Hornets sign SHARPSHOOTER Reeves | Team Building STRATEGY Revealed | Fans DEMAND Vegas merch

Hornets sign SHARPSHOOTER Reeves | Team Building STRATEGY Revealed | Fans DEMAND Vegas merch

The Hornets keep giving us content, baby. They signed a new two-way player, Antonio Reeves. Welcome to the team. What can he do to help out the squad? Plus, they are giving us new players. They’re not giving us summer league championship t-shirts. And there is a high demand. There’s just no supply apparently. We’ll talk about all of that today. Locked on Hornets. Hive demand. [Music] You are Locked on Hornets. Your daily Charlotte Hornets podcast, part of the locked on podcast network. Your team every day in a minute cuz we live. [Music] It’s Locked on Hornets, part of the Locked On podcast network. It’s your team every day. Thanks for making us your first listen. We’re free and available anywhere you get your pods and that includes YouTube. There’s Doug Branson. He’s on every hornet_core.com. He’s also on locked on NBA. Is there anything else you’re on? Did I miss anything? Oh man. Yeah, I’m on all kinds of stuff. I’m on You don’t want to just look in my medicine cabinet. I’m on all kinds of stuff. All right, peek in. Woo. Okay. And shut and close. Boy, I didn’t realize you had that issue. I’m Walker Mail. You can listen to me on WFNZ every weekday from 12 to 3 p.m. This episode is brought to you by FanDuel. We appreciate their support as always. Right now, new customers can get $150 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. Again, we appreciate FanDuel. We also appreciate the Hornets. Silly season. I mean, they just keep giving us stuff to talk about. Thank you very much, Jeff Peterson. We appreciate that. Jeff Jeff knows he doesn’t have to sign a player every day, right? Like that’s there’s no rule in the CBA that says Jeff Peterson. I feel like he’s like me in a lot of ways when I start a new job. even like a year or two in, I’m just like Mr. Overachiever. I like I have to do everything. And I build that I build that credibility up so that then in year two or three, I can just like lean back and they’re like, “No, Doug is definitely working. He’s had he has a reputation of working.” But Jeff knows he doesn’t have to sign someone every day, right? Yeah. I just next off season we’re not signing anybody and we’re going to trade cash considerations for Brad Waker and call it a day. That’s what’s happening next off season. But the Hornets sign Antonio Reeves to a twoway contract. This coming in from Sham Shirania who has had the Hornets news. Um basically it’s a monopoly now. Wo is out of the game. Shams has had all of it but he’s been tweeting a lot about the Hornets because the Hornets have been making a lot of moves. So the Hornets sign a guard. Shocker there. They sign guard Antonio Reeves to a 2-way NBA deal. The 2024 New Orleans Pelicans second round pick averaged 6.9 points per game and shot 40% from three in 44 games as a rookie last season. Doug, this is not your typical two-way contract player in my opinion. A lot of people liked him coming out of Kentucky last season. Again, he falls to the second round where he’s selected by the Pelicans. If you look at his game log, if you look at what he did last year, it’s pretty interesting game log. You know me, I love a good game log, buddy. I do. Oh my god, they’re great. So, like getting spot minutes here and there, not playing a whole lot. Like the most he played was 18 at the beginning of the season, but then eight eight DNP CDs. Boom. 39 minutes. There’s There’s a game with 39. He scores 34 points. That would be a season and of course careerhigh. He puts up 25 shots. He puts up 12 threes. He actually makes 14 of those 25 shots and goes for 34. Okay. Uh they also get beat by almost 30 in that game playing Cleveland. So then the very next game he plays 12 minutes. The game after that it’s a DNP. Okay. All right. So spot minutes. Spot minutes. Spot minutes. Spot minutes. Then Pelicans are out of the playoffs. Let the young boys play. Let the kids play. Now it’s all about some April basketball, baby. And that’s where Antonio Reeves actually puts together a nice little run from mid-March to um the end of the season. Shot 45% from three in that stretch in the 16 games that he played. Okay, I’ll take 45% from three no matter how you slice it. Uh averaged I think I’m looking at the points per game average here. Um around like 15 or so. Like he was putting up a decent amount of points every single game. So yeah, man. Like a lot of people like Antonio Reeves, just a dead eyee shooter is what he really is on this team. And that’s it. I mean, that and that’s I think what they’ve been looking for all off seasonason