Hornets REEL ACCESS Draft Reveals | Was Kon Knueppel THE GUY? | Hornets Coach OUT | LaMelo Shows Up

Hornets REEL ACCESS Draft Reveals | Was Kon Knueppel THE GUY? | Hornets Coach OUT | LaMelo Shows Up

The Hornets revealed their latest Real Access episode, laying the foundation. What were some of our takes here on Locked on Hornets? We’ll tell you in just a moment. Plus, Doug is back, baby. The team, we’re back together. All coming up today. LO, you are Locked on Hornets, your daily Charlotte Hornets podcast, part of the Locked On Network. your team every day. In a minute cuz we live. It’s Locked on Hornets, part of the Locked On podcast network. It’s your team every day. Thanks for making us your first listen, and I mean us this time. I really mean it. Thanks for making us your first time uh your first listen every single day. We appreciate you hopping on the Lockdown Podcast Network. And uh you can subscribe to us anywhere you get your pods. YouTube, we mean it when we say anywhere you get your pods. There’s Doug Branson, the US part of all of this. Every hornetsboxcore.com also host Locked on NBA. Doug, how’s it feel to be back? Did you go find any hellbender salamanders? Uh no, did not get any salamanders. Uh it was a great trip, a good recharge. Happy to be back and talking about Hornets basketball. Um let’s do who wore it best. That’s what I’m excited about. We I was thinking we’re wearing it best right now. I swear I swear we don’t coordinate. We don’t talk about this. I spent a week away and yet I come back first day, you and I are in the same color palette again. Yeah, we are in the same color palette again. It does happen. I think we wore pink uh a couple of times in a row because I guess on those days we wore a pink word to mean girls. I’m Walker Mail. Listen to me um on WFNZ every weekday. Weston Walker every weekday again 12 to 3 p.m. Sports Radio 927 FM. All right, we got Real Access to talk about. Uh, the Hornets revealed this fir I guess it’s the first episode of the off seasonason. It’s it’s almost an ongoing series. I’m not sure when there’s a new season when the first season ends and the second season begins. Was this the launch of season two? Laying the Hornets episode two of Real Access laying the foundation. I think that’s in a world where Khan Canipple is the fourth overall pick and you draft a caulk briner. Um, that was the laying of the foundation episode. It more I I was wondering whether they would focus a little more on free agency too or if it would just strictly be draft. How much of it would just strictly be focused on Khan Canipple? And it was a draft episode. We got to see Khan Canipple, Cochr Brener, Seion James, Liam McNeely all drafted. We got to see the pre-draft process as well. We got to see the phone call. Shout out to Steve Clifford. I’ll send it to you, Doug. What were some of your thoughts before we really start to digest this thing in front of the listeners here on YouTube? Uh, listen, I thought it was a great sales job. It was really polished. It was in wide wide, wide screen. Uh, I, you know, the music was great. I mean, look, this was a this was a package that they’re putting together trying to sell fans on the idea uh that the people that have their hands on the steering wheel know what they’re doing. And and I think if you listen to this show a lot, I you and I think you would take away from this show that we think that they do generally have a good idea of what they’re doing. They have a plan. They’re trying to execute it. It may not be going as quickly as some people would like, but I think that’s part of the sales job here is that they are I mean, even in the description, it says there’s no skipping steps. We’re continuing to lay the foundation, but I love that they did work in there that like there will come a day soon where they’re going to make that big move. And I think it’s I think it was very interesting that you had that little nugget. I think so close to the top because I think they are hearing whether it be from season ticket holders or they’re watching media. They are hearing the thing of like this team has not won in a very long time. When are they going to win? It it came across very online when and not only you said they found a way to work it in. You mentioned they mentioned it at the top. No, no, not only did they put it in there at the top of the episode, they put it in the trailer the first minute. They they put that quote from Jeff Peterson. In fact, they put that quote in the trailer. I was able to talk about it in my last solo episode. I said Jeff Peterson talks poker. He discusses when it’s time to push all of the chips in. Not now. Not now. Building great things. It does take time, which you could roll your eyes a lot here. Thus, the do something mantra that we’ve had surrounding us for the podcast really entire history. But he he’s not wrong with this regime. It is Jeff Peterson’s second draft. We do really like what Jeff Peterson was able to accomplish with this draft. But he is acknowledging he is incredibly