LaMelo Ball’s Injury FRUSTRATION GROWS | Should Charlotte TRADE for Domantas Sabonis?

LaMelo Ball’s Injury FRUSTRATION GROWS | Should Charlotte TRADE for Domantas Sabonis?

LaMelo Ball makes a trip out to Greensboro and back. The Hornets lose to the Lakers. Why are they so bad in the third quarter? Plus, Sacramento looks like they are on the verge of a fire sale. Should the Hornets get involved? All that today and more on Locked on Hornets. You are Locked on Hornets, your daily Charlotte Hornets podcast, part of the Locked Onet. your team every day. In a minute, cuz we live. Welcome in. Welcome in. Welcome in. This is Locked On Hornets, your daily podcast on the Charlotte Hornets. Thank you so much for making us your first listen every single day. We are part of the Locked On Network, now the number one sports podcast network. I’m Doug Branson. You can find more of my work on every hornetsboxcore.com. I’m also an associate producer of Yahoo Sports Daily every day on sports.yahoo.com. Going solo today, usually joined by Walker Mail of WFNZ, Weson Walker 12 to3. He is on the broadcast for the uh Charlotte uh Charlotte versus Davidson College game. And then tomorrow, you’re going to get me solo again because Walker is going to be on the Charlotte Hornets broadcast when they get uh ready to take on the Milwaukee Bucks. And then Walker will be back later in the week. Uh so we’re splitting up the schedule this week, but we will get back together next week to talk about everything Hornets. Uh so I got a lot of show here. Uh, we’ve got a lot of comments from the Siko Brigade that I need to get to around LaMelo’s injury status. Uh, I’ve got an interesting, not really an update, but an interesting perspective on the Brandon Miller injury to his shoulder subluxation. We’ll get to that in just a moment. And then later on in the show, I want to talk about this Lakers game. I haven’t talked to you uh since the Hornets lost to the Lakers by 10, 121 to 111. Some interesting things there with Khan Canipple almost getting the triple double. But also, I got a question uh on the Every Hornets box court chat asking why the Hornets get so beaten up or at least this version of the Hornets sands LaMelo Ball sans Brandon Miller. Why does this version get so beat up in the third quarter? So, we’ll get to that a little bit later in the show, too. But first, LaMelo Ball. Uh he is the center of the Charlotte Hornets universe. uh he was the center of the uh commercial for the New Jerseys and yet we haven’t seen him in a Charlotte Hornets jersey uh in in a little bit and it’s going to continue as he’s already been declared out of Wednesday’s game versus Milwaukee. Still dealing with right ankle impingement, an injury that was supposed to be addressed by an offseason surgery but still lingering with LaMelo Ball. You know, so often we talk about when players have surgeries and you get the press release after and says, “This was a successful surgery.” And everyone makes the same joke, which is when has there ever been an unsuccessful surgery? It just seems like they are always successful. Well, uh sometime I guess sometimes there are some procedures uh that that uh you know, you have to wait and see what the recovery is like, what the rehab is like, and and what what results for the player on the other side. And right now what is what the result is for LaMelo Ball is that he is missing basketball games. And the result for the Charlotte Hornets is that they are losing basketball games because they are struggling to keep pace offensively uh enough to counter some issues that they have defensively. And that’s exactly what happened against LA. Uh and and some people uh including Roger from the 23rd man division on the SECO brigade texting me and saying, “Hey Doug, what’s up? What do you think about LaMelo being assigned to the Greensboro Swarm?” So yeah, this was news. He got both he and Mason Plumbley were sent to Greensboro to practice with the Swarm and then were recalled uh earlier today. They were recalled back to the team. This isn’t like I don’t think we’ve ever seen this with LaMelo. I don’t know if this is terribly unusual, at least lately in the NBA. I think we even saw LeBron James get a very quick, hey, we’re sending you down to practice with a G-League team. We did get an explanation from the team. Essentially, they said that they wanted to get LaMelo Ball some live practice opportunities against actual basketball players as opposed to what he has been doing, which is just warming up playing against coaches. So, you know, and in the NBA, there’s very little time in between the games for actual like organized practices. I think in in Greensboro and the G-League, you have a little bit more flexibility