the second night of a backtoback. You could have him on the injury report to try to keep some flexibility as to what you wanted to do with those back-to-back games. Do we want to miss the front end or the back end? Back end. Cool. Now he’s missing more. So what do you do with this LaMelo ball injury that has reared its head again? Like he’s now he’ll have missed a couple of games already, Doug. And we haven’t even reached the double digit mark in the schedule yet. Well, there’s nothing you can do except for hope uh that whatever program that that his people have him on and that the team has him on uh is going to ultimately lead uh to sustain play at some point uh this season and that they can get him back out there um as quickly as can again keep him healthy for as long as possible. That’s all you can do because they’re they’re in the weeds now. Uh, you know, and and so I I like that we were all the the Padme uh Star Wars meme of like it’s it’s just because it’s a backtoback, right? It’s just Right. Right. Right. Tell me good news. No, it’s actual like, you know, but and and we’ve been trained. This is the NBA and load management and funky uh you know, messing shenanigans with the injury report. Um it has trained us to be skeptical of what we see. Like our eyes, we cannot believe what our eyes see. We have to make up all of this. No, actually it’s it seems like there there’s some kind of issue um with with his ankles. And it’s not surprising in any way because the man has had like five or six ankle sprains and and doing any just a little bit of cursory reading on what impingement is. is like the first one of the first things that comes up is can happen due to multiple ankle sprains. So when you have repeated injuries and and and some of those have been on well they’ve been on both feet but I think the right ankle has taken the brunt of the of the sprains when you have those repeated injuries like we’re we’re not a machine where you can just like take out all the parts and like put new parts in and it’s like okay it’s good to go. Like that’s not how there’s trauma there’s stuff that you know you’re always going to be dealing with it. He’s going to be dealing with it for the rest of his life. Well, well, that’s Yeah. Not not to stop you. That’s that’s the real question, right? It’s how much of an issue is this for the Okay, fill in the blank rest of his career, the next two years, the next year. That’s the question. Is it something he’s dealing with for the rest of his life? And we don’t ever see it pop up on an injury report. Is it something he deals with for the These are all the questions, right? To your point, what can you do? But those are questions that we’re trying to figure out as fans and podcasters. And it’s questions that they’re trying to figure out over there at Spectrum Center as decision makers, as authority figures, and depending on what answer you come up with, like that absolutely changes things on how you move and shake at the deadline in the future, whatever, whatever it’s decision-m time. Man, you you can tell like this team is so much better with him on the court. The numbers are stupid different with him on the court versus off of it. We want to be fast. We want to get out in transition. And guess what? You can’t without him. That’s what the the the numbers say. You might get better, but you can’t without him. Like he’s he’s almost your whole identity is also wrapped up in him with what you’ve preached. And he’s not out there, man. And neither is Brandon, which is a huge deal also. That’s that’s the second huge deal. Yeah. Well, and your identity being wrapped up in LaMelo Ball is by design. Like when you sign a guy to a max contract, it’s you know, you’re taking up a percentage of your cap that cannot go to other pieces. So that was by design. They wanted to make this team around LaMelo with some idea that if Brandon, you know, I think popped off and and became an allNBA player sooner rather than later, like, okay, well, you know, there’s there’s some pivoting that can be done. injuries, you know, continued injuries. And this was my concern when we were talking about this in the off seasonason is like, hey, if we get to the point where he sprains his ankle again, if he breaks his ankle again, or even, you know, what we may be seeing now is this just sort of continued popping up on the injury report and limiting his ability to play games. That’s going to severely limit whatever return that the Hornets could get in a potential in a potential move. Last point before we move on. You mentioned the team being built around him. It was their decision-making process. And I do think it was LaMelo and Brandon, but they said that they had no problems saying that, getting out in front of saying we wanted to get players that do compliment LaMelo and Brandon. And I think they’ve done that. And that’s why it’s not a doomsday scenario with the way that the rookies are playing. We have something to hold on to there. We have something to hold on to with the way that Colin Ston is playing. But you still end up losing to a winless team like the Pelicans because LaMelo’s not out there. We’ll continue. Well, and when you hitch your wagon to a player that cannot and you hit your wagon and you hitch a significant percentage of your cap to a player that cannot be on the floor. That’s how you