Hornets officially locked into 9th worst record

[Omega Atrocity]

Figured it deserved it's own thread so people wouldn't have to open other threads. With Detroit's loss and Miami's win we have the 9th best odds at the lottery, regardless of the Toronto game.

[Cary Kollins]

Sweet.

[toldozer]

Awesome. I'm sure we will end up picking 11th somehow

[bLACKpANTHER]

NBA Lottery butlers be like

 

 

 

"Right this way Charlotte. We have your usual table ready."

 

 

I mean, even when we made the playoffs last year, we still got Detroit's pick in the Lottery and were present.

 

We walk into the lottery like:

 

and walk out like:

[Kakarot]

Lol. Post above has me in my office cracking up. It's true, though

[PantherBrew]

Are we officially locked into the 9th pick?

 

What if we win the lottery?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

oh yeah.  The NBA hates us. 

[SOJA]

We'll probably win the lottery this year. There isn't a superstar in the draft.

 

 

I would certainly taking leap frogging into the top three, you'd be guaranteed Winslow, Okafor, or Towns

[Spaceshoes]

Okafor got pushed around by Kiminski for 90% of the game. I'll take Hezonja.

[BIGH2001]

It doesn't matter who's in the lottery this year or any year. Our drafting has been awful. The last all star we drafted was Baron Davis in 1999.

[JJman Returns]

Cho really should be gone,

Kemba and Biz over Knight, Thompson, Leonard, Faried

MKG over Lillard (okay, this wasn't awful)

Zeller over Noel, Mclemore

Drafting Vonleh and Hairston and allowing your moronic coach to waste the time they could be using to develop but instead use the time to sit them on their ass.

[cbarrier90]

Cho really should be gone,

Kemba and Biz over Knight, Thompson, Leonard, Faried

MKG over Lillard (okay, this wasn't awful)

Zeller over Noel, Mclemore

Drafting Vonleh and Hairston and allowing your moronic coach to waste the time they could be using to develop but instead use the time to sit them on their ass.

 

IMO this all goes back to the signing of Al Jefferson and his completely out of the ordinary All-NBA performance last season.

 

Each of those Hornets players you listed has a role somewhere in the NBA. Kemba is a 6th man, Biz and Cody are rim protectors and energy bigs off the bench and MKG is your defensive anchor on the wing of a contender. Each of them were overdrafted based on what ultimately their careers will end up being, but at least they're not complete washouts.

 

If you just accumulate lottery talent like that and let it grow together, you're not going to win many games, but you can keep the talent pipeline flowing from drafts with better players and evaluate whether or not the players you drafted before are cut out to be franchise centerpieces (this is a big reason Philly parted ways with MCW and Milwaukee dealt Brandon Knight in the same trade.) The team stays young, energetic, and can grow together as a team and, who knows, maybe even make a playoff run in a bad conference (see this year's Celtics.)

 

Signing Al Jefferson ended up being a great move for last season and with the rebrand on the way gave folks something to look forward to this season. The problem is by signing Jefferson and having him perform at the unsustainable level he did, we shortened our window considerably and, perhaps even worse, stunted the development of the young players. Cody Zeller had to become Ryan Anderson, MKG and Kemba could no longer drive to the basket, and Biz couldn't get the minutes he needed to develop. The narrative was now "win" and, now armed with cap space, "make a splash," so much so that instead of filling out the roster with role players who would have fit the system when we struck out on Hayward, we signed Lance Stephenson who was an unmitigated disaster. In addition, the "win now" mentality cost us a year in the development of yet another top ten pick in Noah Vonleh.

 

It's not so much Cho and company's drafting as much as it is their plan. There doesn't seem to be direction here, and a severe disconnect between the coaching staff and the front office. We didn't tank solely to draft Anthony Davis, we tanked to get rid of the irresponsible spending and draft busts of the previous regime and wipe the slate clean. The only problem is we wound up right back here again, and the worst part is it all could have been so easily avoided.

[bLACKpANTHER]

Some teams don't handle success well.. last year, we sneak in the playoffs in the East, and all of a sudden we are in 'win now' mode.

Look how Gettleman has handled the past 2 years - most teams would have gone on a spending spree after they had a 12-4 season to assure a deep playoff run, awhile mortgaging the future. Especially with the cap jump. But we double down and sign dollar store FAs and still win the division and a playoff game. Then we back it up again with Target brand FAs and are primed to run the NFC south for the forsee able future

But then again, we drafted a superstar in Cam and Luke.. hornets drafted kemba and mkg. Good players but not superstars

[cbarrier90]

Some teams don't handle success well.. last year, we sneak in the playoffs in the East, and all of a sudden we are in 'win now' mode.

Look how Gettleman has handled the past 2 years - most teams would have gone on a spending spree after they had a 12-4 season to assure a deep playoff run, awhile mortgaging the future. Especially with the cap jump. But we double down and sign dollar store FAs and still win the division and a playoff game. Then we back it up again with Target brand FAs and are primed to run the NFC south for the forsee able future

 

Fine post, but there's an important distinction between the two that I'll add: It's not so much that the Hornets and Panthers handle success differently as much as their definition of success in the first place.

 

The Hornets always had terrible offense, and an uninspiring young core and way too much reliance on role players. With nowhere to go but down for Al Jefferson, they were always destined for a regression. Nonetheless, Cho tries to cash in on something that isn't getting us any closer to a championship by spending in free agency only to make it worse by grabbing ill-fitting players that ultimately sank the ship.

 

If DG was running the Hornets this season, Al would have been on the trade block immediately after he was deemed healthy, and Nurkic (his replacement) is probably a Hornet. Kemba and Biz would be entering restricted free agency this offseason, while CDR, Tolliver and McBob were brought back to keep the team chemistry up.

 

Gettleman saw what the rest of us saw in that 49ers game, and that was a well-balanced, deep team going up against one that was a cinderella and needed an influx of young talent after years of misses in the draft had left the cupboard bare. It wasn't easy and his job isn't finished by any means, but he flipped the script and put the Panthers in a position where the young talent is there to (hopefully) be supplemented by key, Tiffany's free agents. You may not agree with how DG runs things, but if you spend any amount of time on this or any other Panthers related site you understand exactly what Dave Gettleman's plan is, and that's at least something you can hang your hat on as a fan.

 

Cho wanted to make the playoffs, Gettleman wanted to win the Super Bowl. That's the difference.

[carpanfan96]

The connection between both the Bobcats massive failure payrolled team and this one is MJ. While I agree a clean slate is probably best, Cho did manage some amazing trades to start the rebuild. Then suddenly the name change happened and the Hornets went from building to trying to become a contender using the same mistakes of the last big payrolled failure bobcats team.

Different Gm but the same exact mistakes. Hmm....