LaMelo Ball RESPONDS to Trade Rumors | Kon Knueppel’s STAR Turn Changes Everything

LaMelo Ball RESPONDS to Trade Rumors | Kon Knueppel’s STAR Turn Changes Everything

We give you the latest on LaMelo. It’s been a while since we’ve talked about what seems like a story from ages ago. LaMelo’s commented on it. Is the whole kibash now on the story. Is LaMelo even really winning out of Charlotte? We’ll get to that. We’ll get to the games over the weekend. Is Khan ever going to miss a shot again? 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. It’s Locked on Hornets, part of the Locked On Network. It’s your team every day. Thanks for making us your first listen. We are free and available anywhere you get your podcast and that includes YouTube. Or if you’re watching us on YouTube, apparently you’re watching the Barney and Big Bird Show. Just straight up solid purple, solid yellow. It’s Sesame Street. Get your Hornets takes on Sesame Street. Doug Branson with the bright yellow hoodie. Every Hornetsboxcore.com. Also check them out behind the scenes producing for Yahoo Sports Daily with Jason Fitz and Caroline Finton. And I’m Walker Mail. I’m Barney. I tried. I don’t know if it was good, but I tried. It’s been a while. Uh WFNZ Sports Radio 927 FM Wesson Walker from 12 to3 daily. And last but not least, I need to tell you that this episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers can bet just $5. And if your bet wins, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. Head to fanduel.com to get started. And uh we are, by the way, the number one sports podcast network out there. So, we appreciate everybody for supporting us all the way to the top. You want to get with I mean, there’s so much stuff that’s happened in the last two days. Like, God almighty, it’s too much stuff. So much stuff. I don’t know how to organize all of it. I guess we’ll give you the latest on LaMelo here first before we dive into a couple of the L’s that the Hornets took before we dive into cognitive dissonance. How do we wrestle the losing with Khan being unbelievable? I don’t know if we have the right words to describe his rookie season um or the season in general, but we had more LaMelo news on Friday. We gave you the emergency podcast when we got the Kelly Eco report. In case you don’t know, Kelly Eco put out there a part of Yahoo Sports that LaMelo was growingly growing increasingly frustrated with the team with all of the losing, the offense focusing more on getting Brandon Miller some shots, having a slower pace than what LaMelo would like. This was all in the report and that LaMelo wanted out or would have been open to a trade out of Charlotte. Also in that report, Kelly Eco writes that Charlotte themselves, they have grown increasingly hesitant to make LaMelo the face of the franchise and paraphrasing a little bit of that. Yeah. So, we move on. About an hour after that tweet, after that article, LaMelo quote tweeted the article with a clown emoji. And then he spoke to media the day after saying, quote, “Kelly Eco never heard that come from me. The source is not from me. It’s false information. I love being here. I’m still confident in this group and everybody here.” LaMelo would also say that he felt the need to say something. He usually doesn’t like commenting on stuff like that, and I agree with that. You usually don’t see that kind of stuff from LaMelo, but he said, “I usually don’t like commenting on it, but it got way too big. Bleacher Report got a hold of it. All sorts of Twitter accounts were just flying off of the handle with that news and so he felt the need to say something.” Um, you saw LaMelo speak to the media scrum the day after at practice. Everything since then that’s happened. Doug, what do you make of all of it now? I believe him. I believe that he did not uh directly link uh leak that information to Eco or anyone else. And I think you wisely pointed to the Eco report and said, “Hey, this says league sources. It doesn’t say team sources or sources within LaMelo’s camp.” You know, sometimes we’ll see that. We’ll see like, you know, sources within player X’s camp have told me X, Y, and Z. None of that was league sources. So, I’m standing by my um educated speculation, my read of the situation, which is that the Hornets and LaMelo were both mutually frustrated and and are working through stuff and that stuff leaked out and the neighbors got wind and then it went all through the town. like we if you’ve ever gone to been a small town, you know, sometimes you can’t keep the the argument or the thing within the four walls. It leaks and then suddenly the whole church is talking about it. So I you know I think that’s what happened here and it but but here’s the thing it doesn’t mean that the frustrations are over that that the that the issues have been resolved. I think they’re they’re going to continue to work through these things, whether it be Charles Lee and LaMelo Ball working through like, hey, this is how Lee wants to run the offense. Here’s what LaMelo wants to do. Here’s how the training staff wants him to approach his return to play from this latest right ankle issue and here’s how LaMelo would like to approach it. He obviously has an issue with the minutes restriction that is going to continue to get worked out, but