is to add shooting to this roster with players that have the size and potential and and sort of character and effort that the team is looking for that they can say we we may be able to mold this player into a passable defender and dead eyee shooter. which like if you look at the Boston Celtics team that won the championship, they were full of those guys. The the the guys that Charles Lee was helping to assistant coach every day, they were full of uh Sam Howers and Sam Merrills and you know just Sam shoot a bunch of threes and uh you look at other guys in this mold kind of like a Max Stre uh for Cleveland and for Miami before that Caleb Martin. Uh Miami turned again, it’s about turning like liability on defense to passable defense and then at the same time you’re getting awesome offense. When I watch I did a little bit of tape study this morning and when I watch Antonio Reeves, I see a player who is a great shooter also plays a little bit under control. If he has to go go to his dribble and get to the mid-range, he can play in control. It’s not always extremely effective there. He cannot get to the rim. He’s not going to do that for you, but he can play a little bit inside the arc. And then defensively, yeah, he just needs a lot of work and and that’s where Greensboro Swarm going to come in. You know, I don’t It’s the same thing with like Drew Peterson and KJ Simpson, a lot of these players. Like, I’m excited about what they can bring to the training camp squad to the preseason, but if they’re playing minutes for the Hornets next season, something has gone terribly wrong. And you bring up the New Orleans game log. That’s what happened in New Orleans. They are a cursed franchise uh thanks to George Shen and breaking my heart as a 10-year-old. Uh I put a voodoo curse on them and they have not been able to uh get out of it yet. And they were terribly injured. They have been for the past couple of seasons and that’s given players like Antonio Reeves who was drafted I think 47th overall an opportunity to play very that should sound very familiar to people who listen to this show. So why did New Orleans suddenly give up on him? Because they waved him entirely and the answer is they just flipped their entire front office. So Joe Dumar comes in and Dumar didn’t draft this guy and this happened I feel like this happened to Amari Bailey with the Hornets like wasn’t a and I may have the timing wrong on that but it’s like this happens a lot where new regime comes in I didn’t draft you I don’t want to play with you anymore I want to play with my own guys and so that’s what happens to Reef doesn’t mean he’s a bad player and now the Hornets will get an opportunity to see if they can they can turn him into something. Yeah. Um maybe like a Troy Daniels. Can we get another miracle after midnight? Daniel, does he fit that profile? So, I mentioned an interesting game log from Antonio Reeves. Also, an interesting cleaning the glass page. If you go to shooting accuracy, uh he’s in the fifth percentile shooting at the rim. Not good. He’s in the 91st percentile in the short mid-range. So, short mid-range, 91st percentile. I take that. How about the How about the 100th percentile? That’s pretty solid from non-corner threes. So, when it came to shooting non-corn corner threes, Antonio Reeves, according to Cleaning the Glass, was the best shooter in the NBA last year. Sick. This is what we’re talking about. POS, like usually that’s a guy even with how bad they might be defensively and even if they can’t do a lot of other things, just run him off of some screens and hope to God that the other team misses some buckets on the other end. That that’s a skill that’ll keep you in the league for a little while. Anthony Marorrow type, Troy Daniels type will just somehow someway will just keep you in the league for a little while. Okay. I I really have a lot of strangely have a lot of thought thoughts about this. Well, this is not your typical two-way guy. Like that’s the thing. People are kind of excited. And Damen Ba, we can, you know, salute. Maybe we can do the eulogy Damen Ba stuff. Yeah, there’s some interesting stuff there. But this is an interesting player to discuss. It is. And I think it has implications even beyond this season and even beyond Antonio Reeves. Just the idea of adding a player like Reeves. I want to talk about there’s a there’s a big deal here. I think there’s a big deal here that I want to get to in a second, but I also have to get to this very quickly. They don’t make many Antonios anymore in the NBA. I feel like Antonios were very prevalent. They were the Jalens of the 1990s. There were a lot of Antonios in the 1990s. We don’t make many Antonios anymore. I like