online or ownership is with Terrence Oglesby’s report about Schlotkin the Schlotkin not necessarily being okay with the losing as much anymore. They’re ready to ramp it up. It it feels like that with the messaging coming across at the very beginning of this Real Access episode. Yeah, they put it in the trailer. They wanted you to know this is how we’re starting things off. Yeah. The problem with the speed of things and like laying the foundation, of course, all of it sounds great, but it’s like it’s like you’ve been living under a bad landlord and the pipes have been leaking, the house is is falling apart, you know, the wallpaper is coming down. There’s just holes everywhere. And then all of a sudden, someone else comes along and takes over the property and says, “Look, you’ve got to move out for a little while. You got to go. I don’t I don’t know where you’re going to live, but you got to move out for a little while. And and we’re going to build you a beautiful new mansion. You get a mansion, but I don’t know how long it’s going to take. And so you’re like, “Yes, but I don’t have anywhere to live. I like I I didn’t like where I lived before. It was not very good, but how long is this project going to take? I need somewhere to live.” And so, you know, I think that’s where people are. But I thought this was a good sales job. Um I don’t even need a mansion right away. I’ll take a nice upgraded ranch style home for fair market price. I’ll take that. Upgraded for sure. Renault. Uhhuh. Uh but just go to All the stuff comes from Lowe’s. I don’t need like luxury. Just right. Go home. Just give me the sink that I saw in the ad. I’m fine with that. You know, Zack Low hates these videos, by the way. He hates these types of videos. I know you love Zack Low. He’s very He He I think he mentioned it on his show. He was talking about the Phoenix Suns version of this, but these types of videos where teams release behindthescenes looks at their draft process, but it’s really not behind the scenes. They don’t let you in. It’s tailored. It’s manufactured. Everything’s blurred. You really don’t learn anything. I will just say, and I don’t know if you agree with this or not, the Hornets, it’s definitely that there’s a lot of that. But I thought whether it’s hearing Liam McNeel’s voice when he was doing his team interview or it was the general manager or president of basketball operations, whatever you want to call, Jeff Peterson. Yeah, it was EVP and then there was the promotion, right? Whatever. Yeah. But having him say we are going to put all of our chips in into the middle of the table at some point. Like those there were just a few more little nuggets that I thought made this one a little bit more substantial than the types of videos that Zacklo hates. Oh. and the very specific type that they released draft time last year. That was my biggest complaint and the fact that you bring it up allows me to discuss my biggest takeaway is that it was very it I I shouldn’t say it was very different because it was similar in that we got to learn a lot about the first round pick. I did like last year’s Real Access episode for us being introduced to Tan Salon. We got to learn a lot more about him in that I guess 20 minute snippet with his personality with them working him out. I thought that was cool. Same thing with Khan. Uh the fact that you got the workout, I took real value from that. I think that’s something the fans are hungry for and you gave it to them. That was really cool. And we got some interesting comments. It did feel like Charles Lee and Jeff Peterson had their guy. I I think in all of this, if you if if you apply One second because I know where you’re going and you’re right, but just hold on one second. All right. If if you apply what everybody starts to understand as they put the puzzle pieces together and what the puzzle pieces together they’re putting is VJ Edgecomb going to Philly. So once you start to realize that VJ Edgecomb is going to go to Philadelphia and Ace Bailey isn’t going to go to Philadelphia and now I have to decide between Ace and Khan Canipple. It felt like after Khan Canipple worked out for the Hornets and it was his first one. He revealed that by the way uh might have been his only one but it was definitely his wor his first one. Um once they had that all figured out then it felt like they were foreshadowing Khan. So now go ahead with your I I’m not having their guy spiel here. Well I think that if VJ Edgecom was available they would have taken VJ Edgecom. I don’t watch this video and come away with it thinking, “Oh, no, they had zeroed in on Khan and they would have taken Khan.” regard I and I still believe that they were interested in moving down once VJ was off the board. They were interested in moving down for Khan Canipple, but then got nervous because they liked Khan so much in that workout that they were like, “We can’t move down and risk losing this guy.” Because I I thought the the key word in this was Jeff Peterson saying he felt relieved after Khan’s workout. And then I