he didn’t play the other night. So, you know, at least for now, he is adhering to whatever the team uh would like him to do in terms of working his way back to full strength. So, yeah, I mean, I think this is we’re going to take this drama all the way up to the trade deadline. And and I think the real question is like does LaMelo ever get to the point where his frustrations reach a level where he says, “All right, I’ve got no choice. I’ve got to go and, you know, make a move here and be more direct. And, you know, I I wouldn’t I wouldn’t count that out is what I’m saying. Yeah. And I and I hear you. It certainly anything’s possible. I don’t know if I’d count on it either. I just We’ve talked about this a lot. You and I both have agreed that LaMelo just doesn’t seem like that type of guy. I know things can change as he gets older. If the Hornets continue to miss the playoffs, then fine. I do think that there’s probably enough self-awareness here on LaMelo’s part that they’re not getting to the playoffs in part because he’s not playing. So, I I know he wants to play. I like that. You want your star player to want to be out there on the court. You want your coach and you want your franchise to protect your star player as much as possible. I think both of those boxes are being checked off. I think that he can be frustrated with not playing and also not be so frustrated to the point where he’s asking out of Charlotte. Like I really believe LaMelo here. I don’t think there’s any kind of funny business. I don’t think it’s the type of lie that LaMelo is saying where he leaves out just a little bit. He doesn’t tell you the whole truth. I don’t even think that’s happening, Doug. I call me naive. I might be that. I really don’t think LaMelo wants to be out of Charlotte really at all. I don’t think he’s talked to his agent about it. I’ve seen some people hypothesize that maybe it’s his agent putting that out there. But okay, if your agent really wants to make a stink of all of this, you think the first person he’s going to is Kelly Eco and nobody else to get the message out, I’m going to guess you probably go about this sort of message in a different way. And plus the sources, the league sources, the comments that would follow what Eco was writing, it was all about league sources, people with other teams. They feel like LaMelo could be on his way out of Charlotte. I think the Hornets are listening to offers. And if you wanted to see some of the other reports that followed the Kelly Eco one, Jake Fischer, go ahead, Doug. Go ahead. Put your bait in the water, baby. Yeah, we’re finally we’re going fish. It’s been a while. I got a big one. Yeah. Uh Jake Fischer said, “Lame Ballal does not win out of Charlotte, to my understanding. I believe that to be true. The Hornets have definitely given other teams the impression they will listen to offers for him, though that if if we’re looking for the real source of any drama, like how did we get the snowball rolling all the way to the point where it becomes a report from somebody reputable?” I think it’s the Hornets part in all of this where they might listen to offers. Other teams might get the snowball rolling, cause an avalanche by leaking it. If you’re asking how did the drama get to this point, I think it’s because the Hornets not seeking offers, right? Not picking up the phone and calling. I think because the Vultures are circling again, well, we’ve seen the Vultures a lot around here in Charlotte. because they vulture the way that they do, then they end up making the call and the Hornets are like, “Okay, that’s interesting. No, we’re good on this. Whatever.” That’s that’s the part that I think ends up forming itself into a report. Yeah. I don’t think he wants out. And why would he? I mean, he’s had an opportunity to uh play with his best friend, Miles Bridges. He enjoys playing. They enjoy playing with each other. And then uh he’s really been since he’s been here uh been given the keys to the offense and and told go like do you know this is this is your offense. And so but my question is what if some of those things change? What if Miles Bridges is traded at the deadline? What if all of a sudden he doesn’t have the keys to the offense? What what if he has to share the car with Khan Canipple? Like what happens then? Um, so you know that that’s my biggest question. Will he will will the dynamics are they already changing around LaMelo because he’s not an active part of this discussion because he can’t stay on the floor? That that that would be my question. And then you know with the team like where where do they want to go with all of this? Like do they want to give are they looking at Khan Canipple now? We saw Jeff Peterson and Rick Schnull at the latest uh this Hawks game sitting on the sideline watching Conimple go off, you know, again, you know, are they all of a sudden going to go, I don’t know, you know, maybe maybe we ought to go in a different direction and then all of all of the incentives change at that point. So, I would just say like I I believe everything I’ve heard so far in terms of who wants what, but I just think those things can change very quickly. Sure. Um, coming up next on the Lockdown Hornets podcast everywhere. Are you Hornets fan suffering from cognitive dissonance? If so, this is the podcast for you. We help you sort through all of your views. Having watched the Hornets accumulate more L’s than we were hoping for at this point in the season, but watching a lot of W’s that con continues to stack up. Connitive dissonance coming up next. 