Hornets DENIED by Toronto | Charlotte ROBBED by Officials?? | Are the Hornets SNEAK TANKING??
Coming up today on the Locked on Hornets podcast. The Raptors, they beat the Bugs. They’re too big, long, athletic. There is a two-minute report, though. I I don’t know if it’s going to change anything, but there is a two-minute report. Trey man is injured. He’s down. His stats are down. And people are asking, is the sneak tank on for the Charlotte Hornets? That’s all today. Locked on Hornets. You are Locked on Hornets, your daily Charlotte Hornets podcast. Part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. In a minute, cuz we live. [Music] It’s Locked on Hornets, part of the Locked On Network. It’s your team every day. Thanks for making us your first listen. We’re free. We’re available anywhere you get your pods. And that includes YouTube. You might might want to check us out because we are, after all, the number one sports podcast network. And you guys helped us get there. So, we appreciate you making us your first listen and continue to do so. Subscribe, like, rate us on YouTube, all of your favorite locked on shows, locked on fantasy basketball with Josh Lloyd, locked on NBA. It’s a lot of locked on stuff out there. Make sure you’re listening to this one though. And also make sure you’re checking out Doug Doug Branson his substack every hornetsboxcourt.com. Also Yahoo Sports Daily with Jason Fitz and Caroline Fitton. He’s going to be taking off Tuesdays I think this for the foreseeable future. I don’t know how temporary it is, but I’ll be going solo. Me Walker mail. You can listen to me every weekday on sports radio 927 WFNZ. every weekday from 12 to 300 p.m. on West and Walker where I’ll be talking about the Hornets. I’ll be talking about all the good, all the bad, all the Hornets stuff. That’s all I’m doing. Talking Hornets constantly here on the podcast network and also on Sports Radio 927 FM. I’m talking about a loss, a tough one. Hornets lose with the Raptors last night. 110 108 just too big, man. Last couple plays. Thought we had it. Ryan Cochr Brener with an excellent dish on a LaMelo drive. Got blocked from behind by Brandon Ingram. Clean as hell. Zero issue with that block. Nobody thought that that was a foul. Eric Collins, Dell Curry, everybody knew that that was a clean block. They get a second go at it, a third go at it because they the Hornets, they inbound the ball. They give it to Miles Bridges. Miles Bridges decides to go with a fadeaway jumper. Maybe had Seion off of the screen on the inbounds pass. Maybe had Coniple in the corner. Would have been tough. Brandon Ingram felt like he would have closed in on that. But Miles takes the fadeaway jumper. A second hero attempt on the season. It goes begging. Colin Ston gets the offensive rebound. Puts it back up as quick as you can. But Colin, he’s tiny. Scotty Barnes does not have T-Rex arms. He has like 10 times the size of T-Rex arms and he gets a clean block. I know there were some questions. Eric Collins, he was questioning it last night about a possible foul. Not up top. He admitted we all saw Scotty Barnes got a clean block on Colin Ston’s putback attempt, but it was after the block. Did he get too much contact on Colin afterwards? that did not show up in the two-minute report that was released within the last hour or so of this recording. The NBA two-minute report from last night’s Hornets Raptors game indicated that there was one missed call though that would have benefited the Hornets. Something we didn’t pay attention to. I know I didn’t address it on Won Walker earlier today. There was one missed call. The two-minute report indicated that there was an uncalled turnover on Brandon Ingram, who stepped out of bounds on the baseline prior to RJ Barrett’s go-ahad basket with 22 seconds left. Remember, Brandon Ingram catches it short corner. LaMelo goes for the double team. Does a pretty nice job of forcing it out of Brandon Ingram’s hands because they didn’t want Brandon to go iso post up opportunity on Colin Ston. Real big mismatch there. So, LaMelo goes, he forces the ball out of his hands. Everybody’s got to scramble and Miles Bridges loses RJ Barrett on the cut. RJ hits the go-ahead basket. But but but but the two-minute report says Brandon Ingram stepped out of bounds. I didn’t see it. I went back and watched this play. You couldn’t see it from the camera view, the broadcast. It didn’t catch it either. The official who missed it is right there. Straight up could not get a better look at it. if he had a magnifying glass an inch away from Brandon Ingram’s foot. The only way that he could have gotten a better look at it and just wasn’t paying attention, got caught up in the game, front