But the Hornets can afford to throw that out the window and cram everyone under one umbrella. This defies an important rule followed by every smart NBA coach: Mold a system around the players instead of forcing the players to execute a system. Make the Houston Rockets rub their chins. Don’t dip a toe into the water live on the ocean floor. Instead, the Hornets should bake a couple of ingredients listed above deep into their playing style, then dedicate themselves to earnest idiosyncrasy. It’s pointless to build a culture while floating in purgatory. Charlotte’s inexhaustible futility makes it the quintessential candidate. The NBA is more riveting when one team is willing to break things. Take two or three trademark qualities - be it three-point attempts, field goals attempted in the first five seconds of the shot clock, passes completed per possession, a defensive scheme that requires at least four players to always have at least one foot in the paint/one with an all-out obsession to contest every three - and take them where no team ever has. Instead of treating this season like a normal team would - winning 28 games, getting the eighth pick, and then sleep-walking through the next half-decade - it’s an opportunity for Charlotte to drop everything and become a science experiment. Lose-lose situations are filled with desperation, so, as a basketball team and an entertainment product, the Hornets might as well moonlight as a spectacle, the club willing to shatter boundaries and stretch limits. With a callback to the 2015-17 Brooklyn Nets and Process-obsessed Philadelphia 76ers, the Hornets should adopt analytically inclined principles that were designed to help navigate tough times, then raise the volume to 100. What they should do will never happen for a variety of reasons - both fair and idiotic - but it’s the only alternative that makes them, at the very least, interesting. When has an NBA team had less to play for? It’s such an awful, untethered-lifeboat spot to be in, and barring a few lucky ping pong balls in the next couple NBA lotteries, Charlotte’s path to relevance will be less pleasant than a stroll through Chernobyl. It’s reasonable to debate which option is best, but their current position makes it difficult to complete any one of them. Should they try to win, lose on purpose, swap young talent out for experienced veterans, or slash payroll and barrel roll to the bottom? Charlotte is bad in the worst type of way, with no obvious guiding light to get them through this upcoming season. The result is what’s led us to the present, where one of the darkest outlooks in recent NBA history has made an appearance. When they do feel like spending money, be it trading for a beefy contract or signing one in free agency, the results have not been great.īig picture: The Hornets have no interest in suffering for the sake of long-term gain, only suffering for the sake of fabricating a pretend world. It’s a depressing cognitive dissonance - let’s not pay our most talented players what they’re worth despite having a higher payroll than the Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Lakers, Milwaukee Bucks, and Utah Jazz - that’s contributed to an endless run of sub-mediocre basketball. The word has long summed up their existence, and in the aftermath of a 39-win season the Hornets entered this summer with A) no genuine desire to keep their top two scorers, and B) a delusional wish to recover in the short term. It could lead to an easy transition to the NBA even with the obvious step up in competition.It’s hard not to think of the word hopeless whenever someone says Charlotte Hornets. Scouts are also excited about the center's physical tools, measuring with the biggest wingspan (7'6.5") and standing reach (9'9") in the class at the NBA combine. On the offensive end, Williams made 72.1 percent of his shots and led Division I with a 142.0 offensive efficiency, per Sports Reference. He was named the ACC Defensive Player of the Year, anchoring the Blue Devils on the way to a conference regular-season title and an eventual Final Four appearance.ĭuring the NCAA tournament, the 7'0" center averaged 3.2 blocks across five games. The former 5-star recruit had a quiet freshman season at Duke, but Williams emerged as a sophomore with 11.2 points, 7.4 rebounds and 2.8 blocks per game. Jalen McDaniels, PF: $1.5M (2023, Team Option)
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