end up, you know, partially how you end up in a 10-year playoff drought. If just year after year the guy that does form the identity of your team is absent, uh it’s going to be very difficult. The It’s not only that he forms the identity walker. It’s that like I don’t even think you can really seriously analyze the basketball that happens without him on the floor uh for you know 30 plus minutes in a night. Like I don’t I to me it’s difficult to analyze a game beyond just the sort of individual performances and like some of the player development stuff that they’ve got with all of these rookies. Like we’re going to talk about cockbriner later in the show. We can do all of that, but just like the serious like, you know, just macro like game level stuff of like how does this team match up with this team? I just think it’s so difficult to do without LaMelo. Coming up next on the Lockdown Hornets podcast everywhere. We have another important injury to talk about with Brandon Miller and we’ll get to the LaMelo for John thing. This has always been a thing, at least the last couple of years. It’s been a thing that’s popped up a lot. So, we’ll get to that thing coming up next. Lage. 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The news we haven’t also talked about yet is the Brandon Miller news coming in on November 3rd. We’re recording this podcast November 5th. The Hornets announced that the diagnosis of a left shoulder subllexation has been confirmed after continued evaluation of guard Brandon Miller. He’ll continue his rehabilitation program while he remains out. The third-year guard, he’ll be re-evaluated in two weeks. Additional updates on his status will be provided as appropriate. The last part sucks because two weeks has been the kiss of death for a lot of these evaluations. They’ve never come back in two weeks once they’ve reevaluated these players. They meaning believe Josh Green last year with that injury if I’m not mistaken. Sudden shoulder surgery. Yeah. The big one was Trey Man who we were told they would re-evaluate in two weeks. And then the man never played another game last season. Now that’s a different injury. That’s a back injury. Back is always way more serious. You get to be very scared about the back injury and he doesn’t play the rest of the way. All indications are that he’ll come back at some point based on I guess just you know whispers behind the scenes. It’s not that scary. It’s still scary, man. Like it’s it’s not something that you love to see. He was seeking a second opinion according to Chris Haynes and apparently he got the diagnosis of the shoulder subluxation. He’ll be out for a while. A lot of his games straight up and it’s going to take him away from some accolades that he could be able to win. Uh I I Well, I mean, how many has he missed already? Six. So now you’re talking about the 15 game threshold, 17 game threshold that you uh have in order to reach some of these accolades, these accomplishments. Like I I I hate to focus on that so much, but so much of your season is already gone before you even play your full second game. It’s frustrating as hell. Yeah. I mean, if he misses a significant portion of this season, then he’ll have the injury label on him, too. And it’s a label that players want to avoid like the plague because it’s very hard to shake. Even if you get your body, whatever fully healthy means to an NBA player, it’s very hard to shake that label. We heard from Mark Williams last season that he very much did not want to be labeled an injured player because that follows you. But there’s no way around it when you miss so much significant time particularly in the early portion of your career when you should be like that’s the time where you’re really developing your game, honing your skills, getting you know whatever that you know we we always look at those like sort of graphics that show the ascent of a player as you know in relative to other players. It’s going to be very difficult to do more difficult than it already is with Brandon Miller if he misses a significant portion of this season but we are not there yet. And I think look, Brandon Miller very much wants to get back out on that basketball floor as soon as possible. The Hornets are obviously incentivized uh to to do that as well because uh now they have a lot of young players that they would new young players that they want to develop as well. And we’ll say the same thing about them that we said about Brandon relative to LaMelo, which was like, you need LaMelo out there so you can help develop Brandon because young players need good players to help them develop. The same thing is going to be true for these young players. They need both LaMelo and Brandon out there uh if you want to get the most. And I think the scariest thing is like, you know, if they’re going to be dealing with injuries to different things with Brandon Miller for the rest of his time and and m and you know, not even get to that second contract. Well, now like any idea about using three or four first round picks to go out and get a veteran talent, like you throw that out the window. I mean, as a as an organization, I think then you have to go, all right, well, we’re back to the drawing board. Khan Canipple’s a good piece. Ryan Clark is a good piece. Maybe Seion James is like a secret star. Who knows? Uh, but you