think he then like caught himself and then said he said something to the effect of like the the whatever word that you would use to say no, he was our guy. We like concentrated on him or whatever. But I thought he felt relieved was interesting because I think they went into that workout going VJ’s probably off the board. Like what are we going to do here? And then Khan comes in and does that workout and they’re like, “Okay, yeah.” Like whatever happens, either we take Khan at four, we try to work something out. We’ve got a guy. We’ve got a guy. That’s what I’m think. The takeaway for me is not that they got their guy the absolutely exactly the player that they wanted, but they got a guy that made sense to what they were trying to build as a program. No, 100. Yeah. And maybe so I guess the the only fine-tuning I would do that to articulate how I feel about it is they got their guy once they were done with the workout and they knew VJ Edgecom wasn’t going to be there and then it did feel like Khan was their guy and that that’s when we got almost the assurance that he was going to be the selection and the reports were out there. This was a poorly kept secret that the Hornets really loved Khan and then after the reports were all out there. We had that for what a few weeks. Then we started to see a couple reports. Well, hey, we don’t know if this is all smoke. Now, that that’s that’s that is the perfect example of, ooh, we may have tipped our hand just a little bit. Let’s put out some smoke reports. Let’s Let’s do that real quickly. And we didn’t buy it. As soon as that stuff came out, I was like, nah, man. No way in hell. You guys love him. You love him. K S I N G sitting in a tree. Sitting in a tree. Khan and the Hornets, baby. Yeah. Uh, no doubt. And that’s what it felt like. All right. I I do I talked about having the main takeaway and then I never So many more thoughts. I love this type of stuff. Let’s do it. All right. Coming up next on the Lockown Hornets podcast. More real thoughts on real access coming up in just a moment. LaMelo also makes an appearance in this episode. And the Hornets, they lose a coach. We’ll get Doug’s thoughts on Chris Jen leaving the Hornets for the New York Knicks. That’s all still to come. Lanch, this episode is brought to you by Game Time. Game time. 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I’m sure we could go dig that up if we cared enough to go in the archives and have my thoughts a year ago. But when they went to Jeff Peterson and Jeff went down the list of all of the opportunities that could present themselves on draft night, he gave you an evaluation of every single player that was in consideration at sixth overall. That’s where I’m calling. Okay, buddy. Like this is where you’re not having these conversations the way you’re having them in front of the camera in the draft room. That’s where it feels uh put on. That’s where it does feel tailored for uh something to watch. That’s what that’s when it feels tailored to me. And I I’m I’m not exactly sure you feel that way about Donovan Klingan. You didn’t take him, but I I I I’m calling cap on you feeling that way about Donovan Klingan, Mr. Jeff Peterson. Uh same stuff with some of the other prospects that were also available. And you hear things, right? Like I I do think the Hornets really wanted Stfan Castle pretty badly last year. They they wanted Stfan. So it it but and I’m not even blaming Jeff for this. I’m not blaming Jeff for saying uh for or for not saying, “Well, we really wanted Stfan, but oh well, I guess we’ll settle for Tan Salon in a week draft.” No, you can’t say that. I would be criticizing you if you did. So, I’m not blaming him for it. It’s just I understand where Zach is coming from. I had those types of complaints a lot more for last year’s draft episode than I did this year’s. Oh, yeah. For sure. And I thought we got a lot of good nuggets. You had Jeff Peterson. Uh well, you had the what I mentioned before, you get the behind thescenes look at the job interview. Now, I don’t know how interesting that is to people because that’s what these essentially are job interviews, whether they’re workouts or meetings. Uh but you did hear um you did hear some of those in in this video. And then you had Jeff Peterson at one of the workouts going up to Khan Canipple and essentially being like, “Hey, are you taken care of? Do you need anything? What’s going on?” And I don’t know if Mitch Cupch did that or not. I don’t know if Rich Cho did that or not because they didn’t do these types of videos, but I do know that Jeff Peterson seems like the kind of guy you would like to play for, be in an organization with. Like if if Jeff Peterson is the guy that you’re meeting first up in a workout, I mean, you’re going to get, you know, Charles Lee, who is ultra energy, huge smile, big positivity, seems like the kind of guy you’d want to work with, too. But if Jeff Peterson’s the guy that you’re meeting first, and you’re going, “Hey, I’m going to judge the first impression of the organization based