row seats, eating some popcorn. I mean, I kid, because nobody caught it. If we didn’t, I guess you could expect the official to do his job and get all the right calls. But, I mean, look, human error, whatever. Nobody else saw it, except for hindsight going back and reviewing the footage. That was in the two-minute report last night. There was a no call against Musa. Also, they did say that there was an uncalled Diabate 3second violation at 115. The Hornets didn’t score. Uh, but nothing on the Colin Ston no foul call, which I’m fine with, by the way. Like, I I don’t know about you guys, I feel like the Hornets fans took this pretty well or took it in stride from an officiating standpoint. Like I didn’t see anybody really frustrated with the no call on Colin Ston. You didn’t have a shot with the Brandon Ingram block. Just an excellent play on Ryan Caulkrren. You know, there was a lot of contact after the clean play up top with Scotty on Colin, but I didn’t see not on my timeline, not in my little Hornets world that I’ve curated for myself. I didn’t see anybody truly complaining. Tough loss nonetheless on the road. Hornets lose to what has been a good Raptors team. One of the better stories in the NBA from a team standpoint. They go to nine wins on the season with this victory. The Hornets were right there. Just a couple of notes that I have outside of the two-minute report. The length and the physicality. It bothered Charlotte. You could see the points per possession for Charlotte. It was among the lower outputs they went with all year long. It affected their shot profile, too. And we’ve seen that a little bit on the season. For instance, in this game against the Raptors, the Hornets basically switch their shots at the rim and all their mid-range attempts. On average, the Hornets take 33 and a half% of their shots at the cup and a quarter of their shots in the middle of the floor. Last night, flip it. Almost exactly. 26% of their attempts were at the basket. 34% of their shots were in the middle of the floor. What’s interesting is that shot profile was almost identical to what it looked like against Oklahoma City. The only other time Midis took up 30% of their shot diet was against Orlando and they got to the line last night at least. That was something different, but still they just didn’t hit their threes and that was the killer. So, you have a Charles Lee coached team that doesn’t take a whole lot of mid-range jumpers, but the times that they do, there have been three times where they’ve been in the 50th percentile or above according to Cleaning the Glass on a game- basis. All of those games came against teams that had all of the arms, all of the size, all of the length. Toronto, OKC, who just refuses to allow you to score one, but they refuse to allow you to score in the paint. And then Orlando, we saw how much the Hornets struggled with their size down low in that matchup. Other rapid fire oper observations for me, you know, Caulkrunner has been great. We’re nitpicking with all the rookies, right? Like I I don’t want to be worried about the wrong stuff, but if we’re just talking about what was limited, what the Hornets don’t have in some of these situations. You know, maybe I’d like to see Cochr Brener with a little more nasty. How much is that developed as he grows in the NBA? Dude’s played like 13, 14 games all year long. So, it’s okay to not have the nasty right now. But when’s the nasty show up for Kaulner? Right now, what he does to me is he does a great job of limiting accuracy at the rim, deterring some of those shots at the cup, finishing offensively despite the contact. I don’t feel like he’s dishing it out, but he hits despite people pushing him all the way with their butts to the baseline, pushing him with both of their hands. You know, in pickup basketball, I’m going to make this about me for one second. The best compliment I ever received in pickup basketball was, I could stab this guy and he would still find a way to make the basket. That’s how I feel Coaul printer is. All right, now I made it about me, but you get the idea. Perhaps a little bit of a different level of playing basketball with me at the Student Activity Center on Charlotte’s campus compared to the Spectrum Center Toronto. Is it still Air Canada? I don’t know what it is. Perhaps a little bit of a different level of basketball being played. But Ryan Cochrrener, he takes the punishment and he finishes despite it. Maybe we dish out the punishment as we start to get a little bit older, as we start to grow in the league. It’s cool that you don’t have it now. I think you missed some of that in this game like Musa brought where I mean he just comes in four blocks in how many minutes