that the Hornets getting back to taking Kentucky guys. That That’s a That’s a a Michael Jordan special. Michael Jordan Mitch Cupjack special. So getting back. We see you. Mitch still working. Yeah, Mitch is still working. You had something on Antonio’s I think. Uh Antonio Davis. Oh man. Love me some Davis. Part of the Davis brothers was an all-star I think with the Raptors. Uh Antonio Daniels, sorry got crossed up by AI, but Antonio Daniels is another one. Antonio’s bring them back. That’s what the Hornets are doing. So there’s a big there’s a big there is a thing that you should raise your eyebrow take seriously about this kind of signing that goes beyond the player and that’s what I want to talk about next. That’s a tease. That is a tease. Coming up next on the Lockdown Hornets podcast everywhere. Are we raising one eyebrow two? This might be a double eyebrow situation. This might be a double eyebrow situation. Do you see? Do you see? We see your eyebrows. And sometimes it’s the only thing I can see are your eyebrows. What’s coming up next? Hit it. Hit it. All right, what’s interesting a little bit more so the tease? It was a great one, Doug. Time to please it. What you got? When Charles Lee came in his first season, they tried to play Celtics basketball and they which is shoot a lot of threes, get up and down, play with pace, and it failed miserably because they didn’t have the three-point shooters. So, this off season, we’ve seen them stock up on Antonio Reeves and and and beyond level three-point shooters, both in respect to their three-point attempt rate, the amount that they actually decide to put up, and uh their effectiveness. Now, they haven’t done that at the center position. That’s still TBD, but uh they’ve certainly done it at the guard and the wing position. So, that’s important thing number one. But important thing number two is that the reason you need to pay attention to these types of signings are that with the new CBA, if you’re going to go out and make a big splash contractually in the next off seasonason or the next two off seasons, if you are preparing your team for that and particularly if you already have a player in say LaMelo Ball who makes a max contract and in Brandon Miller who will be due to sign an extension in a couple of seasons, Then you want to make sure that your roster is stocked to the brim, that you have maxed out all opportunities to bring in players that can come in and contribute for you in the way that you want to play your style of basketball. That’s what the Thunder are going to have to do now that they have three guys, their big three locked up for many years. But the contracts explode and the CBA will make team building extremely restrictive in respects to, oh, I want to go and trade for a guy who makes $12 million or I want to go and sign a player in free agency. No, no, no. You can’t do that anymore because the CBA rules prevent you from building your team that way. Now you’re going like the Thunder at some point are going to have to get big minutes from an AJ Mitchell and a Topic and some other guy that they get off the somebody else’s GLeague team and that’s under a two-way contract. You’re going to have to get contributions to be competitive. And so getting these two-way players is important. And and it’s not about Antonio Reeves doing that. It’s just about the mentality that this organization has now that says, “Hey, we got to make sure that we get our roster of two-way and fringe contractual guys, cost control rookies like Cion James, like Liam McNeely. We better knock that out of the park if we’re planning on making a big splash to trade for someone that makes 30 40 million plus to add alongside LaMelo Ball and Brandon Miller.” That’s why this is a big deal. Yeah. So depth, if you want to bring in somebody after an injury, they can fit that role. You know exactly what to do with them. It’s okay. We don’t need to find the maybe exact replacement for whoever’s injured. But now what they can do is they can at least shoot and we’ll just put them out on the perimeter, try to create space for everybody else. And you get the idea of why shooting is so valuable. So now the two-way contract for the Hornets, it’s KJ Simpson pretty officially it seems like, right? KJ Simpson going into this upcoming season. It’s actually uh now Antonio Reeves, the latest addition here, who got some real run last season in the NBA, his rookie season in the NBA. You also have Drew Peterson, who was with the Celtics, Charles Lee knows a little bit about having played in the GLeague. So, Drew Peterson, Antonio Reeves, KJ Simpson. What do you think about the two-way batch here, Doug? I love it. I mean, I think that’s why we, you