there. So, we’ve seen players in the midst of their recovery. In fact, I I think I recall this with Brandon Miller in particular um getting an opportunity as he maybe came back from the uh the the injury that he had early in the season, not the wrist injury that would end his season last season, but the injury, the torn I believe it was a torn glute um that he that he had earlier in that season that maybe there was a G-League assignment there as he recovered from that. Um, so you know, not terribly unusual, although we haven’t seen this from LaMelo. What has been, I think, more unusual or more curious than the Greensboro assignment has just been the the amount of words that we’ve heard from Charles Lee on the injury and and what they’re doing and how they’re dealing with it and any kind of clarity on timelines. And really there hasn’t been any clarity and it’s been a lot of words but not it’s all been about maximizing their ability to play basketball games, you know, through through the season. And so I guess there’s you could look at you could read between the lines and say perhaps the team is being conservative or perhaps LaMelo Ball is being conservative about his ability to get back out on the floor. there is no clarity and there is no solid reporting on what the actual issue is and and if LaMelo is truly like in a position where he could give it a go maybe not at 100% but he could give it a go. So without that clarity, you’re going to have speculation, particularly with a player in LaMelo Ball that has the extensive injury history that he has. There’s no question. I I’m very clear. One thing I do have clarity on is that frustration has reached a boiling point with his absence from the team, particularly when there’s no there’s no solid injury that we’re talking about. There’s not an ankle sprain. There’s not a broken ankle. There’s not an injury where you go, “Yep, that’s an injury that players have and I know about that and now this is what happens. This is how many weeks he’s out. This is, you know, the frustration is boiling over. I see it and I’ve been look, I mean, I’ve been covering this team for nearly 10 years now. So, we’ve gone through a a myriad of injuries uh with Nick Batum and Gordon Hayward and now LaMelo Ball and and honestly Brandon Miller too. And you know, you you see this sort of timeline of the comments section and fans and now we have the subtext line. Join subtext.comlockdown Hornets and you just see this timeline of all right, we’re willing to give some benefit of the doubt here. You know, injuries happen, injuries suck. We want to see this player get back 100% healthy. Don’t take any chances. This guy’s part of our future. And then like two or three injuries later or particularly when you have these issues that are surrounded in, you know, mysteries, the enigma injuries, that’s when I think you you’ve seen this frustration being like, “All right, I’m either like this guy has to get back out on the floor soon or I’m just done with this alto together. I would like to I understand the talent the the immense talent that LaMelo Ball represents. I understand that he is a I also understand that he’s a big part contractually of what the Hornets are obligated to under the salary cap. And so like all of the money that’s devoted to LaMelo cannot be devoted anywhere else. And if he’s not going to play then that’s doing serious damage. It’s also doing damage to just your ability to like fairly evaluate the young talent that you have on your team right now. A and so I think at this point you’re just seeing more and more frustration build on that. And then I got this other interesting comment and I’d love to hear your thoughts by the way. Leave them in the comments. Where are you with LaMelo Ball um you know and his status as as a future Charlotte Hornet. So I got this interesting uh note from a subtext. This is Bam Bam uh of the 21st Ricky Pierce Division, aka the uh Flying Big Paper Daddies, who says, “As a person who’s had shoulders with instability for years, I fully expect Brandon to be out longer than we hope. Multiple subllexations, torn labrooms, two shoulder surgeries, and way too much physical therapy makes me believe Brandon will either sit longer to strengthen smaller shoulder muscles to help stabilize the shoulder joint, or he’ll be completely out for the season because he has torn something and requires season ending surgery. Remember, the shoulder joint is like a sock. Once it loses its proper shape, you have to take drastic actions to get it back to a new normal, and sitting out doesn’t solve the problem. Well, first of all, Bam Bam, thank you for sharing that on the subtext line and uh continuing to support this show by being part of the Siko