did he play like Musa four blocks in 20 minutes dude was a ball of energy coming off of the bench just excellent stuff from Musabbate once more and finally you know I think people noted that Khan Canipple did not shoot at all in the final 4 minutes and 30 seconds of this game his last field goal attempt came with 98 points register istered for the Hornets. It was an above the break three kind of in transition with him trailing and that was the last shot. That was it. Despite Khan on the game finishing up as the leading scoreer and doing so efficiently, nine of 16 from the field, four of 10 from three-point land, made both of his free throws, seven rebounds, still had a few turnovers. Want to limit that, but we didn’t see any more shots after that last one. would like for him to get another shot. I don’t think Hornets fans are misguided in wanting that at some point in winning time in the last third of the fourth quarter, but didn’t happen. Miles Bridges, man, you just, you know, another bad hero shot. I don’t feel like that’s what Charles Lee drew up. I went through the options at the beginning of the show. Felt like maybe Seion James on that screen for LaMelo off of the inbounds pass. Purle was worried about LaMelo. Gravity baby coming off of that screen. Seion, it felt like if you cut hard and stay flat, maybe Miles can hit you. But Miles wasn’t even really looking. He He’d already spun off of the drive. So, I mean, he wasn’t looking. I He had made his mind up. Like, you could see that’s happened twice. It feels like Miles made his mind up against New Orleans when he took the fadeaway three with two hands in his face. And it feels like he made his mind up that he was going to take this mid-ranger a little bit further than the free throw line. Doesn’t find anybody. Hornets lose. Is it a bad loss? And here’s the other question. Does the Hornets brass really, really, really, really care that they lost? Oh, interesting question coming up next on the Locked On Hornets podcast. Got a lot of people asking about the sneak tank. Is it on? Do you hear the R&B music in the background? I don’t know. Let’s talk about it. Coming up next, LOH. This episode is brought to you by Ripling. I want to put the graphic up here so you guys know what Ripling is all about. There you go, baby. If you’re watching us on YouTube, you know what I’m talking about. If you’re a business owner, here’s the truth. SAS promised to make work easier, but now the average company is buried by hundreds of apps that slow down your teams and simply don’t work together. That’s not SAS. That’s sad. Software as a disservice. That’s why you need Ripling. Ripling is the unified platform for global HR, payroll, IT, and finance all in one place. 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Speaking of Doug, again, go check him out on every hornetsboxcore.com because he’s working hard over there on top of Yahoo Sports Daily. And we’re working hard here on the Locked On Network, your number one sports podcast network. Thanks to you for making us such. And because of you, I feel the need to address this next topic. You guys seem to be asking this. Got a little bit of this chatter on the world famous text line on WFNZ. Are they sneak tanking? Is that happening right now? Yeah. I mean, I talked about it yesterday with Doug just a little bit. Certainly some understandable reasons why you might ask that. Liam McNeely playing in crunch time. Drew Peterson, the two-way guy, just got called up playing significant minutes in the fourth quarter. Sexton to Trey. Trey to Sexton. No La LaMelo in overtime. All right, I know the minutes restriction, but you’re just not going to play him at all. Like, we have a chance to win right here, guys. LaMelo against Milwaukee. You guys have seen him perform against the Bucks before, right? Like, this is the kind of this is the team he destroys. The floater, the triple double, the 50 burger. No, no overtime minutes. Yeah, it doesn’t seem like decisions you would make if you’re hellbent on winning games. Fair enough. It does make sense if you’re looking to get the young guys as much experience as possible so that all these young guys are ready for the future. Coming into the season, you had some rumblings about a possible tankish objective. Zack Low, he talked about it with Nikias Duncan. This was a podcast they recorded on October 13th, right before the season, and they were discussing really the tank objective within the frame of LaMelo Ball. But there are other things to pay attention to within the soundbite. Here’s more from Zack Low on the Zack Lo show. There’s been a lot of like should they trade LaMelo? Is is he going to be on the trade market? I do think there are parts