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. Gusto is the all-in-one remote friendly payroll and HR platform that makes managing your team simple, transparent, and fast. 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And the best part, you don’t have to wait. Wayfair’s Black Friday deals are happening all month long with up to 70% off everything from sofas to spatulas. If you’ve ever hosted family for the holidays, you know how much of a difference a few new touches can make from sofas to spatulas. Yeah, maybe auntie loves the new spatula that you got. Wayfair makes that easy. Don’t miss out on early Black Friday deals. Head to wayfair.com now to shop. Wayfair’s Black Friday sale for up to 70% off. That’s w a y f a iir wayfair.com. Sale ends December 7th. More lockdown hornets ahead. The con of it all. He looks great. What you got? I’m sorry. I thought you were I thought you were going to do more cognitive dissonance. uh you know, drug read audience. I should have done that. I don’t know why it it just hit me the way that it did and I decided to package it. It does. It does sound like It does sound like some kind of disorder. We all have the sickness, but this cognitive dissonance does sound like some kind of disorder. If your canipple plays hard for more than 30 minutes, please consult another sicko. Uh that’s the problem. Like I don’t want to experience the con experience for less than four hours. I want more than four hours. I’m not seeing any doctor. I feel just fine. Please and thank you. More hours, please. That’s the issue. So, I I’ve been thinking about how to wrestle this, right? Cuz the Hornets are losing a lot. And I I don’t think that the the highest we were on the Hornets this year and what they could achieve, Doug, it felt like we landed in get to the playin and maybe use the playin tournament to get to the playoffs, that felt like the absolute ceiling for this squad. That’s how we painted it, right? Is that fair to say? That’s fair to say. Okay. So, they’re not going to get there, right? Not gonna happen. Four and 13 through the first 17 games of the season. That’s pretty bad already. The Celtics are the 10 seed at 9 and eight. And the Eastern Conference, Brian Winhorse, and I think the guys on the Hoop Collective podcast were just talking about this, how the East is actually much better than we thought. And maybe it’s the East with all of the like good kind of parody, good kind of basketball parody in the middle and towards the bottom of the standings that maybe the even the Western Conference to some degree. So with that being said, the Hornets are not one of those teams that he’s mentioning. They’re not in that jumbled up world, especially if LaMelo is going to miss time. He’s going to be on a minutes restriction. Same thing with Brandon Miller. We’re not going to have Grant back. We’re not going to have Josh back. You guys know all of the issues except Okay, that’s sad. I would like to play some winning basketball. I would like to watch all of my most important players on the court with one another. And then I look to the other side and I see Khan Canipple 20th in the Eastern Conference in points per game. Only Sam Merrill is shooting better from three-point land on eight three-point attempts per game. Duncan Robinson you can add to the list if you want to lower that field goal attempt to seven from beyond the arc. One of the best rebounding guards in the East. He’s sixth at the shooting guard position in the 90th percentile in the NBA. Not the Eastern Conference. He’s in the 90th percentile in the NBA according to cleaning the glass in points per shot attempts. He’s getting better at finishing at the rim the last few games. He can do some stuff with the basketball unlike Sam Merrill, unlike Duncan Robinson. So, here we are. I usually don’t want to go to too many crazy spaces because then we move the goalpost on what a successful rookie season is. But Doug, these are allstar-l like numbers that I’m watching that they’re not crazy. If we’re talking about a top 15 player in the East, these numbers look pretty damn close, if not already, to a top 15 player. How do we wrestle all of this in Hornets Land? That would be crazy if caught, you know, the Do you remember the last rookie to make an all-star game for the Hornets or period? For I don’t think the Hornets have ever had a rookie all-star, but for Yeah. period. Like the last rookie. It was a long time ago. I don’t know. Was Blake Griffin and that was kind of a cheater one. Okay. I think Yao Ming was the one before him and that’s also that would because I think he played well he played professionally a little bit before he came over to the NBA Sharks shout out. Yeah, that might have been a cheater one too. So I’m I had to look even further back to find the the actual legit like I just I came out of college. I made an all-star and look he’s getting he’s getting attention. You know, the question is, can he, you know, hold hold these hold these box score lines all the way through