Brigade. And so, understanding that uh and I don’t know for sure that Bamb Bam um is a medical professional or not. I’m certainly not a medical professional. And Bam Bam his experiences uh and and everything are unique to him. uh and and Brandon Miller, we know shoulder subluxation, but that’s all we know and we don’t we don’t have access to the medical reports and never will. And so, you know, a lot of this uh will are the kinds of things that get discovered later on. Uh but yeah, I think it’s it’s interesting that he’s he’s continued to be out that they they continue to try to rehab this thing to get to get him uh in a play. And I I do think it’s about avoiding surgical intervention, but I don’t think that you can rule that out. You know, I think that’s what’s important is that to say, well, he’s not going to have to have surgery this year. Uh I just don’t I don’t think that that’s something that you can rule out at this point, which would nearly be, if not certainly be season ending for him. And then you have to have all kinds of difficult conversations about like what’s his development curve now? What’s is his body going to hold up? Uh how will it affect the inevitable second contract discussions that come up? And how did the Hornets approach their future when the two young players that they were really hinging everything on suddenly are are not even suddenly with LaMelo, but suddenly with Brandon are big question marks. All right, we’ll continue to tackle that um in the coming days, in the coming weeks, in the coming years. It doesn’t seem like any of this injury stuff is going away. But coming up, I do want to talk about this loss against uh the Los Angeles Lakers. Uh 10-point loss, good first half, bad second half. Uh and and a lot of people are saying, “Hey, why are the Hornets getting shellacked in these third quarters?” I’ll tackle that. Plus, Sacramento, the Kings, they are, it seems like from reports that they are looking to move and groove down to the basement of the Western Conference. They don’t have very far to go, but they’ve got some players uh that they have to move. Should the Hornets get involved in uh D Rozan and Lavine and a guy we’ve talked about a lot, Sabonis. I’ll give you my thoughts coming up here on Locked On Hornets. This episode of Locked On Hornets is brought to you by our friends at FanDuel. The NBA, it’s back. It’s in full gear. There’s no better place to get in on the action than FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. Did you Did you bet on two buzzer beaters uh in the what was it? In the same state, Miami and Orlando, plus just a ton of other crazy action going on. 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This was not, you know, this was not a loss that was unexpected. Uh they they made a a good first half run at things the Charlotte Hornets did, particularly uh the ball movement looked really excellent. And I thought the defensive plan on Luca Donuch just to slow his pace a little bit. They you could they don’t have a stopper that is skilled enough. I don’t know that many teams there might be only one or two teams that really do. Um but you know they weren’t going to stop Luca Donic. Uh unless they just got lucky and and Luca wasn’t feeling well or something, but he was feeling fine and he was hitting step back threes. uh left and right, but they were slowing his pace a little bit. And I thought giving him pro if he did put the ball on the floor and drive, I thought that they did a great job of responding to that, of staying attached to the guys that were out on the wing and taking a few of his passing options away and doing their best to hang with DeAndre Aiden and stop, you know, the the the relentless alley oops that got exposed later in the game in the second half. happened in the first half. I thought they did a really good job of that, but the second half uh was was the problem. And you had 15 turnovers for 20 Lakers points. They the Lakers beat the Hornets 12-2 on the fast break. Turnovers a big part of that second chance 11 to five in favor of LA. And the big like lineup switch was that in the first you start with Cochrinter at center and because Cochrer had to drop a lot of those step back threes that Luca hit or part of, you know, some pick and roll action that left Luca with space because Cochr Brener was dropping, right? And so in the second half, you go with Musa Diabate, who I thought was one of the more impactful players in that first half. Just his his energy, his getting the crowd going. uh what what Hornets fans there were to fight the Lakers fans, you know, spiritually. I mean, um that, you know, he he was doing a good job just amping them up with his hustle play, his rebounding, his physicality, all