really are like back into All right, let’s get try to get into the top one, two picks again and go down this whole road again. That’ll be fun. Why are you so depressed, Doug? I don’t get it. I don’t know. I don’t get it. Doesn’t make any sense. I’m totally I’m totally fine. We’re It’s game eight. Why are we here? It’s game eight. Oh man, there are plenty of good things to talk about though. That I I will say I want to hone in on that point because it is true. There are good things. The rookies that is a terrible thing to fall on a bed of nails with this fall from all of the injuries. Right now, instead of a bed of nails, we have this nice fluffy pillow that are three rookies just straight balling. Like Khan Canipple looks fantastic in his first eight games of his NBA career. Same thing with Kulk Brener. Same thing with Seion. Let’s save that cuz we’ll get to it. I need you guys to hold on to the hope. We’ll get to the hopeful part of the segment a little bit later on. I did want to talk about the Melo for Morant thing. I know you had some thoughts on it. Really the foundation here is do these teams in Memphis and Charlotte exchange point guards that it just hasn’t worked out with in a while. Everybody loves doing this. I don’t quite see the sense especially from Charlotte’s standpoint way more in Charlotte’s standpoint because I heard Zach Low approach this same exact topic and he said flat out LaMelo’s been better than John. Charlotte’s not doing it. So, it’s true, especially with all of the drama that you’ve had with Morant. What are some of the thoughts that you had regarding this highly talked about potential trade because, you know, people find it interesting. Yeah. I mean, Charlotte has a history of offc court drama with players uh that I think it would be very difficult to welcome John Mor into that and take that risk. LaMelo has had a few little incidents like with the, you know, driving a little aggressively outside of the arena. There was like that thing, you know, sometimes when the camera gets in front of him, his his fingers start to fly everywhere. Like I mean there’s like there’s little stuff like that. There’s been nothing there’s been nothing. Look, nothing major nothing John Morant level. Oh my god. No, the biggest thing is man. No, you shouldn’t run red lights through an intersection because something might bad something bad might happen. That’s kid stuff, right? Like I Nothing big hardcore illegal. Yeah, it’s not anything close to some of the other issues that other players have had. Yeah, for sure. And the other thing I would say is like I think John Moran needs to go to one of two situations. Either a very very bad team where there’s like a coach that would be willing to let him do literally whatever he wanted and a just a an organization that is just like so desperate and disorgan like Sacramento, right? I mean, like Sacramento, like that’s the team they talked about, by the way. Like, it’s what it’s just too obvious of a destination or or like maybe something like the Clippers where where he’s not going to be the guy, you know, he’s forced into that situation where he cannot be the guy. Like when you’re on a team with Kawawaii and James Harden, you’re not going to be the guy because his skills have diminished. Like the injuries have taken a toll on his game. kind of a classic Russell Westbrook, but way it happened way faster for Jaw. Like he’s not going to the rim as frequently. Uh his efficiency has taken a nose dive at the beginning of this season. How much of that is like his discontent with Memphis? How much of that is the injuries piling up? I I think he said last year he doesn’t want to even dunk anymore. He kind of he dunked. Like I think a little bit of that was ingested. But part of that is like every time he goes flying and somebody nudges him, you know, he goes in the stansion or he or he falls into a camera guy and suddenly he’s out for weeks. So, uh yeah, I mean I think you have to take all of those things into consideration when you’re when you’re going to make a move uh like that. And so, no, I don’t think it would be smart for the Hornets to do this particular deal. Even though the contracts match up, you wouldn’t have to do any picks. I think of the Hornets, we’re going to move LaMelo at any point. Like e even if like the injuries scare another team away from giving you I think you and I have talked about this like three first round picks maybe if you know you end up getting two first rounds or a first round and a protect another protected first round like in the future you know that’s you do something like that you go and develop and and you don’t worry about like going one for one. Um, we can finish some of those thoughts coming up next on the Locked on Hornets podcast. Everywhere. Finishing LaMelo thoughts. Ryan Caulk are too big to fail. We’re going to get a jersey unveiling. We’ll get to all of that in the final segment. LO. [Music] This episode is brought to you by Gusto. Let’s be real. No one starts a business for the joy of calculating tax withholdings or managing payroll spreadsheets. That’s where Gusto comes in to take the stress out of payroll, benefits, and HR so you can focus on running your business and supporting your team. 