know, maybe we’ll talk more about Ball if you want, but I mean, I think Damen Ball gets waved because KJ Simpson has a great summer. like he just sort of locked in like okay that’s a backup point guard now we can go out and find a wing like you know sort of a wing guard combo in Reeves that like Reeves can’t handle the ball like you’re not going to give him any kind of point guard responsibilities he’s just going to stand on the wing and be open and knock down three-point shots that’s something that Damen Ball was a little bit inconsistent with Ball had some other traits but a lot of those other traits overlapped with KJ Simpson so I think they’ve solved that I think a lot of people are going to look at this and go why didn’t they sign a big and I’m just telling you. I don’t I just don’t think they care. I don’t I don’t think they care about because I don’t I think they’re looking at this like and and there’s a sick satchel question in regards to this like what can they we should dig into it tomorrow but unless they sign you know two two more players but um how do you how do you sort of counter the fact that you don’t have a strong big rotation and I just think the Hornets are going to be looking at ways to do that as opposed to we got to go stock up on on another big right A and plus, man, the whole two-way contract, we got to go after a big. If there’s one that you like, but if there’s nobody better than Antonio Reeves, then just go take Reeves. If if they signed anybody, like take your pick. They signed anybody that is a big guy to a two-way contract that was left out to drive by the other team and then the Hornets pick them up, are we saying, “All right, now we’re good.” Know what? No. No. If they if they hand out a two-way contract to a 610 plus guy, nobody is saying, “Okay, all right. Now we’re good. I was worried about it, but now we’re going to be okay.” And I get the idea of wanting to provide some depth. Hey, taking a shot in the dark. Maybe it helps him, but no, let’s just go after Reeves because, you know, he’s a crazy elite shooter. So, that would be the point to go after him. You want to get to Damen Ba just real quickly? Uh, salute to Damen Ba. Okay. Gave gave gave gave everything he had. um was was a good uh player for Greensboro and filled some minutes for the Hornets and yeah just uh the thing about BA for me looking at a game log you know I love him the first two games he played actually came in on fire is too strong but contributed five of eight from the field six of seven from the field 16 points 14 points those are the first two games he plays last year Doug in February trying to just find any bodies to help us out we’re starting to get injured quite a bit but it’s a 14-point loss to Orlando, in fact, maybe even a little bit more than that. And then you have a 14-point loss to Denver. But this is when Damen starts to play. Um the beginning of his run with the Hornets is also it it coincides with the worst losing streak of all time by margin of defeat. So BA was playing a lot there. It’s not his fault. No, it’s not. It’s not his fault. It’s not your fault. It’s not Don’t you do to this to me, Sean. Don’t you do this to me. But yeah, it was bad. like he’s playing against Sacramento like 50, Golden State 40, you know, it it was it was a rough patch and uh did play in a win against Brooklyn. He he played in one victory. There was one victory he suited up for. So, um but also provided some nice moments and I I kind of like like him as a a guy, a player like trying and doing a whole bunch of different stuff, but the efficiency wasn’t good and and this is this is clearly the right decision in my opinion to go after Reeves instead of B. Well, I think that Jeff Peterson is teaching us here that we cannot we cannot be a they’re they’re going to shuffle around the roster a lot in search of that team that is going to take uh the the rest of this fan base back to the playoffs. So, the remaining fan base back to the playoffs. Uh so, just don’t get attached, you know, I think is the the lesson here. But B, yeah, Ball was was a serviceable guard in a lot of respects. And again, we’ll look back and say BA was that first one of the first signals that this new version of the front office was being more creative and looking for opportunities everywhere. And Antonio Reeves is part of that. An opportunity here where New Orleans shakes things up. They don’t want to play with Antonio Reeves anymore. The Hornets swoop in there and say, “Actually, we’ll we’ll look at Antonio Reeves. Doesn’t mean it’s a sure thing. Doesn’t mean Antonio Reeves will ever suit up for the varsity team, but we’re going to take a look.” And you know, I think that’s that’s a great sign for franchise health overall. Also, really quickly, Antonio Reeves, if he remains the same number that he was in New Orleans, if he didn’t take that number for another reason, he will be the number 12, uh, which would further extend the record for players with the number 12 jersey for the Charlotte Hornets. That would make it 17. Uh, two more than the number seven and the number nine at 15. Uh, and and I’m going to read the full list here because I think people want to know. Number 12’s in Charlotte Hornet history. 