on my meeting with this guy.” That’s a pretty positive thing that he’s putting out there and I think that’s great for the Hornets in terms of acquiring talent in the future. Well, and they’re all there, you know. I mean, we we saw the Schlotkin in the background of the workout with Khan. We saw him in the draft room. We when we watch Panthers blueprint and we see Panthers owner David Ter everywhere. Not only is he in the draft room, which is a lot bigger just because NFL staffs are a lot bigger, but Ter is right next so if it’s if if I’m not mistaken, it’s Dan Morgan, the GM of the Panthers, and then next to him on one side is David Ter. And then after David Ter, it’s Dave Canales, which is funny just because you would think maybe it’s Dave Canales, the head coach, right next to Dan Morgan, the GM, but no, it’s the owner of the franchise. And so here is the Schlotkin in the workouts and also in the draft room. Thoughts on ownership being as present as they were, or is that just kind of standard? When guys buy teams, it’s cuz they like sports or want to see what their product’s all about and they’re going to be in on the behindthescenes access stuff. Hey man, if I paid that much money, yeah, yeah, you bet your bippy I would be in that room. Now, how much are they how much are they influencing the decision-making? You know, that’s always the question. It’s not if they’re in the room or not. I think they were across the table and they to me what we saw in this video. Now, who knows what was actually going on? But what what they would like us to know or like us to believe is that they played a an advisory role, an alignment role, a hey, we’re just making sure that everyone is on the same page, which is what you would want your top of the top of the CEO to be involved in. You would want to make sure that everyone is marching in the same direction. That’s leadership. you know that you don’t want them getting into the minutia and overmanaging and saying well you know I just I did this research on this guy and I think we should really look at this guy you know that’s I don’t know that’s where you get into the the Jerry Jonesification of things and you go okay well this might be not what we want so I didn’t see any of that I didn’t hear any of that I’ve never really been too worried about that yeah and you wouldn’t see anything or hear anything about that via the episode and to to your point even more though like outside of the frame of the episode, we don’t hear or see any of that in real time, the the one link you could possibly make is the Duke connection and and you know, fair when you when you draft Khan and you draft and Rick Schnall is in love with Duke and remember when Jake Fischer talked about who the next GM of the Hornets was going to be, he talked about the Duke connection and how we were like, “All right, is it Traan Langden? Oh my god, is Elton Brand? Please don’t be Danny Ferry.” the the whole Duke stuff that that that seems to have a real place within the Hornets or but but we like the picks for what they were. We like they have a lot of good basketball players, but it’s not like, you know, Yeah. I don’t know. It’s not San Diego State or something. I don’t know if they’re good at college basketball. It’s not like they and it’s not like they’re bringing back Mason Plumbley again. So, like it’s it’s not I think it’s a little overblown. Oh, wait. They did. Oh, man. Yeah. Uh, one one other thing the before we move on to this Chris Chris Jen thing. Um, LaMelo shows up. That’s cool. He was showing love. I They made a point. I think it was I think it was uh Charles who was saying, “Hey man, you showing up matters.” That’s a beautiful thing. That’s all positivity. That’s all love. And then my final thing is the Clifford, Steve Clifford, former twice former head coach of the Charlotte Hornets. now in an advisory senior advisory role uh in his draft dungeon looking at tape all day. They give him the phone. They give him the opportunity to call in the pick, which is beautiful if you remember what Steve Clifford said prior to taking on this role. He he seemed vulnerable. He seemed nervous about a career change this late in his life. And it’s so real and it’s so human and it’s so beautiful. And then to see this moment where he gets to call in the pick. It’s like, “Hey man, you did you did work and now you get this this milestone, this moment.” And what did what were the Do you remember the exact words? He said, “Your legacy lives on.” I I I’ll try to get the exact words. Something. Yes, I think you’re right. I think you’re right because I thought that was interesting as well. But yes, I think that’s correct. Which again, if you’ve just if you’re a sicko and you’ve been hanging on for a long time through both of the Steve Clifford administrations, how many times did we really um feel bad for this man who we knew was a good coach who had co who had been assistant coaches to great coaches who had been an assistant coach with great players. He knew what superstars looked like. He knew what