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Part of the issues in years past, one, it’s just been how many times it’s happened. And it’s been the catastrophic injuries when once you go even further, right? It’s the amount of games that he missed a couple of years ago. Less less games last year, but still enough to be pretty maddening. This year, he has the talent around him. That has always been a question about what can LaMelo do. What can LaMelo do when he has a legitimate NBA rotation around him? He has a legitimate NBA rotation and positive reinforcements on the way because Grant Williams will suit up at some point. Josh Green will suit up at some point. So, you don’t have to depend on the rookies that are just flat balling, but they can ball at a lesser frequency, which is good for the younger players who still have some learning to do inherently as 23, 24 year olds, 20 year olds in Khan’s case. So, the fact that you have the talent here for LaMelo and he can’t enjoy that yet. What’s even cruer here is the fact that you get a taste of it. So now we’re seeing just a little bit of those questions answered, Doug, because we do have these handful of games to go to at the beginning of the season. Okay, I see it. The vision, it’s here. Khan playing off of LaMelo. The gravity benefiting LaMelo. Caulkriner being the rim protector, rim deter. Seion James being the bulldog. Colin Ston running secondary offense off of the bench and just manufacturing four easy points. Yes. Yes. Yes. This looks great. Oh, LaMelo can’t suit up. No, but it was such a tasty little appetizer and then you take it away from me. So, we we started a process of answering some of these questions and then it was ripped away from us. And that’s why I guess in some ways the dealing with the injury for fans is better. and for the front office is better because you are seeing what you had hoped for except what you had hoped for. It only shows flashes and then it’s ripped away from you again because of impingements and all the other injuries. Yeah, look, maybe he gets back very quickly and this whole conversation is moved. But while he’s out and particularly with Brandon Miller out, it’s not just about what you lose in terms of what LaMelo can bring to your team. It’s what it what it enhances. Like I I think it we are I think we started to see it against New Orleans where some of sort of the the the worst parts of an increased role for Colin Ston start to show up. Um and and Miles Bridges, I mean, we went through that all last year. It’s back again. It um is although he’s slight he’s still below average efficient offensive player, it is slightly better than last season. and it hasn’t gotten to the depths that I’m I’m surprised to hear that points per shot in terms of points per shot attempt I mean you know I now maybe over the past couple of games since LAML’s out I I haven’t looked at those I haven’t like zoned into those two games but just over the season it’s slightly better than it was last season but I mean the Hornets the Hornets offense is upside down because same thing as last season and even if you factor in LaMelo the highest usage players are the least least efficient and the lowest usage players Musa Devate Cochrinter Seion James are your highest efficiency offensive players. That’s not a recipe for a for a good offense. The reason it was so hot to begin with and this is to the LaMelo point is that you can have mid efficiency offensive players if you play really fast and play in transition a lot. That can help and get to the free throw line a lot like that can across the board. the Hornets were doing that. That can help you, you know, weather some of that. Uh, but without LaMelo, all of that goes away and, you know, you get what you’ve gotten over the past couple of games. He’s such a God, he’s gifted as a P. He’s just so good at unlocking so many different things. It’s Yeah, it’d be cool to see him play some basketball. We are getting to watch Ryan Cochran play some basketball. Too big to fail. What do you mean by that bullet point, Doug? Oh, I just mean that in the off season we talked about I mean before maybe we even talked about it after Cochr Brener was drafted, but just the idea that the Hornets if they particularly if they were tracking well heading into the deadline like ooh do they go and look at a guy like Jared Allen that could still try to wrigle his way out of Cleveland in that situation. I mean there was just a number of bigs that we just constantly bring up in these conversations. Do they need to go out and do that? And even if they were tracking well, just the the way that Caul Briner is playing right now, he’s first in effective field goal percentage in the NBA. He’s like second in I mean he’s leads rookies in blocks. I think he’s second in blocks overall in the NBA. Yeah, it’s windy first and then it’s it’s caulk printer right after he is. Yeah, I think he’s had three straight games of four blocks. He had an eight stock game uh steals and blocks. I mean, just doing a lot of great things at the rim in terms of deterrence. He’s chasing a lot of the stuff that we bragged on Mark Williams for, he’s doing. He’s chasing guards out of the paint. Um, he’s impacting I mean, look, a lot of room for him to develop in a lot of different ways, but all I mean is like I I think he’s shown enough that you can just ride this out and worry about the backup. I think he’s a quality starting center and then like you