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NLL Insider - Team by Team: Charlotte Hornets

by Rootsey, updated on Monday, October 12 2015, 01:18 pm EST



Season Highlight

The clear season highlight is getting the logo changed from the old Bobcats to the new Hornets logo for this team. Finally we have returned to the hive and the new court design is pretty fantastic. The fight through the year was tough for GM Digeze to get all logos just as he wanted, but in the end he prevailed and we no longer see the grey cat on a basketball when reviewing trades. The turmoil that the logo caused was evident in the home and away record the team had with the team winning 5 more games on the road than they did at home.

The notable runner ups in the highlights are the Portland trade and the subsequent weekly Blazers watch that GM Digeze had, quietly reveling in each successive loss that the poor Blazers suffered. Also hanging in with the 8th or 9th spot up until the final few weeks of the season with gritty defense, even though the next season and the future was the teams focus it would have been a nice highlight for the team.

Season Lowlight

That point that Digeze realized that this year is not going to be the Hornets year, and he decided to blow up what little he had for a Draft bag full of goodies for the next season. There is always risk with such a decision, hoping that lottery balls bounce, players slide to the right spot, then players actually pan out to become contributing members to his team within 5 years. If you are going rebuild, you may as well go all in. Then when the balls bounced in the draft they bounced the wrong way, a few tie breakers were lost, including the tie breaker that split the 4th (BRK) and 5th (OKC) spot pre-lottery. As history now tells us BRK bounced up to 1st Overall after the lottery.   
But as bad as the balls may bounce the draft is still an optimistic time of year, when every player is a superstar and will lead the team to 50 plus wins next season. Time will only tell if the 3 top 11 picks pan out.

Best Trade

The Charlotte Hornets send Kyle Singler to the Portland Trail Blazers. 
The Portland Trail Blazers send Robert Sacre to the Charlotte Hornets. 
The Portland Trail Blazers send a 1st-Rounder (Por) and 2nd-Rounder (Por) to the Charlotte Hornets. 
When the trade was made Portland looked the goods to be up the top of the West and Singler was going to be a final piece to help stretch the floor around Dwight. Nek Minnit.... The Blazers watch began, as Dwight ached Digeze watched, as Manu was traded Digeze watched, and as everyone was shopped and the losses mounted Digeze watched. Its never nice to enjoy someone else's suffering, unless its an online basketball management game, then its totally ok.
Singler turned in a fine season but not outstanding with average shooting numbers and just about 10 points a game in 20 minutes, but a high draft pick can get packaged to bring in a higher quality player. Luckily enough he re-signed in NBA so he has a good chance to re-sign in Portland this season, so all is not lost.

Worst Trade

The Charlotte Hornets send Matt Bonner to the Chicago Bulls. 
The Charlotte Hornets receive 4 GM points.

Digeze made a few trades throughout the year, but none stood out as being particularly bad, if only for the sake that he accrued 1st round draft picks with most of them. Three years from now some of the trades may look worse than sending away a bench guy for a few points, but for now this is the one that sucks the most. At least Charlotte got some GMs for Bonner who was later waived by Chicago and then got some games in Houston where winning this year was not the priority due to injury.

Other Notable Trades

Some of these get a bit confusing with how they are split with pick promises and such scattered throughout the year, but here is how I have figured it out.

The Charlotte Hornets send Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Sergey Karasev to the Oklahoma City Thunder. 
The Charlotte Hornets send a 1st-Rounder (Cha) to the Dallas Mavericks.
The Charlotte Hornets send a 2nd-Rounder (Cha) to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The Oklahoma City Thunder send Alec Burks and C.J. Wilcox to the Charlotte Hornets. 
The Dallas Mavericks send a 1st-Rounder (OKC) to the Charlotte Hornets. 
So Charlotte send off MKG and their 1st pick for Alec Burks and better 1st round pick. Its not a bad trade climbing from the 12th pick to 5th. Hopefully Burks and Super Mario who was taken with the 5th pick can work out their position on the wings and GM Digeze can get some much needed scoring punch out of them.

The Charlotte Hornets send Omer Asik to the Phoenix Suns. The Phoenix Suns send Kris Humphries and Larry Sanders to the Charlotte Hornets. 
The Charlotte Hornets send a 2nd-Rounder (Ind) to the Phoenix Suns. 
The Charlotte Hornets trade -5 GM points.The Phoenix Suns receive 5 GM points.
In a deal that also netted the Hornets a 2016 1st rounder from PHO, the deal before FA looks good for the Hornets. Asik plays ok as a space filler in 2k and helped PHO make the most of their season. Plus they were able to shift Humphries contract and poor Larry off their books. Charlotte continued their journey into the draft, but as the year turns over Phoenix Roster looks bare and we can only guess what their starting line up will look like this season coming. With RFA, sign and trades, and then Monta's F loyalty, Charlotte may have netted another lottery pick.