the things that we’ve come to expect from Musa Diabate. Blocks, he had three of those in this game. He was the better center on this night for what they were trying to do. In fact, he had a a crazy block on DeAndre Aton uh that he was able to turn into offense on the other end of the floor, which he’s been doing more of. But you go with him in the second half and you almost felt that JJ Reic knew that that was going to happen. And so then made the adjustment, all right, Luca maybe or JJ one made the adjustment and said as soon as they saw Musa step out for the second half, they said, all right, we’re going to pound this thing in to DeAndre Aiden just like no questions asked. And they went to work inside. And so the the Hornets were in a little bit of an a lose-lose situation. You combine that with the fact that like on the wing the the well on the wing and then Luca just a ton of size uh relative to Trey man, Colin Ston and so again this was a size loss. It was the Hornets don’t have their two best players loss and it was ending the you had so much momentum in that first half and then you end that first half. Uh what was the the sequence here? Well, yeah. Austin Reeves misses two free throws at the very end of the first half. Offensive rebound for Los Angeles. Luca hits the three. So, you go from and Reeves is like a 90% free throw shooter. So, that’s almost a minus five for the Charlotte Hornets. That made it a tie game. Then, Miles Bridges goes too early on the shot looking for a foul. He misses uh the the shot at the rim. Reeves euros pass Khan for two more. And then Bridges complaining about officiating the broadcast as he leaves the court. I I really thought then like there was particularly at the end of the first half there was a composure loss that then extended itself out into the beginning of the first or beginning of the second half when Miles Bridges started complaining about officiating. I’m like I don’t look Miles is they’ve said the team has said Miles is the veteran leader not LaMelo Brandon’s not a veteran. they look at Miles and so if that if maybe he was able to go into the locker room and settle himself and that that what he said at the you know halfbreak and here’s the thing it might have been true you know you could look you could go back and look at the tape of that game and say I I think the free throw disparity there wasn’t really a free throw disparity um but you know maybe you could go back and look at that and say maybe he had a point but I think oftent times you’ve got to be able to put that way. And we say this all the time with with LaMelo and Luca. I mean, they say that I mean, Luca bl they blamed Luca for losing a a playoff series because he couldn’t put his emotions in check and settle down and go win a basketball game. And I think good teams are going to expose that. It brings me to the question that I got a lot of in the chat and I think a few subtextters, a few psycho buggers out there asked me about this too. Like why are the Hornets so bad right now in the third quarter? And it is a right now thing. It’s a this version of the Hornets without LaMelo and Brandon because if you look on the season, the Hornets actually have just a under just a little bit a notch below into the negative negative.4 net rating in the third quarter on the season. That puts them at about average in the league. But in the last five games, four of those being without LaMelo, minus 29.2 2 in the third quarter. That’s next to last in the association. You move to the fourth quarter, uh minus 8.8, that’s 27th in the league on the year. And then minus 12.3, that’s actually 25th in the league net rating over the last five games. Uh the Hornets also uh not doing well in the in the first quarter, 18th in the league at a negative 3.4 net rating. Why are they getting beaten in the third quart in the third quarter and in the first quarter? Well, I think you can go to the starting lineups are not doing well. And that’s both the LaMelo starting lineups and the non LaMelo starting lineups. Both of those lineups are getting blitzed and probably for probably for different reasons. Um I think most of them being def well different reasons, but one of the main reasons that is similar is defensively. Uh they have a they have a difficult time, particularly out on the wing. Um if things get to Cochrinter and Cockrinter is down low, you can get a block. Um but it’s it’s been difficult for the Hornets to stop teams uh from getting the the three-point shot looks that they want. And then particularly in the third quarter, I think when you’re a team that’s talent deficient and then you lose your best player, you really lose an ability to adjust to the other team and the team has a better