of the franchise that would like to take another tank year or semi-tank year. And I think one of the themes of the season is like you could win 28 29 games and be the fifth, sixth worst record in the NBA. And given how the lottery is unfolded with the new odds, like that could be okay. You can have your cake and eat it too. You can like pretty much compete and still be bad enough to have a shot at one of these top three dudes in the draft. Um, but you know, I LaMelo has four more years on his contract through 2829 where he makes $46 million. I don’t really see any kind of realistic scenario where he gets traded this year. The LaMelo part is interesting, but I want to focus less on the LaMelo part and more on the quote, I do think there are parts of the franchise that would like to tank another year or semi-tank. I want to focus on that part for a moment because the semi-tank, a little baby tank that looks a decent amount like this to me. playing the rookies a ton of minutes, keeping them all on the floor at the same time in crunch time, less vets. You know, you don’t have to worry a lot about butts and seats, which is kind of the thing you get to dodge with this iteration of the franchise as you get to dodge that more so than normal tank years for franchises because you still have players to market. You have a guy that’s looking great for rookie of the year. come see the baby bugs. That’s easy to market for this squad. So, you can kind of hide behind that and you could put out the young guys now, even if it might not be the best lineup that you can put out there on the floor to win games currently. I you know, I could see it. The the minutes restriction, you know, you could say Brandon Miller’s injury and LaMelo Ball’s impinchment are forcing your hand again. Hey, we got a plan with LaMelo. We have a plan for Brandon. We’re not just going to throw them out there on the court and play them 38 minutes a game. No, we need to make sure that they can play 38 minutes a game down the road. Second half of this season, doubt it. I guess you’re talking about next year. And then if we’re talking about next year, well, okay, you don’t have your two best players on the floor, LaMelo and Brandon. Then you’re probably going to lose a decent amount of games. Is it enough? Is that the objective? Is the semi-tank on the sneaky semi-tank? You know, I keep asking the question. It’s what Doug used to do a couple years ago. I’m just asking questions. I’m not outright saying they’re doing it. I will say this is kind of how it looks like. However, they don’t have size on the wing. So when we talk about Liam McNeely staying in there, he might just be getting run because who else is your 67 dude that plays the three? You don’t have Brandon Miller. He’s injured. Tan Salon, you know, I guess you could argue they’d be tanking even more if Ton was just on the roster at this point playing some three. I know he’s more of a four. I I agree with that, but they just don’t have a lot of that kind of physical profile on the squad right now. So, yeah, we kind of do got to go to Drew Peterson. At least he can stretch the floor. Got some experience uh a little bit with him in Boston, Charles Lee during his Boston days. So, yeah, I mean, there are answers to the contrary. I I do wonder if Jeff Peterson under the desk watching the team be very competitive against Milwaukee, go to overtime, eventually lose. I do wonder if under the desk on the road against Toronto, almost going to overtime, but the Hornets lose by two points. When he sees that result, he goes, “Man, what an exciting basketball game. Wish we would have won it, but fist bump. Tiny little Tiger Woods fist bump under the g under the desk.” Yeah. Okay. Maybe I would like a little bit just a little bit more time. Collect a few more assets and then really go at it next year. We can’t go after it this year anyway. No, Jeff Peterson didn’t cause this shoulder subluxation to Brandon Miller. Perhaps he’s a part of the plan on how you address it afterwards with the medical staff and Brandon and his party. Same thing with LaMelo. But I do wonder if there’s just a tiny bit of, you know, I don’t like losing basketball games, but you know, the Zack Low sound, there are parts of the organization that wouldn’t mind tanking or semi-tanking this year. Maybe he’s okay with the semi-tanking, meaning the competitive losses. The the other thing to look at though is going to the standings and seeing how some of these starts have been awful for some franchises that going back to the Zack Lopod, the one that he just released with Mo Tequille. They talked about the catastrophic starts to the season for some of these franchises. What does it all mean for the