Dwight Howard looked like. He knew what Tracy McGrady looked like. He knew what you needed to win basketball games and he was cursed with being a part of this Hornets Bobcats organization that refused uh to go out and find that type of player or draft that kind of player even when he seemingly loved Donovan Mitchell or a particular they would always go in another direction. So I just love this like full circle moment which is like your legacy lives on and we’re probably taking the guy that you actually wanted us to take. Sorry you’re not head coach anymore, but we’re finally doing the thing that they should have done years ago. Let’s listen to you. All right, I I got I got three things here. I like to list things. I noticed that about myself. I like to list the points that I have. Um one list radio in in T rank radio is just phenomenal. It’s in my blood. Um number one in terms of takes or reputations that either age like milk or wine. I think Steve Clifford his age is like wine. I think in the moment you’re not going to like it as much as you’re going to like it when you look back on it in five years, especially with all of the draft opinions. He was in on Brandon Miller, he was in on Donovan Mitchell, and he’s in on Ton. That that’s remain to be seen. But you’re allowed misses. Nobody’s perfect, but that’s I think you like Deon Booker, too, which you know, I have my feelings about Deon Booker, but he’s obviously a star in this league. Yeah, sure. And that was the Frank Kaminsky draft, so clearly, you know, pretty good there. Um, the second thing is when Steve Clifford it, you mentioned he was vulnerable not knowing what his role was going to be. He really didn’t have an answer. You’re totally right about that and and Steve took a lot of questions the moment that it was announced that he was going to step down at the end of the year. So, we answered questions twice about his stepping down. I think it was when it happened with like a month and a half to go in the season, something like that, and then it was at the end of the season. One thing he did say though was that he was really interested in the draft. He said that like three to a handful of times. He was all in on this and he was really excited about it. So happy for him. The third thing is Doug. I think those guys listen to Steve when it comes to the draft. I I think he’s I think he has some weight that he can throw around and I think he does so in a way that is accepted by Jeff Peterson and company. And honestly, if those are your draft opinions in the past and and and the Donovan Mitchell stuff, just for clarity sake, that’s real. That is confirmed. Steve Steve Clifford wanted Donovan Mitchell in that draft. It’s not like rumors or anything. That’s real. Let him throw his weight around a little bit. That’s not a That’s not a Steve Clifford weight joke. That’s just like Sorry. No, I’m sorry, Steve. Well, I’m just saying that’s not what that was. Hey, let Steve throw his weight around because he knows what he’s talking about and no one would listen. He I think the most interesting things that he would say when he was in front of the media and as a coach is like what it takes to become a great player. It takes getting better every day. In fact, if you go back and listen to interviews that he had while he was head coach, before Jeff Peterson got here, before Charles Lee, before the Schlotkin, he was saying a lot of things and and in his first st as head coach, setting up a lot of things that sound a lot like Hornets’s DNA. He never said the words Hornets’s DNA, but he said all of those all of those things that really make up what Peterson and Charles Lee and the Schlotkin have determined what Hornets’s DNA is. And he, you know, he convinced Kimell Walker, hey, you can be a certain type of player if you don’t change or if you if we do these couple of things, you can be a great player. And so he just understands like what it takes to get to that next level. And so that to me is so important in identifying talent. And now he’s finally in a position with people that are prepared to listen to him. I I’ve always loved that quote in the Zacklo article on Kima. Just speaking on Zack Low again, but it was on Kima. It was a real ESPN national storyline when he was like the hottest player in the league for two weeks or whatever, going for 50 and whatnot, going for 60 in that Philly game. Uh the the quote from Clifford when when Kimela Walker walked into his office and said, “I just can’t do it. I can’t change my form anymore. It’s going terribly. I’m just going to go back to the old way.” And Steve said, “Okay, that’s fine. And you’ll never be an all-star point guard, but you can do that if you want.” A great dad, by the way. Great dad move. I’ll just tell you that right now. You want to Oh, you want to you want to color on that wall? That’s fine. I mean, I don’t you know, if you don’t love popsicles later, you don’t want a popsicle, that’s Look, that’s fine. Totally fine. No, color all day long. I’ll eat the popsicles. It’s I I love them. I love