Apr 29, 2016; Charlotte, NC, USA; A view of “Enter The Swarm” t-shirts of the Charlotte Hornets before game six of the first round of the NBA Playoffs against the Miami Heat at Time Warner Cable Arena. Mandatory Credit: Sam Sharpe-USA TODAY Sports
The playoffs are here and we should all be soaking up every minute of that. However, there are 14 unlucky franchises that are missing out on the fun and already looking forward to next year. With them (and their fans) in mind, this series will take a look ahead and help lay out the priorities for this offseason.
After looking at Minnesota yesterday, we’re going with another team that’s disappointed not to be in the playoffs:
CHARLOTTE HORNETS
Outside of North Carolina, this may be one of the most forgotten franchises in the league. They’re not good, they’re not terrible, they’re just… there.
And they’re hard to predict. At its heart, is this Hornets core the same one that overachieved at 48-34 in 2015-16? Or the one that was underachieved at 36-46 this year? Chances are, the answer is somewhere in between. Even this season’s team was a solid +0.2 in point differential that suffered from some hard luck losses and some hot three-point shooting from their opponents. All in all, Charlotte is a decent team.
But in the NBA, “decent” is dangerous territory. You won’t have a high draft pick, and in Charlotte’s case, you won’t have much money to play around with either. The Hornets have about $90 million committed to next year’s team and the year after that, making it hard for them to juggle their roster. Given that, let’s see what we can do.
(1) veto any “job saving” moves
According to an article on ESPN today, GM Rich Cho’s job may be in jeopardy if the team doesn’t reach the playoffs next season. Cho’s done an admirable job in some ways, but there’s no denying the team’s stuck in mediocrity.
The danger here is that Cho may feel the need to make wild and splashy moves to justify his job. We saw that play out with Orlando GM Rob Hennigan this year. Feeling as though his time may be winding down, Hennigan made several interesting/desperate gambits — including signing Bismack Biyombo and Jeff Green, trading for Serge Ibaka, trading away Serge Ibaka, etc.
The Hornets can’t allow themselves to fall victim to that. Rich Cho should be allowed to make moves, but the front office and ownership needs to be careful to avoid any “win now” moves that would have serious ramifications for the franchise in the long term. Making the playoffs in 2017-18 should be the goal, but not the end goal.
(2) enroll Kemba Walker in acting class
I’ll be honest: Kemba Walker has far surpassed my expectations of him coming out of UConn. I figured he would be a low-efficiency scorer (maybe off the bench), but he’s developed into a genuine All-Star caliber player.
While Walker has improved his efficiency and his range, there’s still work to be done. This season, he finished 17th in the league in scoring with 23.3 points a game. Awesome. But a closer inspection shows that he did that with quite a bit of field goal attempts. Walker only attempted 4.5 free throws a game. The 16 players ahead of him on that scoring list averaged 7.5.
If Kemba Walker and the Hornets are going to score consistently, they need to consistently get to the free throw line. Smaller players like Isaiah Thomas (8.5 per game) are able to do that, often times with a little push and flail here and there, and Walker should start practicing those moves as well.
(3) pick the right white
Forgive me for the bad rhyme there, but I’m speaking of the Hornets’ proclivity to invest in big white dudes. They drafted Cody Zeller and Frank Kaminsky in the lottery, and also traded for Miles Plumlee and his long-term contract.
Casual NBA fans may snicker and lump together “big white guys” as though they’re all one and the same (and all stiffs) but that’s not the case.
Of that group, Cody Zeller is the one that stands out to me. In fact, I would suggest a jolt in minutes for Zeller (who still stands at 27.8 per game).
Young Zeller struggled his first few seasons in the NBA, but he’s improved every year since. His FG% has continued to rise — from 42.6% as a rookie, to 46.1%, to 52.9%, to 57.1% this past season. He’s not a good shot-blocker, but he’s solid on the defensive end because of his agility. In fact, ESPN’s real +/- metric lists him as a top 10 center, both in terms of defensive impact and overall play. We saw that play out, as the team struggled mightily without him.
In my mind, Zeller’s a better player than Frank Kaminsky. Kaminsky provides more spacing, but he’s still not lights-out there (shooting 32.8% from three this season). Zeller’s a much better player than Miles Plumlee, whose contract the world will never understand.
And in hindsight, this separation shouldn’t be a surprise. It’s hard to over-rely on “pedigree,” but Zeller has that. He was a bluechip recruit who starred at Indiana for 2 years before heading to the NBA. In fact, he would have been a lottery pick even after his freshman year but came back to try to win a title anyway. On the other hand, Plumlee and Kaminsky were lower recruits who only started contributing by their junior and senior years. In fact, the two had a grand total of 444 points as freshman and sophomores — combined. Zeller had more than that by himself, in both years at Indiana (563 as a freshman, 594 as a sophomore.)
Given Cody Zeller’s durability issues, it may be hard to rely on him for 30+ minutes a night, but Steve Clifford and company should try to raise that total as much as they can. I’m not suggesting that it will have as immediate of an effect as the Nuggets playing Nikola Jokic more, but even 2-3 more wins may be the difference between making the playoffs, and me writing about your lottery team next year.