Hornets? And catastrophic of course being relatively speaking Memphis Clippers, excuse me, I don’t know why I’m doing that. Grizzlies, Clippers, Mavs, Kings, Pelicans. Those are the five teams that have gotten off to a terrible start. So, Clippers, I you can focus on them. It’s pretty bad given their circumstance, but I have a hard time believing that they’re going to have a worse record than the Hornets this year. The other teams, the Grizzlies, the Mavs, the Kings, the Pelicans, the others are varying levels of likely to possibly having a worse record than the Hornets. you know, better odds of that happening. The East sports three teams already that the Hornets can’t be worse than in Washington, Indiana, and Brooklyn. It’s gone horribly, horribly wrong for those three teams. So, that puts you in a three-way tie right now for the seventh best odds at getting the first pick. Oh, yeah. Utah is right behind you. I think they’re going to be worse than Charlotte. So, that puts the Hornets with the 10th best odds at the first pick. If Utah jumps the Hornets and eventually the Hornets are on the outside, quote unquote, looking in of that three-way tie, are you cool with having the 10th best odds? You look last year and the Mavs, despite them disgracing the basketball gods, the gods, they turned their head and said, “Ah, oh well, here you get Cooper flag even if you made the worst trade of all time.” So, the odds are more in the favor of some of those teams down the bottom of the barrel in the lottery to get the first overall selection. The odds are more in their favor than they have been with this new format. Plus, you get the Phoenix pick. The Phoenix pick looks like it could hit. 16th right now is where you’d be slotted to take another first round guy. So, at that point, like look, if you think about this from a basketball executive standpoint, you got three rookies that are balling right now. one that you still have a lot of hope for in Liam McNeely. Lamelo Ball, you got control over his contract. You got control over Brandon Miller’s contract. Both of them have talent. Both would be able to get you something out there on the trade market. Even if I don’t want to do that for either guy, just to be sure, Brandon Miller probably the most untradable guy on this team right now. Colin Ston’s off of the books. You can either bring him back or you could just use that cap space for whatever you want. Let’s say Trey man turns things around. Trey man is on a cheap deal. Like you you’ve got a decent amount of flexibility. You could trade Miles Bridges. He’s on an expiring next year. It’s already descending. Yeah. Like I could see why the front office might be understanding of losing some of these games, but they are competitive losses. That that’s what a semi-tank looks like to me. Even if there are answers to the contrary, saying who else are we going to play? Like we got to go with Peterson. You want to play Tan? you think Tan’s going to help us win some of these games? He’s not ready. He’s not ready right now. He needs to be in Greensboro. And I would agree with that. So, it’s going to be tough to try to figure what exactly the Hornets are doing all season long. And just taking kind of a a first checkin here, taking a look at the first 13 14 games, first 14 games that they’ve played to be exact. They’re 4-10 on the season now. Just just taking the pulse on that. I don’t know if we’re ever going to get real clarity on exactly what it is they’re doing. Of course, unless we experience the big- time injury, the the injury to LaMelo and Brandon that keeps him out for, you know, a really really long time. I’ll go ahead and knock on wood to try to avoid that. Coming up next on the Lockdown Hornets podcast, Trey Man, he’s going to be out possibly. He’s he’s actually doubtful for this upcoming game as listed on the injury report. So, he went down with an injury against Toronto. The stats are also down. Kind of an interesting story with what’s happening with Trey Man. We’ll get to that in just a moment on LOH. This episode is brought to you by Robin Hood. Appreciate them um for helping us out here on the Lockdown Podcast Network. Your ambition, it just met its match. With Robin Hood, you play for the win. Not just on game day, but you play for the win every day, locking in on every opening, beating your PR, beating it again, and you can channel that drive into your money. Robin Hood puts you in control of your money. Trade stocks, ETFs, options, futures, and crypto, all on one platform. 