1990, Jerry Siking, uh, 94, Steve Henson, 95, Greg Sutton, 96, Kenny Anderson, 97,98, Vlatty Devot, Vlad, Cory Alexander, Kevin Berles, Shannon Brown, Tyrus Thomas, Gary Neil, Jorge Gutierrez, Hip Hip, Jorge, Trevian Graham, Dwight Howard in 2018, Kelly Ubé Jr., leaky black and then the recently released Joshi. I don’t know who wore it best. I really don’t. I think Vlatty probably. That’s who I would say. Oh yeah, we we’ve already decided number 12. It’s Vlad. We’re beyond number 12. We haven’t finished the list yet. We will in August. I promise. Maybe. And it was Vlady Dotty. All right. Coming up next on the Locked on Hornets podcast. Beast everywhere. Damian Ba has a ring and maybe even better than that, he does have a shirt. A summer league championship shirt. I want one. Apparently the fans want them. Media personalities all over. We all want a summer league championship shirt. Where can we get them? Well, you can’t. You can’t right now. We talk about it more coming up next. L. [Music] Who could forget about Antonio Mcdice? it, man. Give give it to him. I’m surprised that wasn’t the first place you went because didn’t didn’t he do a little time at your favorite team? I think No, that’s Antonio Davis. That and that was the first place. McDice was Denver, right? Yeah, McDice was Denver. Uh he was I believe he might have had like a twilight year on that Pistons04 championship team, but was was older at that point. But Antonio Mcdice, Alabama, shout to Antonio. He was awesome. Denver, Phoenix, back to Denver. Allstar year when he was 26 in 2000 2001, then New York, cup of coffee there, a cup of coffee back in Phoenix, then to Detroit for uh five season and then one of the championship teams. Yep. And then San Antonio for two years. Uh did he have a little stretch? Yeah. I mean, look, 96 to 2000, he had a little stretch. I I would say even more that just just from what I remember, Antonio Mcdice definitely had more. If you’re if you’re an allstar, then you’ve already graduated from Little Stretch, right? I think he made a third team allNBA. Oh, man. He made a third team. Yes, he did. Before he was an allstar, weirdly. Yes. Like a year that he did not make the All-Star. He wouldn’t make an all-star team for two more seasons. This is very odd. I don’t know why we’re doing an entire segment on Antonio McD. You know why? Because we’re almost in August. But he made an NBA third team in 989 with Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, John Stockton, and Akim Alawan. And this wasn’t one of those where like it was a center and they had to pick a center. He made third team allNBA as a forward with KG in 98. That’s crazy. Yeah, Antonio McD more than a little stretch. Maybe a big stretch is what Mcdy had. By the way, uh, one thing that I haven’t really talked about all that much, I I actually have a lot of takes on third team allNBA selections over the years and how they they’ve just been throwaways to some players over some actual players who really deserved it. And uh, I went down this rabbit hole because of all of the Reggie Miller overrated talk for a while and that really frustrated me because right outside this vote. He it was Steve Smith. It happened. Don’t It happened every single year. Sorry, it happened. We’re we’re we’re we’re hitting we’re hitting a nerve. We have It happens every year. I am glad that Glenn Rice and Anthony Mason and some of the Hornets got respect at least with some of those allNBA selections in the mid to late 90s. Uh I won a summer league championship t-shirt and everybody else does too. So my colleague Willie P, shout out to the voice of Charlotte FC, he tweeted this Doug. He said, “Dear Hornets fan shop, let us know when we can buy summer league championship shirts, please and thank you.” That was July 21st. So, everybody was like, “Yep, let’s roll with it.” I think Crown Club created their own. They They needed it so bad. They couldn’t wait. They just created their own summer league championship shirt. Yeah, baby. You You just got to make one yourself because they wanted it so bad. So, the Hornets fan shop actually quote tweeted Willie P’s tweet a couple days later and said, “Our team has been moving