The Charlotte Hornets send Louis Williams to the San Antonio Spurs. 
The Charlotte Hornets trade -24 GM points

The San Antonio Spurs use their trade exception over $ 5,450,000. 
The San Antonio Spurs send Jerian Grant to the LA Clippers.

The LA Clippers send Myles Turner to the Charlotte Hornets. 
The LA Clippers receive 24 GM points.

Two trades combined into one here, so we can see the fallout from the pick movement. One of the guns from the Charlotte season was Sweet Lou, but he wasn't a part of the Hornets future so they trade him for a pick, which they then moved along with picks to the Clips to move up six spots to get Turner. With the great Larry Bird already extolling the virtues of the raw Turner, we might see this trade as a big win for the Hornets. Or Turner flames out and we think no more of this trade as Lou's contract expired and who knows where he will play at the beginning of the season.

Best FA Signing

Danny Granger
Nice little pick up on a cheap deal for 2k. He shot well enough, maybe a bit too many 3s (5pg) considering only 33% shooting from that range. 12.5 PPG 3 RPG and a few other stats in 25 MPG. Serviceable player on a good deal. Not many other guys to choose from here.

Worst FA Signing

Ronny Turiaf
Lasted a few months on the roster, didn't get a game.

Star

EGor and Sweet Lou were right up there together, but Eric Gordon wins the day. If his contract wasn't so large he would have been moved for a pick during the season. 35% on 3's on 8.2 shots per game from deep. 28.6 PPG which was good enough for 6th best in the league. 3.3 rebounds per game is pretty good considering size and competition he had for them from his team. He even got 2 assists per game. Without him who knows who could have carried the scoring load though out the season.

Surprise

The point guard spot manned by Elfrid Payton and Kendall Marshall was the surprise for the season. Sure GM Digeze hoped that Elfird would be as good as he is, but for him to pan out the way he did with Marshall coming back from the brink of obscurity to form a PG team was more than expected. The rookie and sophomore combined  for 20 PPG, 5.6 RPG, 11.4 APG, and 3.4 SPG. Very solid play by both guards for very low cost. Elfrid was GM Digeze's guy from before the draft and was always going to be a centerpiece for the team going forward, but combined with Marshall made a great contribution from that spot.

Goat

Cole Aldrich gets the honour of being the goat for the team. He edges out the competition because he was able to consistently be good enough to get minutes, but bad enough never to do much with those minutes. Playing in 78 games and getting 12 starts he averaged 17.9 MPG and scored 3.1 PPG and 4.3 RPG. There are many other worthy candidates for this award but for me consistency counts for something.

Draft Report Card

Round 1: Mario Hezonja (Pick 5), Kristaps Porzingis (Pick 8), Myles Turner (Pick 11)
Round 2: Joseph Young (Pick 36)
So from the first round you have a guy with supreme JR Smith level confidence, a Euro who slipped, and a guy who GM's thought might not be durable. What do they all have in common?Potential. Mario the 6'11 centre or power forward... I mean 6'7 SG/SF played well in Summer League and may find a spot behind Shump/Egor/Burks/Harris/Granger to start with, but by the end of the year will be filling it up as a prototypical SG for NBA 2k engines. High Usage, long range bomber with a touch of athleticism, yes please! 

Porzingis could be Dirk lite or Bargnani lite, until we update the engine I can't see much coming from this raw rookie.

Turner could earn himself some minutes as a rebounder and shot blocker. We might see him develop quicker than the other two in the NBA and this hopefully will pay dividends for Digeze sooner. If he doesn't sit out every second week due to injury.
Joseph Young was quietly picked up in the second round and might be a Sweet Lou replacement or bench filler. Luck will need to be on Young's side for him to break through the wing depth in the Hornets line up.

Looking to the Future

Front court depth needs to be the focal point for Digeze. His wings are flooded with youth and potential and the PG spot is surprisingly set. With Humphries and Landry being the only bigs under contract who will play this season, and rookies Porzingas and Turner finding their feet trades will need to be made to bring some bodies up front. The cap seems spacious, but once Digeze picks up his RFA's his space is gone.

Could we see old man EGor (26yo) with his expiring deal leave town to bring in another big? Will the youth movement see all players over 25 out of town? The best idea would be to look for some solid vets to fill out the roster around the young core of Payton, Shump, and Burks.
Will Kendall Marshall get re-signed after his performance last year, or will the Hornets go in another direction? Probably not.

Upcoming Free Agents

Iman Shumpert (RFA) injured - most likely re-signed
Alec Burks (RFA) coming back from injury - most likely re-signed
Kendall Marshall played well but not worth the point spend to keep him
Cole Aldrich (PO) probably get comfortable having him around
Robert Sacre - this -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxVuySQT-eY
Earl Clark - Raptors905 have him signed so it might be a great idea to buy low before his gets his call up to the big league again
Samuel Dalembert NBA quote "Samuel Dalembert needs to get in better shape" - Rick Carlisle 29/09/2015
Larry "suchashame" Sanders - I hope he finds what he wants out of life. Walking away from the NBA seems like something he might regret.

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