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And Trey man suffered that left ankle injury against Toronto. He would leave that game against the Raptors. He would not return. Hornets PR lists him as doubtful. So, you know, you would assume he’s not going to suit up. The the doubtful, the probable stuff. Oh man, I I don’t know how accurate Hornets PR has been when they’ve listed some of these guys with doubtful or probable, but you know, who knows? I I would say he probably doesn’t suit up against this Pacers team. And you know, it’s been unfortunate for Trey this year. Like I you guys saw it even when the Hornets signed all of the guards. I wanted him back. He’s one of my favorite players, one of my favorite dudes to talk to. Great interview. Love getting to know him. really went through a lot this off season off of the court and the injury stuff, the back injury that only allowed him to play 13 games. That’s it last season. He’s already played more games this year than he than he did all last year. And that’s going to be something we come back to. So, if you look at what Trey man has done this year compared to 2024, 2025, he’s played in 315 minutes to this point in 13 games. Last year, he played in 300 minutes. Excuse me, I apologize. 315 in 13 games last year. 300 minutes in 14 games this year. 315 last year, 300 minutes in 14 games this year. Very, very similar. Okay. Very similar in terms of run. The problem with Trey is that he’s not nearly as good as he was last season. The points per shot attempt, it’s real bad. He’s turning the ball over. He’s not getting to the rim. And that’s something that this team misses quite a bit without Colin Ston. If you don’t have Colin Ston on the floor, then you’re kind of lacking in that department. Last year, he was good as a pick and roll ball handler. He was excellent in isolation. This year, he’s in the seventh percentile in points per shot attempt in the pick and roll. And he’s still good in isolation, just less good than he was last year. The turnovers for Trey have been a real issue. 8.6% turnover percentage on drives last season, 20.7 this year. Big- time increase. 8% turnover percentage on isolation plays last year, 20% this year. H. Okay. Yeah. So, he was decent on drives. He was good in isolation, but now he’s turning the basketball over. He’s been a part of a lot of basketball, a lot of losing basketball over the last few years that he’s gotten his career started. His minutes have been going down. After the first two seasons where he appeared in 60 games a pop with OKC, minutes have been slowly trickling down. Now, he’s been injured and also I I said he was on losing basketball teams. You talk about that OKC squad. Okay. When he was on it and getting plent, you know, that’s not when OKC was making a run in the playoffs. When they did start to accumulate all of these other really impressive players, it was hard for Trey to get any playing time whatsoever. So, you’re just talking about a lot of inexperience with him, which is interesting because it feels a little bit to me like he’s a veteran. He just went through a contract negotiation this off season. You’ve seen him now on the team for three years, two and a half to be exact, and he comes over from another team, which kind of adds to a veteran feel like having been experienced quite a bit. But that’s a misnomer. To be exact with this, he played 126 games in his first two years. He’s played 55 in the last three years combined. 126 the first two years with OKC. 55 in the last three years combined. a little bit with OKC, mostly with Charlotte. And that right there is what’s tough to overcome. So, you know, you look at all these sample sizes and you have to wonder how much of any of this is enough to go off of. It’s why I think you only feel comfortable paying him $8 million this off season. Me, I was somebody that was uh high on the upside. I wanted to make sure that he was going to be a member of the Hornets. I was willing to go more, but kudos to the Hornets front office. They said, “Hey, we’re not going to give you more than 8 million.” And I like that contract. It’s not going to break the bank by any means. And Charles Lee still trusts Trey. Like, you’ve seen him playing some clutch time. And I I still think he’s going to come around and start to perform for you, but it’s kind of hard to figure out what your role is on this team. They still want to run a decent amount of pick and roll, a lot of pick and roll with him. I still like some of the isolation possessions. I think he is good at that. like he creates otherworldly space with his crossover. It is nasty, man. Like just I’ve seen him undress dudes I don’t know a handful of times this year with that crossover and he just got he’s got to knock down some shots which you know ultimately comes down to that make or miss league, right? The three-point percentage it’s way down for Trey right now