quickly to make the summer league champions t-shirt store.” Yeah, not very quickly. Stay tuned for updates. So, also Joe Oius, formerly of 999, the fan now of the Ovius and Jillio podcast, which you also should subscribe to on YouTube. They do great stuff for ACC Sports in the Triad. Joe here in town for the ACC kickoff event. He actually goes to the Hornets fan shop. It’s closed. Then he tries to go online and order it. Can’t do it. And then he’s like, “Wait, Hornets, we want it, baby. We’re trying to celebrate a championship. You need to go out and get a shirt because we don’t know if we’ll ever have a championship print with the Hornets logo on a shirt ever again. We just don’t know if that’s ever going to happen. So, make it available, baby. Like, you you could make some real money here just cynically.” Well, it’s even less than just make some money. It’s about understanding your fan base and and and clearly they don’t they do not understand how sick we are. They don’t understand how desperate we are for this team to win anything. And hopefully this experience uh finds its way up to the desk of Jeff Peterson and the Schlotkin. And then there’s some conversations about hey I think there is a fan base here. I think and you and I have talked about this a lot. We’ve been doing this show for a long time and we we didn’t start Locked on Hornets until after they made their last playoff series. I’ve been podcasting since 2013. So, we were doing it weekly during but not with Locked On. It was a Hive Talk Live or something when they went to the actual playoff series. So, we’ve been doing this for almost 10 years through a lot of losing. And we’ve always talked about how if this team ever decided to get serious about being competitive and and win something, anything that we felt like there was an underbelly, undergird of Hornets fandom that was just waiting to watch our show, listen to our podcast, consume our content, but they were waiting for this team to start to win anything. And I think that got proven out. Our numbers exploded as the Charlotte Hornets uh did their thing in summer league. If we didn’t have a young Hansen or some kind of international superstar to boost the numbers, then there just people that were sick and wanted to see winning basketball. So, I think the organization got caught flatfooted here because they don’t understand how desperate people are for this team to win anything. I I think we were I don’t think we were on YouTube yet, and if we were, we were in our infant stages. But I’ve always said, if the Hornets win, the fans will show up. Yes. They’ll show up constantly because all you had to do was be four games above 500 and the attendance was way up at the Spectrum Center in LaMelo’s second season when he was an all-star. So, you gave them an all-star in the form of Hope with this young, dazzling, fun type of player and they were four games above 500. people started to go to the Spectrum Center and I I that I I don’t think we were on YouTube so I don’t think we saw a monster number spike there but I do remember having a lot better interaction with people and we’ve become more established over the last couple of years anyway. Yeah man, it summer league championship Canipple winning summer league MVP. Uh they won 19 games last year Doug. They won 19 and yet still people are so excited about what has happened this off season. All you need is just a little shot of hope that seems real for Hornets fans to flock to their favorite podcast and flock to the Hornets fan shop to get a summer league championship t-shirt. That’s all you need to do. The hope is the sickness. And uh you mentioned Spectrum Center, which reminded me that I have a new conspiracy theory that the reason Jeff Peterson is signing all of these players, they had to they had to wave Damen Ba because you cannot have more than 21 players heading into training camp. Like you just couldn’t do it. They had to wave B. But I have a conspiracy theory as to why they keep bringing all these players on. It’s because the Spectrum Center renovations are behind and they need a little extra help and they’re just hiring two-way players to put on hard hats and go in and lift beams and and just do work to put the Spectrum Center back together. And then that conspiracy theory was uh Fuel was put on that fire because I think they released some kind of social media thing and Conanipa was in the Spectrum Center with a hard hat on and I was like, “Ah, yeah, I knew it.” Seion, why do you have a tool belt on? What are you doing, Seion? Everything all right? Oh, are you ser are you really serious about Hornets’s DNA and hard work? Are you really are you going to put in the full effort? If it would feel