them. All right, coming up next on the Lockdown Hornets podcast. You put it on them. These everywhere. is is becoming older realizing that good parenting is basically gaslighting. Is that No, it’s it’s bargaining. I always compare it to you’re it’s the negotiator and the person is in the bank with the bomb strapped to their chest and you dad daddying or parenting in general is I’ll do it is hostage negotiation. Okay, let’s all think clearly. I’ll do it dad. Give me the popsicle. Let’s just calm down. Dad lighting. It’s a real thing. Try it out there, fathers. One more segment to go. The Hornets, they did lose their top assistant. If if even if he wasn’t their top assistant, he’s about to be the top assistant with New York. What does that mean? We’ll talk about it coming up next. LH touched on it a little bit while you were gone, Doug, but the news it became official. Chris Jen, the assistant coach for the Hornets and the head coach for the Hornets summer league title team. Yeah, Chris Jen, who showed a lot of good things as a head coach, I thought was awesome in front of the camera. Uh I I thought there was some sets that were a that were like you could see on the sideline the players respected him. Uh the sideline out of bounds plays, I think you could see some nice drops there from Chris. And he is gone now after having worked with Mike Brown um a couple of stints in Cleveland if I’m not mistaken. and I know or one once in Cleveland. I went through all of this um a couple of episodes ago, but Chris Jen is now going to be the lead assistant alongside Mike Brown up in New York as coach Brown now takes that job. Your thoughts on Chris Jen always in our hearts as being the head coach of our lone summer league title team. Your thoughts on him being gone? Yeah, listen, this is just what happens when you win championships, folks. Uh you lose uh top assistants. happened to the Patriots so many times during their dynasty run in the NFL is going to happen to the what happened to the Celtics. In fact, the Hornets are beneficiaries of of that kind of thing. They steal Charles Lee away and uh the Celtics lose him and then they’re they’re going to lose some ball games now without Charles Lee. Um so this this happens um you lose assistant coaches and you pay $50 for t-shirts, folks. That’s what happens when you win championships. That’s them’s the brakes. hold me back. I I went on my rant. I I’ve only made I’ve only made $50 t-shirt jokes 150 times since I had My My only take is like, what did you expect? This team is owned by hedge fund managers. Like, of course, they are going to squeeze every penny out of you once they win. Just get ready. Just loosen your wallets. You’re just You You need to have a talk with your wallet right now because if the Hornets start winning, they’re gonna hammer you. I I I said this to the listeners there on my solo rant. I was like I I’ll be naive. I guess that’s what I was. I’ll be that. I I went in the not thinking it was I can’t do the rant again. I can’t. And you think the Schlotkin is socialist. No, this is highly capital. It might be post capitalism. Yeah, it was highly capitalist is is correct. Saturated as I said in capitalism is the Charlotte Hornets. Uh the Schlotkin. Anyways, back to Chris Jen leaving us. Um, yeah. Look, we we won’t have to pay $50 for t-shirts anymore because of Chris J’s winning. I I hope that we have that opportunity for Charles Lee’s winning, but is it real? Because in the NFL, when you lose an offensive or defensive coordinator, you feel that loss like th those are real losses. You get scared. Fan bases, intelligent fan bases, they fear losing a great play caller offensively or defensively because they matter so much. What do you think the effect is of losing a respected enough guy like Chris Jent on a basketball staff as it compared to a football staff? It’s weird, man. I feel like off I feel like coaching staffs are moving in the NBA are moving in that direction of having an offensive coordinator and a defensive coordinator. They’re kind of starting to adopt that language a little bit. In fact, people are talking about Chris J as associate head coach moving to the Knicks to be Mike Brown’s offensive coordinator. I think it’s important when you have a head coach that is defensively minded that you find somebody that can be a little bit of an offensive voice or vice versa if you have an offensively minded coach. So Charles Lee little bit of a question mark to me. I mean I think it’s easy to go hey he’s a defense coach but I I think there’s still a little bit of a question mark about how this is all going to shake out. I think it matters more if Chris Jent were like one v one with a particular developing player. I think that’s where it can hurt you most if like uh Ton or Brandon like really loved Chris Gent and it’s like all right you’ve got to like fi refine that voice on the staff get that guy a new coach. So I don’t know necessarily if Christian J was one v one with one of these players. Um so that’s where it could hurt but I think