into February or whenever the voting ends, you know, to to make that kind of impact. It’s very difficult because so often like guys are given credit almost a year after they make the impact. So, like if Khan has a great rookie season, maybe misses the mark all-star wise, but he’s going to get a lot of credit for this rookie season if he if he, you know, comes out of the first two months next season. This is what happened to LaMelo. Like, he had a great rookie of the year campaign and then got the All-Star in the sophomore year after he had a great start. Yeah. So, would be very difficult for Khan. How do I wrestle with all of that? I’m I’m fine wrestling with that. I love to wrestle with that because I think about the alternative, right, which is that Khan comes in and is everything that everyone thought he would be, which is like high floor, low ceiling kind of player. And it’s like, all right, you know, he’s doing a little bit of everything. It’s not really, you know, having a a major impact on the way the game swings. You know, you see him doing good things and that’s all that’s all great, but he’s not really swinging the game one way or the other. That hasn’t happened. like he has a major impact on the Hornets making runs. And honestly, when he’s off the floor, he has a large impact on the opposing team making runs. He can play offense, he can play defense. That’s a refreshing thing for a Charlotte Hornets rookie. If if this season, regardless of who they drafted, this season was about the Hornets as an organization taking a look at the roster and determining what the direction was going to be, who stays and who goes. You know, I I think it this level of Keniple where he’s opening up the ceiling, saying whatever you thought about me, go ahead and throw that in the trash can and and go ahead and just open your mind up to, you know, Devin Booker level comparisons now. Okay. you know, perennial all-star comparisons. Okay. And then now you give the Hornets who don’t have Brandon Miller to make an assessment on yet, who haven’t had LaMelo you for more than, you know, 50 games, it seems like for a very long time to make an assessment. You’re giving them an opportunity now to take a direction. And so I’m I’m more than happy to wrestle with that. I love that. I I think you’re right because you’re I I would like more wins. Of course, that’s the whole point of the basketball. It’s to win the games, right? At the I’m I’m kind of with you, though, because Okay, I I think every single year, your top five pick or your first round pick, being successful is one of the biggest goals that you have, right? It doesn’t don’t even really matter where you are. Unless you’re a real championship contender, maybe it’s like the fifth most important thing that might happen to you that season. For the Hornets, it’s it’s usually a big deal. How does the rookie play right away? It’s somewhere between the biggest thing that needs to happen that season or the third, the whatever, right? It doesn’t usually go further down than third. I think one of two things were the most important thing to happen this season. Um, combining all of the injuries together so we don’t separate it out from watching LaMelo play, watching Brandon play. I’ve referenced it a million times. Watching the freaking team play. That was the number one goal. It still is the number one goal. Watching all of your guys play together on the court at the same time. I think second would be, did you hit with Khan in a deep draft where you decided to draft him instead of Trey Johnson, where you decided to draft him instead of Ace Bailey? where there was a legit conversation, a crazy one, off the court with Ace and his agent and all of that. But you still could have taken Ace Bailey. We know the Hornets have drafted players that haven’t worked out for him before. Dwayne Bacon just mentioned it with Theo Pinson on a podcast a couple days ago. So, we know that they haven’t necessarily subscribed to needing to work out the player in order to draft him. Khan being the right answer is still to me a top two story line. I think it’s second and the fact that it represents such a bright future with the way that he’s playing. It’s not that, hey man, he holds it up like he could be rookie of the year. He’s playing really well. What an awesome draft pick for the Hornets. He’s playing. It’s so much more than that, which is why this is nuts. I don’t like framing the All-Star conversation the way I am because now it has potential again to move the goalpost and if he doesn’t make it, it’s like Walker, please. He’s great. Let’s not do the thing where we exaggerate this. I I all I can do is watch what he’s doing now. Look at the numbers. Compare him to all the other players. Expect Let’s say that he comes down in efficiency. Doug, let him come down. The point per shot attempt is still going to be ridiculous. I I It’s a wild season. Let him come down. It doesn’t matter because he’s doing so many other things. And the NBA is all about versatility. And while he doesn’t necessarily have defensive versatility in the way that like, oh, I can guard one through five. He’s not that guy. But he has a versatility in his skill set. and that he can make the pass, he can move off ball, he can move on ball, um he can keep his