than it has been the last couple of years. Catch and shoot percentages actually pretty good from the corner this season. But on other three-point attempts, every three-point attempt not taking place in the corner, he’s been quite bad. Certainly compared to what he was shooting in the past couple of years. You know, been a little bit of a talking point in the Hornets Twitter sphere, in the social media sphere, in Spectrum Center. Like people are wondering, hey, when is Trey man going to look like the extra special Trey Eye that we saw last season that became a fan favorite? Like I He’s still there. Like I I’m not giving up. I hope other Hornets fans aren’t giving up on Trey after just 14 games, but it might take a while after all this inexperience trying to figure out your role on a team that is so guard heavy and having gone through everything that you did this off season. Some personal stuff, but also the injury and the personal stuff. You know, I he likes it here in Charlotte. He knows how much the fan base loved him last season and I know he wants to perform well. I know we want him to perform well. I think we will get some more of that as the year goes on. Still way too early, but stats have been down for Trey. There’s no doubt about it. Hopefully, he can pick it up. That’ll do it for Locked On Hornets. Thanks for making us your first listen. We’re free and available anywhere you get your pods. That includes YouTube. Thanks for making Locked On the number one sports podcast network out there. We appreciate it. Go check Doug out on his Substack. Every hornetsboxcore.com. Go check out Yahoo Sports Daily with Jason Fitz and Caroline Finton. And listen to me every weekday on Weston Walker on Sports Radio 927 WFNZ. I’m on air every weekday from 12 to 3 p.m. Have a great rest of your day. We’ll be back with you tomorrow.
Walker Mehl goes solo to recap the Hornets loss to Toronto and whether the Hornets were robbed by the officials after today’s 2 minute report. Did you miss what the refs missed? How did the Raptors alter Charlotte’s shot profile? Walker wonders if the Hornets are sneak tanking before finishing with thoughts on Tre Mann’s struggles to begin the season.
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36 comments
Where is Salaun?
They should have won on a night they didn’t shoot particularly well. This isn’t the same Hornets team,they are improving and it will click and translate to wins at some point. B Mill and Grant might tip it over
From what I hear next years draft is supposed to be one of the best in a long time. There's 4-5 blue chip players available next year, so if the hornets can get in the top 5 that'd be awesome
If your a fan of the hornets, you already know the refs aren't gonna be in there favor 95% of the time
Im All for the Sneak Tank Baby!!!
We are competitive. We hustle.
We arent knuckleheads. This is the way.
Give the youth minutes. Kon – ROY
Keep LaMelo minutes restricted
Keep Miller minutes restricted
Trade away pieces for Asset accumulation
Maybe Miles, Grant, Tre, or Sexton 😢
Barely Miss Playoffs, Keep Games close
Lottery Pick – Caleb Wilson/Ament/Peat
Get Suns pick #14 – Get backup PG – Stirtz?
Playoff 26-27… HERE WE COME!
Idk if the results of not tanking and tanking will be super different TBH. Not with our player health luck.
Is the suns 1st rounder protected?
Charles Lee gotta stop subbing cold players in at end of game…. Ryan shouldn't have been in there to get blocked..diabate already had a rhythm… charles usually do the same thing with guards
Walker this pod was spot on. The reality is no matter how much we tank the league is not giving us one of the major prospects. At best we could hope for boozer with our duke connections. The only reason melo worked is because he already had a fan base before he got here. Trading melo buys Lee more time and frees money for the complete rebuild which allows fans to accept reality and tamper expectations it is wat it is
Walker if u could trade for 2 young players who would u trade for
New coach, same results. I will agree that we have better players compared to past teams but we are still playing losing basketball on a nightly basis
I’m convinced they are tanking. They don’t have to be this bad. They don’t have a defined roles, nothing is the same game to game , this is the worst I’ve seen sexton play in his entire career. I wish they didn’t trade for him because they are wasting year eight and he is struggling so bad with the inconsistent role and being switched in and out of the lineup. Changing roles, every single game is not the way the game should be played ,it affects the player and the team. There’s no cohesiveness because of that, so yeah they have to be tanking .