can worry about the backup big in the off season. Yeah. And there’s plenty to chew on there with Caulk Brener. It’s funny because you don’t see the slow speed in which he moves as big of an issue as what you saw it in summer league. And I wonder how like that’s where I think we can all learn cuz I I’m telling you I outright missed it as well. Like I I misjudged what that was going to do once he got to the NBA. It was like you know we we were joking around they don’t call him run Brener walk. He’s walker. So, it’s but but it’s not as big of an issue at all. Like, and you just see what the defense is designed to do with better players around him, which is always going to help you once you get to the NBA. Well, I So, you don’t see it, but you see the ripple effects of it. You see what they’re doing to counter it a little bit. I was looking at So, his offensive rebounding numbers are great. His defensive rebounding numbers in terms of like relative to Bigs, not great. and you go, is that a deficiency? I don’t think so. Like when I So, I went back and like watched every defensive, not everyone, but I watched a significant portion of defensive rebounds for the Charlotte Hornets and I saw Cochrinter operate there a lot. And what he likes to do, he plays drop, you know, so he’s down in towards the sort of elbow area, right? Ball comes off the rim. He goes and immediately finds his assignment, his big bumps him to make sure that that guy can’t get the defensive rebound. and then he starts to sprint down the floor. He like leaks out. And to me, that’s like a countering of like, all right, if we want to play in transition and we don’t want our center completely lagging behind and being available for some of those easy points, he’s got to bump and run. And so that’s going to but he’s not unless he’s down in the paint blocking someone’s shot. He’s not going to be available for the defensive rebound. And the other place uh that that I think you’re seeing the slow speed sort of ripple effects I I would think is just like him him dropping in general like him not being able to step up and defend in that way, not being able to switch. Like that’s going to be the you’re not seeing the speed or the slow speed, but you’re seeing what they’re doing to adjust for that. You mentioned some of the stuff that we bragged about Mark um or bragged about with Mark chasing guards out of the paint, all that stuff. Like Mark, it feels like Caulkrin has a much better profile to put weight on and truly be an anchor than what Mark was wasn’t able to do. You know, the not to reiterate a bunch of the Mark Williams stuff, but the value I found in him was that there’s not many dudes that are that dudes that are that long that can also defend on the perimeter with that kind of athleticism that was able to run like a deer, which nobody is saying that about Caulkriner. With Cochrer, yeah, man, this does feel like the prototypical center Charles Lee wants. It It is the Brook Lopez thing. It is the I you know Al Horford is different but it’s the shooting center that also can defend at a high level and he needs to get stronger straight up like he can get bullied. Yeah. But like like all rookie centers this is somebody to me that feels like okay he’s not he’s not miscast. And I do think in order for Mark to work, I don’t know if Charles Lee’s vision of Mark working was truly what would allow Mark to be his best self. I do believe those things are aligned with Caulk Brener, which is why we liked him in the pre-draft process in the first place. Like we we diagnosed some of this stuff. It is coming to fruition way way way faster than I think we had truly anticipated. Yeah, we’ll see how his body responds to like an NBA weight training program over the next couple of years. I think that will be really important to monitor. But like he wants the contact and not only does he want the contact, but he does it in such a disciplined way. Like he’s letting these guards run into him and not, you know, keeping those hands up, not coming over the top, not fouling a ton. Like it’s just there’s so many good things. I’m I’m really excited about Cochr Brener. Yeah, I was I was excited about him pre-draft and he has uh I mean I thought it was going to take a couple seasons. I’ll be honest. Like I you know he is way exceeded whatever excitement level I have when I watch some of his Kraton stuff. He’s like well exceeded what I thought he’d be capable of this early. Feels a little roller coastery cuz at at Kraton I thought maybe he would be able to help you right away. again, help, not have to depend on, but but help you right away. And then we saw summer league. Summer league weren’t great. The first couple preseason games weren’t great. And then you saw it. It it goes to show you, we we touch on this, man. Preseason matters more in the NBA to me than it does in the NFL. And you see some of these guys show you something. And Cochrrener showed us something in the last, I don’t know, three preseason games to where they’re going to depend on him. Is he gonna start? Is he really going to start? Yep, he’s going to start. Is he really going to play 30 minutes? Yep. They’re they’re going to play him starters minutes, not only just give him the title. He’s been very good as all have as all the rookies have. Yeah. No, I I think so. Yeah. What I what I said a couple