ability to adjust to you. And I think that’s what we saw like what we saw against LA was Charles Lee trying to play chess a little bit with the Musa move and it like made sense but it was just one that was just like easily adjusted to by the Lakers and so I think that’s a factor when you when you don’t have an advantage creator like LaMelo Ball or Brandon Miller on the more guys that can go and really confidently consistently generate shots that are difficult to defend. Um, it’s going to be hard for you to consistently put up good offensive efforts. The ball movement was great in the first half, but it’s really difficult to maintain that. And in the second half, in the game against LA, you know, I thought a lot of the offense, the shot selection was bad in the third quarter. A lot of it devolved into uh late shot clock opportunities for Colin Ston for uh for Miles Bridges. Only one shot attempt for Coniple and Khan Canipple drives so much of the ball movement. You know, when he gets the ball in the middle of the floor, the way he can keep his dribble dribble, he talked about it after the game. He’s been working a lot individually with coaches on where he picks the ball up. So on his dribble he talked about in in college and at Duke it was very much you it was all high pickups you know um and high pickups you know generally you do that against smaller defenders and you’re going to be against more smaller defense if particularly if you’re like an NBA body which Khan had an NBA body like you’re going to be against guys that are smaller than you that’s when you want to pick the ball up high you go low pickup you you know you pick the you as you’re picking up your dribble to make your move, you’re picking it up at your ankles to prevent, you know, some of these bigger guys from swiping swiping at it, knocking it out of your hands. So Khan has had to make that adjustment and continues to make that adjustment to read that um when he makes his move. But I I think he’s making it very quickly and he’s doing a great job of not turning it over there. It’s really been on the pass decisions that I think a majority of his turnovers are coming on. So, uh, so saying that like he generates so much of the ball movement and it just wasn’t happening there in that third quarter. So, you know, a lot of those things, you know, I I think the Hornets devolve particularly when they get counter punched, they devolve offensively and and get a little simplistic and that’s going to happen tends to happen towards uh the beginning of the towards the third quarter. That to me is like young team, immature team, learning team, inconsistent team, team that hasn’t had their best player in the lineup for more than, you know, 15 games, you know, in a very long time. Like no identity, you know, that’s the thing that people say like this team doesn’t have an identity. Well, that’s Yes. like it’s when you don’t have an identity, it’s very difficult to to maintain that level of play through uh through 48 minutes and you’re going to get blitzed at some point when the the other team adjusts. All right, coming up on the Lockdown Hornets podcast everywhere. Let’s talk about this Sacramento situation. The Kings uh they’re looking uh to abandon ship really. They’re tossing things over the ship trying to shed weight as they look to get worse in the Western Conference. Uh should the Hornets pull their boat alongside the SS Kings and uh throw a life raft out to one of these players and bring them on board. We’ll talk about it coming up on Locked on Hornets. Today’s episode of Locked On Hornets is brought to you by Game Time. Game time. I’ll do it. I’ll do it solo. I don’t need Walker here to do game time. Uh, basketball season, it’s officially here. 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Get started today at robinhood.com/yyoumoney. Again, that’s robinhood.com/youoney. Your money, your move. More Lockdown Hornets ahead. Back here on Locked on Hornets. Thanks so much for making us your first listen every day and for making Lockd on Podcast Network the number one pod sports podcast network. All right, so a lot of news happening in the NBA. Nico Harrison gets the boot from uh the Dallas Mavericks. So all of a sudden that 2027 pick that owned by the Charlotte Hornets from the Dallas Mavericks. It’s top two protected not looking so bad. That’s been a little bit of a roller coaster pick for the Charlotte Hornets. It s it looked good uh after the Luca trade and then they get Cooper and you you get Anthony Davis and you’re like, “Oh, well, I don’t know.” And now all of a sudden uh it’s it’s looking like maybe could be unless they get really really bad uh could be uh actually a great pickup for the Charlotte Hornets or could