Lee needs to go if he can't make play in..PERIOD NOTHING IS STANDARD HE CHANGES SUBS LINEUPS NO CONSISTENCY WHAT WE NEED.HE GOES…
Why would a foul occur when the game is over?
We need to get Mike Dantoni or Malone fire Lee
A third of me wants them to end the season strongly, but two thirds of me wants them to tank. And to be honest I won't be mad if they're cobbled by injury.
I'm saying this because we have TWO first round draft picks in 2026 as well as one 2nd round pick. And this next years draft class is as deep as the Kon 2025 class. If not deeper.
And this new Hornets regime has a scouting ability that's off the chain. So, yeah, let them tank.
Respectfully from a raptors fan, Scottie had 0FT attempts when he attacked the rim like 15 times. So if you want to talk about missed calls or "ROBBED" by the officials, it went both ways.
Raptors fan here, ….really like the young talent on your team and hope your franchise doesn't waste the year by tanking. They're super fun to watch
Idk why he does this but Tre needs to stop one handed bounce passes. Its like hes still in warmup mode
I'm okay with the semi-tank. No excuses next year.
the hornets aren’t tanking.. they’re just a young team who doesn’t know how to close out games yet..
Kon is the modern day Mark Price
What's up Walker, my guy…we definitely need some more Kon in the 4th…I'm KONfident he can clean up and take us to the W..
I don't know anyone actually watched this game. This was one of the hardest games I have seen the hornets play and this is exactly what Charles Lee has gotten out of the team! Let's just let thing happen organically and foster positive growth. There are changes happening in Charlotte.
Kon, and others without quick verts, have a tough time guarding Brandon Ingram. Ingram’s shot is back behind is head and damn near impossible to guard.
Subbing out Moussa for Kalk for final 45 seconds was a big mistake. Kalk seemed low energy all night, Moussa was better and part of the reason we came back to tie
I want to like Charles Lee, just don't understand his rotations. He can't coach or we are tanking.
Might be tryna get that number 1 pick
This team is capable of a 7-8 seed easy. They have lost just about every close game possible and have been injured. A playoff series, even a losing one, will do far more for this team than a 1 percent better chance at a draft pick.
I want Caleb Wilson n the Houston center
They need to tank just one more year, we’ve got 2 1st round picks in a 2026 STACKED DRAFT!! If they can hit on both those pics they could build a championship team!! We’ve got 2 picks in 2027 as well and that Dallas pick is gonna be top 10 pick!!
It amazes me that NBA execs think tanking works ?! Show me one specific example where it lead to a championship. You’re creating a losing culture for your players and fanbase for the very small percentage that you win the lottery and draft a player with an even smaller percentage to become a star . Look at the last few years MVP’s …. SGA mid first round pick , Joker went in the 2nd round . Luka wasn’t even a top 3 pick . It’s ridiculous to think tanking is beneficial to anyone .
Jeff Peterson has made it clear he's looking to make a consistent playoff team. This team isn't quite there yet with inexperience/lack of talent/injuries. This draft is disgusting, get one more good pick and go all in next year where the draft isn't as good
9:23 it's the Scotiabank Arena now
Great podcast Walker 👍🏻, I think it’s been tricky to evaluate so far due to the injuries to our key players. I’m really hoping Lamelo can stay healthy along with Kon and Kalk who have both impressed so far. I’m sure there has been a minutes restriction on Lamelo otherwise he would have played in crunch time 🏀, let’s go Hornets 👍🏻
Walker is ice skating this episode. There’s a message, but he’s dancing for us all episode. The regular Walker Doug dynamic is missed.