of seasons I meant to like be a solid starting in like I thought he would help. I thought he could come off the bench and give you a little something here or there, but that’s not obviously like he is a starting center in the making. And he’s gonna put up, you know, Kesler like numbers in his rookie season like Kesler did. Kesler out for the season. Yeah. By the way, tough stuff, man. Shoulder. Oh boy. Reevaluated in two weeks. You know, we’ll see. Uh ree reevaluate me. Yeah. Tell tell your guy from Lynchberg. I He needs to reevaluate me in a couple of weeks. Just like give me a couple weeks. Don’t deteriorate. Work these injuries. Yeah, that’s that’s fair. Uh rapid fire city edition jerseys. They’re going to unveil them officially um I think Friday or Monday. Uh there is a media event, but we’ve already seen the city edition unis. Uh just your quick thoughts on them. I don’t know if this is a coincidence. A lot of orange in the jersey. uh a lot a lot of colors in the jersey in general, but I think orange is one of the dominant colors. I don’t know if this was intentional, but I did see the Hornets tweet earlier today that 20 years ago today, well, you’re probably watching this on Thursday, but 20 years ago on Wednesday, the Bobcats celebrated Spectrum Cent’s first ever regular season NBA game with a thrilling overtime win over Boston. an emotional performance that the 19,000 fans in attendance would never forget. Gerald Wallace, Shawn May, Raymond Felton, those Bobcats getting the win in Spectrum Center for the first time because I they they started in the Charlotte Coliseum and then moved over to the Spectrum Center once uh once construction was completed there in in Uptown. But uh yeah, so I don’t know if there’s any We’ll have to see like what all the fun like PR blah blah blah they come up with. They do a good job with that stuff though. I will say like I remember the Mint City stuff. I thought they did a good job with the whole meaning of the Mint City stuff when they unveiled that. I I enjoyed all of the nuggets all over. So, we’ll see. We’ll see if they acknowledge the the Bobcats history in that. I’m I’m Look, I’m the wrong guy to ask about this. I’m totally done with jerseys. I don’t know. Like, do people buy these? Do people Like, do enough people buy here? But do enough I know people buy them, but do enough people buy them to justify the glut of of these jerseys that we get? Like how many of these jerseys are sitting in boxes in warehouses because we just have so many of them. So like these are fine. They’re they’re neat. I have no interest in in owning one ever again. Not this one. Not any ever again. Unless they do the purple, like the the sort of dark blue purple uh pinstripes, I’ll buy that one. Look, if you give me something very purple forward, I’m 100% in. That’s the next what I want to see. Very purple forward. Um Tequila Sunrise Edition is what these are. It’s very bright. I said Tide. I said it look like tied to the Tide Tide logo. Mhm. I like that. Yeah. Uh, it looks like somebody just gave a splash of cranberry juice and and OJ with this tequila. I appreciate it. Uh, it’s bright. I love the shorts. Oh, buddy. The shorts pretty fire. The yellow pinstripes, they’re okay, but I love the the shorts and overall, you know, cool enough. Thumbs up. That’s how we’ll end it today. That’ll do it for Lockdown Hornets. Thanks for making us your first listen. We’re free. We’re available anywhere you get your pods. That includes YouTube where you see a joyous Doug Branson. Every hornetsboxcore.com. Also check him out on uh Yahoo Sports Daily. Even if you can’t see him, he’s working very hard behind the scenes. So Jason Fitz, Caroline Fittton, go watch Yahoo Sports Daily. 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. We’re trying, Dylan. [Music]

We’re facing the injury reality as LaMelo Ball’s ankle impingement is back and Brandon Miller is out with a shoulder subluxation. We also discuss why a LaMelo for Ja Morant trade makes no sense and praise the incredible start for rookie Ryan Kalkbrenner

We’re back to talk about the injury bug, and it’s hitting the Hornets hard. We start with the frustrating news about LaMelo Ball. That “ankle impingement” that ended his season last year has returned , and it’s clear this isn’t just “load management”. This recurring issue is a major concern, especially now that the team’s identity is built around his specific talents and the team has finally put complementary pieces around him.

As if that wasn’t enough, we also have the official update on Brandon Miller. He’s confirmed to have a left shoulder subluxation and will be reevaluated in two weeks. We explain why that “two-week” timeframe feels like the “kiss of death” for Hornets fans , remembering what happened with Tre Mann last season.

With LaMelo injured, the trade rumors are swirling again, specifically the “LaMelo for Ja Morant” swap. We explain why this makes no sense for Charlotte , especially given Morant’s history of off-court drama.

To end on a high note, we have to talk about Ryan Kalkbrenner. Is the rookie center “too big to fail”? He’s been fantastic, posting huge block numbers and fitting perfectly into Charles Lee’s defensive scheme. We look at how he’s excelling and why he’s already exceeded our expectations.

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