it be a tool to use in a potential trade say with the Sacramento Kings who are looking to tear things down and they’ve got a lot of uh veteran support, a lot of players uh that are having down years right now. uh maybe you know how much of that is uh their player performance and where they are on the trajectory of their career and how much of that is uh the scenery there in Sacramento which has been miserable uh for a very long time but particularly uh since they made the move uh to send Dear Fox to San Antonio. things have uh gotten pretty dark there in Sacramento and now they are finally saying all right or at least the reports are that they’re saying all right it’s time to move on uh break this team up and get as many picks as we can and start over in the next few years. So Demar D Rozan, Zack Lavine uh maybe probably not Russ Westbrook but Sabonis Malik Monk do you want to go second round with Malik Monk? Keon Ellis uh also um in the mix there. Uh who would you like? I’m interested in the comments on this one. What makes the most sense for you? Like I don’t think they’re going to move on from any of their young players. So Devin Carter, uh the guy that they just drafted, Max Reo, Nick Clifford, you know, I don’t think any of those guys are are in the mix here. To me, there’s really only one name that makes some sense. Uh maybe Maybe you look at Keon Ellis, Keon Ellis, 65 wing, 25 years old, uh, low usage wing. Uh, I don’t know. Does that name excite you? Does that do anything for the Charlotte Hornets long term? Could they turn him into something maybe? But I think the one name that you’re going to target here is is not Demar De Rozan or or Zack Lavine. Zack Lavine might even be impossible to trade even if you’re going to fire and it would blow the books up. So would so would Sabonis, but Sabonis would immediately become your best big, a big a big body and a big offensive presence that could make up for some of the particularly if you thought Brandon Miller was going to be done for the year and you wanted to do something that represented competing, could you go and get Sabonis? And I don’t even mean for like a Sabonis LaMelo swap. I’m talking if they’re going to if they’re in fire sale mode. I don’t think they’re going to be interested in taking back LaMelo Ball and the almost equal money in years that it would take that it would put on Sacramento’s books. So, at this point, you’re talking about some package that looks like Miles Bridges, Pat Coneton, and like Antonio Reeves or something. I mean, it would just be like I think Bridges and Conetan get you right to the line and then you’ve got to, you know, but and and then I think you’re saying, all right, if the Hornets don’t want to sacrifice one of their own young players, which I don’t think that they would want to do for Sabonis, then I think 29 years old, you know, already been an all-star three times can be, again, not a great start this year dealing with a rib cage issue which doesn’t appear serious but can be a 201 12 and six guy. Could Charles Lee maximize him on the defensive end of the floor? Could you move Cochr Brener for a year or two to the the backup center role where his deficiencies with his foot speed would be way less impactful than it is in the starting lineup where he got played off the floor against LA. Like you’re not I mean Sabonis may hurt you occasionally on defense, but he’s not going to get played off the floor and what not until you get into some kind of like playoff scenario, but the Hornets are nowhere near that. Sabonis is the kind of player that would put them nearer to that. And again, if you get LaMelo and Sabonis together and you’re moving Miles, so Miles is really uh you know, I think it would be your fourth option if everyone was healthy, but third option. And then, you know, you’re talking about a guy in Sabonis that I I trust more with the ball in his hands once he’s facilitated to um than than someone like Biles Bridges in in a clutch situation. So, yeah. I mean, look, again, tough start to this season, but in the past couple of seasons, he’s been in the 86th percentile in points per shot attempt. Last season, 75th percentile, 84th percentile. So really in the past three full seasons, he’s he’s peaking right now. So you’re getting a guy entering the prime and you’re going to have that player under contract for the next three or four seasons easily and probably someone that if if you would be someone that you could eventually move if you wanted to. Um, so you know, I think Sabonis, look, I mean, great great passer, too. You know, I and I think that’s something that you’re not getting really at all with Cochrrener. Musa like a tiny bit, but it’s really difficult for a team to like move