dribble, he can shoot from three, he can shoot from the mid-range, he can get it, he can take it all the way to the cup. I mean, he’s had some Colin Sexon like drives already where I’m like, damn, how did he get by that guy? He did it against Atlanta a couple of times. Um he has clutch shotmaking ability. He learns very quickly. He’s hard on himself. We saw after this game against Atlanta, you know, he he had the big shot, but then, you know, one of the final possessions, he gets the ball in the corner, drives it, tries to spin on U Nikil Alexander Walker. Alexander Walker makes an incredible defensive play, not to foul in that situation. So, all credit to Atlanta. I was I was like, “Hey, that’s a decent spin move.” You go to Khan after the game, he says, “Nah, that’s not not a decent spin move for me.” He said, “That was clunky. I should have shot it.” So again, but he the fact that he says that is mind-blowing. The fact that he communicates that that that again to let us know, hey, there’s some the wheels are turning up there that he’s he already know he already understands like where he needs to get better. Like it’s it’s all incredible. And yes, we have blown the top off the ceiling on what he can be. There is no ceiling anymore. We just have to wait and see how he develops over the course of this rookie season and into next season. But yes, like that’s I So when when you’re asking me like what am I wrestling with, what I’m wrestling with is like how long before the Hornets get on that track, right? Like how like are we going to continue to uh uh not give him the ball in the third quarter? are are the Hornets going to continue to not allow him the the more clutch possessions, you know, and and so that that’s when LaMelo does come back, you know, is is LaMelo uh going to, you know, take 20 plus shots and and 10 or more of those are bad three-point shots instead of working a little bit more through Khan Canipple. Like, how long is it going to take before the franchise itself starts to shift that mentality and see, you know, what we’re all seeing? That’s that’s the real question. Yeah. And Brandon and all of it again that that comes back to the watching the team play part. It it all comes back to what I still believe to be the number one story line. Watching the team play Brandon and LaMelo and how they mesh with Khan. Um but we want to see it so badly because of the way Khan’s performing too. And by the way, the Hornets aren’t dummies. Charles Lee’s not a dummy. The Jeff Peterson’s not a dummy. They all know how special Khan Canipple is. The question is, how long is it going to take for them to cut through the politics? How long is it going to take for them to cut through the well, we drafted Brandon pretty high and you know, LaMelo, he’s on a max contract and Miles Bridges still on a big deal and he’s kind of the veteran leader. Like, how long are we just going to, you know, wade through that stuff before we would dispense through it all and say, “Hey, there’s a really special player.” It didn’t take long for them to do that with Brandon Miller. So, I, you know, and and look, he’s, you know, Khan is getting uh a fair share of shots. It’s not like he’s getting completely hidden, but there are moments where you’re going, “Hey, uh, he had 18 points in the first half and now he can’t get a shot in the third quarter. What’s going on there?” So, that’s what they have to figure out. All right, coming up next on the Locked On Hornets podcast. Everywhere. Are you two suffering from crunch time issues? Have you yourself been watching a basketball team that just can’t quite get a the right shot selection or b that shot that they choose to shoot to go in the hoop? Locked on Hornets is the right podcast for you. Stick around for the third segment to learn of some of the symptoms and side effects. This episode is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA it’s back. There’s no better place to get in on the action than with FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. Even if you miss the start of the game or want to ride the hot hand, FanDuel has live bets on everything from who will score next to fourth quarter comebacks. Plus, you can even combine your live bets into a same game parlay for a shot at a bigger payout. It keeps every game exciting, especially when your team is the one making that late push. Right now, FanDuel is giving new customers $300 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. So head to fanduel.com to sign up and play your game with FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. More Lockdown Hornets ahead. You mentioned it a little bit, the crunch time issues. Miles Bridges had another hero moment. Coniple, we love him for the attempt. He did give you a nice drive, nice spin move. Nikquil Alexander Walker, real long arms, very, very good defender. hits it clean. Another clean look, by the way. Brandon Ingram, Scotty Barnes, now add Nikil Alexander Walker to the list of guys that have made incredible clean, impressive plays defensively to salvage victories for their teams, but they just can’t get right in the fourth quarter to what do you attribute that to? What are you seeing from some of these guys? What are your thoughts? Uh, they didn’t lose the game in the third quarter. I