offensively the Hornets are going to be dominated by LaMelo’s creativity. I think if this was going to hurt a team more, it would be a team that was a system team like, for example, the Indiana Pacers. That’s not the Hornets. The Hornets are going to play more Jazz than some of these other teams because you’ve got LaMelo Ball at point guard. So, I would not be as concerned with losing Chris Gent. My my curiosity is do they you know I saw Kimell Walker in a practice uniform in that video uh the real access video going one v one with Khan Canibipple beating Keniple one v one making Khan Caniple mad. Um is Kimell Walker ready to move in from like player enhancement coach? Are they ready for Kimble Walker to move to a more like official assistant coach role? Um that could be interesting. And and then where does this put Long Staff who has been also rumored uh to be looking at or to be considered for other jobs and Lamar Sker who I think we initially thought was sort of the number two guy Skeer. Um, by the way, yeah, not only that, but here, so we have Chris Jet in the news for summer league title moving on to the Knicks. Here you mentioned long staff being highly thought of. And now there’s a clip from Greensboro Swarm head coach DJ Baker talking about the importance of players knowing how to set screens properly and understanding screening angles and and it took off in basketball Twitter. It took off with basketball nerd Twitter. But just we have I think the point I’m bringing up is do we have respect? A little resca Franklin singing. Do I hear that beautiful sweet voice? I it want you want to be desired. And also look Chris Jet had the full Hornets experience, Hornets DNA experience. And I think the good one of the benefits to having these coaches go and take these positions is that they will be they will evangelize your organization. The Hornets have a job to do as an organization, which is to repair the reputation of this franchise to to convince other organizations to convince players that this isn’t the same Hornets. When you have Chris Jen in New York, there might be a guy towards the end of next season who’s going to be looking for a new place to play and you know, maybe the Hornets go and talk to him and then he goes and talks to Chris Jen says, “Hey Chris, I know you were with the Hornets organization. What’s going on over there?” I think Chris Jen’s probably going to say they God, they know what they’re doing. Like if you’re looking for a place to play, that wouldn’t be a bad thing. And so all of this matters. It all matters. Yeah. All right, that’ll do it for Locked On Hornets. Thanks for making us your first listen. We’re free. We’re available anywhere you get your pods. That includes YouTube. I want to get to 10K. I just want to see five digits. Help us out, man. Subscribe to our YouTube page so we can get to 10,000 subscribers. Like, do all the stuff your favorite YouTuber tells you to do, all that other stuff. But really, really subscribe. Doug Branson, every hornetsbox.com. Also, Locked on NBA. Subscribe to both of those outlets as well. I’m Walker Mail. Listen to me. WFNZ every weekday from 12 to 300 p.m. We’re back. And it’s still only 3 days a week, but at least both of us, we’re back. We try to finish Who Wore It Best. I don’t know if we’re going to, but it it feels like this is the off season where that might get done. Anyways, we’ll uh keep keep in touch, folks, and stick with us and and we’ll finish who wore it best and give you more Hornets content. And make a YouTube account and subscribe. Make another YouTube account. Make seven YouTube accounts. Do all of that. Listen to Doug. Hey,

The Hornets’ newest Real Access episode, Laying the Foundation, gives us a polished but revealing look at the team’s draft process — and we’ve got plenty of thoughts. From Kon Knueppel’s impressive workout that seemed to lock him in as the pick, to the front office’s clear messaging about patience and “no skipping steps,” the episode offered both salesmanship and substance. We break down the key nuggets, including Jeff Peterson’s poker analogy about pushing all the chips in when the time is right, and the subtle hints about how the decision-making unfolded once VJ Edgecombe was off the board.

LaMelo Ball’s offseason appearance didn’t go unnoticed, and we discuss why showing up matters — especially for young draft picks like Knueppel, Sion James, and Liam McNeeley. We also touch on the full-circle moment for Steve Clifford, who got the honor of calling in the pick in his new advisory role, and how his draft instincts have aged well over time.

But it’s not all goodbyes and good vibes — the Hornets are losing Chris Jent to the Knicks, and we evaluate how much that impacts Charlotte’s bench. From potential replacements (hello, Kemba?) to the evolving NBA trend of offensive and defensive coordinators, we cover the ripple effects. This episode has it all: draft drama, offseason leadership, and a glimpse into the Hornets’ future plans.

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