the ball at an elite level if if not a single one of your bigs can hit a three or pass. Uh and Cochrinter once he gets the ball, you know, he’s he’s going to try to score that thing. He’s not looking for the kick out immediately. And so that may come, you know, but that that Sabonis, I think, gives you time uh to let Cochrinter cook, let him develop off the bench. And then you can use you can use Musa in that case as more of a Swiss Army knife. So, you know, again, what would it the the question then would be like how fire sail are the Sacramento Kings looking to get? Would you have to give up one of your young players? I wouldn’t advise the Hornets to do that, particularly with how all these guys have played, like not even Lee McNeely. I think you got to see all four of these rookies. I think you have to see it out with them. But I if if you could utilize Miles’s contract, Pat Coneton, we said when Pat Coneton was retained, you know, I think I think there’s some truth to the idea that like great locker room guy effort, he earned it over Spencer Denwitty, but I think also you didn’t want to lose that $9 million n plus million dollars that could be utilized on a contract. And so this would be an opportunity to use that um on like how are you going you’re not going to get us a bonus level player in free agency like if you’re going to do something like this it has to happen in this way picking up on these opportunities when teams blow it up or a star gets disgruntled. I mean that’s how sac that’s how San Antonio ended up with De’ar Fox. Whenever you have an opportunity to pick on the Sacramento Kings you should do it. And the question is, yeah, would they take the heat pick or would they would you want to give up the Mavs pick now? And I joked early in the segment that like that mass pick looking a lot sexier now. Okay. Now, but 2027, that’s a couple years away. And you’ve already got some rumblings within like deep within that story about Nico getting fired that like Mark Cuban is trying to sort of wiggle his way back into influence within the new ownership group trying to get his guy installed uh from the Pistons. And so, you know, they could get aggressive and try to get better and try to make sure Cooper Flag gets early playoff experience. the thing that you kind of want to do when you have a young star. I don’t know. You know, the Hornets didn’t really do that, but that’s that’s like a thing you want to do. If you if you know you have a a great star in the making, you try to get that guy um into the playoffs as soon as possible. So, while that s while that Dallas pick looks great now, maybe you take advantage of that idea like, hey, look at this is looking great rather than roll the dice, you know? Sabonis would be a shorefire upgrade at a position right now of absolute weakness for the Charlotte Hornets. All right, I’m interested in what you think. You can text me if you’re on uh the Sicko Brigade Subtex, jointex.com/lockdown hornets or you can leave a comment below. Make sure to like, share with a friend. It says it right there. Subscribe, like, and tell a fellow Sicko. Word of mouth. That’s how this show grows. We really appreciate it. Uh listen to Walker 12 to3. listen or watch Walker on the broadcast for this game against the Milwaukee Bucks. Uh by the time you’re listening to this, that game will be tonight. And uh we’ll be right back here. I’ll be right back here to talk about that game with a recap episode. So check that out here on Locked on Hornets. Until then, go Hornets. Go America. Let’s swarm Charlotte. Hey, hey, hey.

Doug Branson is flying solo on today’s show as the team prepares for the Milwaukee Bucks. The program begins with the biggest issues facing the Charlotte Hornets, starting with the mystery around LaMelo Ball’s ankle impingement. Doug addresses fan frustration following LaMelo’s brief Greensboro Swarm practice assignment, noting the lack of clarity around the injury is reaching a “boiling point”.

Next, the show analyzes the loss to the Los Angeles Lakers. The biggest takeaway is why this version of the Hornets, without LaMelo and Brandon, is consistently getting shellacked in the third quarter. Doug examines how poor starting lineups and defensive issues are contributing to a terrible -29.2 net rating in the third over the last five games.

Finally, the conversation shifts to trade market opportunities. With reports that the Sacramento Kings are looking to tear down their roster, Doug debates which player the Hornets should pursue. Domantas Sabonis emerges as the key target, with Doug discussing the necessary package to acquire the three-time All-Star center to pair with a healthy LaMelo Ball.

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