thought they lost the game when they gave up a 70 run to end the third quarter. Uh they could have they could have put the nail in Atlanta’s coffin. Look, they had a good game plan going into the game. They must have seen something in the tape, something in the scouting report that said Miles Bridges, Colin Ston, if you guys just put your head down and go straight at the rim, there is not a single body on that Hawks team that can get in front of you, stay in front of you, or provide any resistance. like Atlanta has a lot of they remind me of the Hornets uh you know somewhere around those playoff seplayoff seasons where there was a lot of skill but not a lot of size and strength and so that’s you know that’s where Atlanta was and so Colin Ston and and Miles were playing bully ball and it was working like they were crushing Atlanta in the paint and then in that first half they broke the lineup and it was KJ Simpson and it was Trey man and I tracked I don’t know that I can pull it up in my game notes But I but I tracked a series of possessions when they broke the lineup and had Trey and KJ running the offense and it was like KJ turnover, Trey man turnover, Trey man turnover, KJ turnover, some other bad shot. Like it was just like seven straight possessions where they couldn’t even get a shot up. And thankfully Charles Lee looked at it and said, “Okay, can’t do that again. Whoops. Not going to do that again.” Like second half we didn’t see as much of that. We saw a little bit more Liam McNeely and more minutes. I mean, you had guys playing 36 37 minutes. Uh, your your better players. So, you know, he he they they did try to win that game. Um, but yeah, I mean, I think the in terms of the crunch time issues, you know, Miles on that one possession where, you know, he looked like Carlton from the episode, the basketball episode of uh Fresh Prince where he just heaved it up. You know, we’ve seen a couple of those Yes. We’ve seen a couple of those Miles heaves uh that that make you reach for the Advil. Um and that one to me, like looking back on it, he just drove too far and got himself into trouble because Khan was in the corner. And I think he had a mind to pull that defender, but he just went too fast and too far and he didn’t have any angle. And then they they you know, Atlanta played some good defense there at the end. They took away the angle to kick it back out, too. So that honestly like because Miles put himself in that position. That’s really the only opportunity he had to make a play. Uh but that is you know Miles Bridges honestly is like a big part of the crunch time issues when he has the ball in his hands but because they keep going to him or he keeps taking the onus upon himself to be able to to be the one that hit it. And I’ll tell you this I look people have grown frustrated with the Miles Bridges experience for the last couple of years I would say. But I still think overall a lot of people approved of Miles on the court for what was happening. I would say right now his Q rating is as low as it’s ever been. I think at least with the timeline, I don’t know how it is on every hornetsboxcore.com comments, the people texting you, but man, there are a lot of people that were so far in Miles Bridg’s corner in my opinion that are now so far out of it because of the way that they’ve watched him play basketball over the last however long. I I actually think it really started happening maybe second half of last year specifically and at the beginning of this season the hero shots that don’t go in that’ll that’ll wear on a fan base and it’s wearing on him. Yeah, it’s interesting in this game too because again I thought offensively for most of the game he played super disciplined and super well and defensively I thought he had some good possessions on Jaylen Johnson. Uh you know I just thought generally he played good defense in this game. You know, the one thing that I think had Miles Bridges added to his game would probably be helping his Q rating right now, particularly in the games when he’s playing without LaMelo Ball, and that’s like any semblance of court vision or playmaking. There there was a possession that I noted in the every Hornets box score uh you rundown where like Khan was wide open in the weak side corner and Miles when he gets a mind to drive he just puts the blinders on and I don’t know if he can’t see it or if he just chooses not to see it but he really can’t make that play with any kind of consistency. He’s I I think he’s actually a good pick and roll passer. When he’s actually running a pick and roll, but when he gets into the ISO situations, he can’t find that skip pass to the corner. And that’s just that’s just been a thing. And honestly, you you can get upset with that. Me personally, I think about it and I go, phew. The Hornets really kind of dodged a little bit of a bullet in terms of not, you know, being able to give him considerable amounts of max level money because when they were going to do that, I think they were doing that with a mind of like he’s going to evolve into that kind of player. Those are the kind of bets you have to make, particularly when you draft a player and you see a glimpse of that. And to be fair, I think we saw glimpses of that before that time. And I don’t know if it was the year off of basketball or whatever, but he he he is not going to develop into that kind of player. And at least the Hornets aren’t on the hook for a max contract. Well, I let me tell you this. I I did not expect to get here with with the Miles combo. I wanted to talk more about crunchtime issues. You you mentioned it. It some of them a lot of it has been with Miles being in the game. Man, I know I go to this stat a lot, too. the field goal percentage at the rim. Miles is shooting 56% at the cup, Doug. Like that’s the sixth percentile among forwards according to Cleaning the Glass in the entire NBA. That sounds good. That’s near the top, right? No. Oh, it’s flip. No. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He’s in the He’s in the bottom. He’s in the bottom 6%. So, which is like that’s that’s the way that you want Miles to play. The rim percentage, at least in terms of percentile and just outright shooting percentage, it’s actually been going down every year, interestingly enough, since 2020. So, in his third year in the league, he shot 72% at the cup. We’ll take it all day long. Next year, 68. Still good. Next year, 65. Oh, it’s average. Probably average. 65. The next year, same thing. 56 this year, it will be higher than 56. It’s not going to stay there. But how much higher is it going to go is the question. Because Doug, when you marry that with constantly not being able to shoot the ball from deep consistently, that’s when it becomes a real magnetized issue. Like you’re you’re looking magnified. Not magnetized. I’m hoping that there is a magnet at the cup for the basketball when Miles shoots it so it goes right to the cup. It’s a real magnified issue when you start to marry bad shooting at the rim with bad shooting from three because the three he’s just shown us he’s had one outlier season from distance and this this is the miles this is the shooting miles that we’ve come to know if you marry that with bad finishing then I it’s yeah it’s tough to go to him offensively and the misses are comically bad you know what I’m saying like it’s not like honestly the the guy that I critiqued a little bit last episode was Drew Peterson who is missing a ton and they finally noted it on the broadcast. They’re like, “Oh man, this guy, you know, shot pretty well a season ago. He just cannot find the bottom of the net.” But you look at Peterson’s misses and not all of them are are awful there. It’s a lot of just like somewhat off. He’s obviously in a little bit of a maybe a shooting yips situation, man. Miles’s misses are just like comically bad u from deep. And then when you go to those rim numbers, uh I think that’s there was a lot of dunking early in the career. There was a lot of alioopage early in the career with LaMelo Ball. Without LaMelo Ball, it’s a lot of I’m going to create by myself and I I’m attacking such that like I can’t I can’t go all the way and and yam it anymore. So, I’m forced to take contact, which knocks me a little bit off, and I’m forced to adjust my shot a little bit. And yeah, this is um this is what happens. And when you combine that with the inability to to make a lot of plays off of that, then you get a you get a negative basketball player. Yeah. So, I’m going to try to do the math here real quickly. Uh you look at Miles now, he has 10 dunks on the season. just 10 in 17 games played. So, he’s on pace for less than 55 that he had a year ago. He’s on pace for about 48. 55 a year ago, 66 before that. Didn’t play the year that he was out. 118 118 dunks in 2021 2022. You know, the dunks keep going down to your point. Um, which is a part of Miles’s game anyways. Yeah. All right, that’ll do it for Lockdown Hornets. Thanks for making us your first listen. We’re free and available anywhere you get your pods. That includes YouTube. Go check us out. We mean it when we say anywhere you get your pods. Doug Branson, every Hornetsboxcore.com. Also producing for Yahoo Sports Daily. I’m Walker Male. Listen to me on WFNZ every weekday from 12 to 300 p.m. Have a great rest of your day. We’ll be back with you tomorrow.

We unpack a whirlwind weekend of news starting with the conflicting reports surrounding LaMelo Ball. After a report surfaced claiming LaMelo was “increasingly frustrated” and open to a trade, the star point guard shut it down with a “clown” emoji and a direct denial to the media. We discuss the validity of the rumors, the team’s stance on listening to offers, and why we believe LaMelo wants to stay in Charlotte—for now.

Then, we shift focus to the cognitive dissonance of this season: the team is losing, but rookie Kon Knueppel is playing historic basketball. We look at his incredibly efficient shooting numbers, his versatility, and why his performance looks closer to a top-15 player in the East than a standard rookie. Is he already a cornerstone piece alongside Brandon Miller?

Finally, we examine the “crunch time issues” plaguing the Hornets, specifically looking at the recent loss to the Hawks. We discuss the struggles of Miles Bridges, whose finishing at the rim has plummeted to the 6th percentile among forwards. We explore why the “hero ball” approach isn’t working and how the lack of playmaking in late-game situations is costing the Hornets wins.

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