like like a Disney sports movie, it’s like, you know, uh, remember the Titans when he took them all to Gettysburg? It’s like Gettysburg is Spectrum Center and, you know, bring your lunch bail. Uh, breaks at 12:30 and it’s only 15 minutes. A lot of fans lost their souls here, folks. You need to respect that. You know how much losing they’ve seen here? It’s been It’s been hell. And tears fall from everybody’s faces. Yeah, they mean it when they mean when they say brick by brick. All right. Yeah, brick by brick. I can get by with that mantra. No, pick up a damn brick. Okay. No, I mean that’s not a metaphor. I need you to take that brick and put it over there and all these other bricks too. Brick by brick and actually, you know, make sure you spread the mortar evenly. When we do it, actually, we need you to build this building. I I Well, I just Let me say last thing. I love it. fans continue uh to put pressure on this team that players LaMelo Ball, Miles Bridges, all the players that are making a lot of money. Continue to put pressure on this team to win. Let Jeff Peterson, let the let the or know. Seriously, I’m serious. Like, send an email. Say, “Hey, we love Summer League. We love to see the winning.” Do it again. Put pressure, particularly season ticket holders, if you’re paying your hard-earned dollars, let them know like enough is enough. 10 years is enough to be out of the playoffs. Let’s get serious. That’s the only way these things move. I’m I’m grassroots action. That’s what I’m talking about here, folks. I think there are only two Antonios that have played in the NBA that we haven’t named. I think we will have named all of them when we name Antonio Blakey and Antonio Harvey. We named all the other ones. Actually, there’s only been six by my count. Davis, Daniels, Harvey, Mcdise, Reeves, Blakey, one. Didn’t they all play in like the mid to late 90s and early 2000s? I just feel like they don’t make a lot of um Blake knee was recent. Uh actually half um have been recent. So you’re thinking but but the other Antonios that you’re thinking of, they were all like good uh all-star appearances between the power forwards and Davis and Mcdice and Antonio Daniels played in the NBA for a while in San Antonio. Funny how multiple Antonios ended up in San Antonio. Anyways, we can be done with that. That’ll do it for Lockdown Hornets. Thanks for making us your first listen. Great show. Yeah, you know, go check us out. Anywhere you get your pods, this is the one to go check out. Doug Branson, every hornetsboxcore.com. Also, Locked on NBA where he can share some of this information that they can use on the big boy show. Matt Moore Hayes, they are hosting lock-on NBA alongside Doug as well. And I’m Walker Mail. Listen to me. WFNZ every weekday from 12 to 300 PM. Have a great rest of your day. We’ll be back with you tomorrow. Give me t-shirt or give me death. [Music]

On today’s episode, we dive into the Charlotte Hornets’ latest move, signing guard Antonio Reeves to a two-way contract. Reeves isn’t a typical two-way player; the former Pelicans second-round pick is an elite shooter who ranked in the 100th percentile on non-corner threes last season. We’ll discuss how his specific skillset fits into the roster and what his advanced stats say about his potential impact.

The signing also provides a clear window into the front office’s broader strategy. We explain how adding sharpshooters like Reeves is essential for Charles Lee to implement his desired offensive system, and why the new, more restrictive CBA makes finding cost-controlled talent on two-way deals more critical than ever. This is how competitive teams will have to build their depth around stars like LaMelo Ball and Brandon Miller in the coming years.

Finally, we address the growing buzz around the team’s Summer League Championship… or rather, the lack of t-shirts celebrating it. There’s a high demand from a fan base desperate to celebrate any form of winning, yet the organization has been slow to respond. We discuss why this is about more than just merchandise; it’s about understanding the pulse of a fan base that is ready and waiting to support a winner.

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Get Doug’s gamenotes, special articles and a podcast on Hornets history at the Every Hornets Boxscore substack: everyhornetsboxscore.com

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Top 35 Hornets Nicknames of All-Time According to Doug Branson: https://hornets.substack.com/p/the-top-35-nicknames-in-hornets-franchise

Top 35 Hornets of All-Time According to Walker Mehl: https://hornets.substack.com/p/the-top-35-players-in-hornets-history

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