I promised myself this season that I would not miss writing a recap for my Charlotte Hornets. In years past, Trade Street Post always made sure that someone would cover every game. Even in the 7-win season, we did a really good job of at least putting something out there, no matter how bad it hurt. Strangely, that 7-win season did not hurt nearly as much as this Hornets season is hurting now. At 6-17, the Hornets are a game away from tying those 7 wins, but I know that we will never repeat such a horrible win percentage. Honestly it isn’t the win percentage that hurts this year. It is just the overall effort that we are seeing on the court every night. Part of the problem falls on the players, and a heavier part falls on the coaching.
In case you have not noticed, I usually write the game recaps a day later than the news media does. There are a few reasons for that. First and foremost, it is because this is my hobby. I have no deadlines to get my write-up to the editor. I am the editor, so when I can get it done, I get it done. Next, I’m the writer at Trade Street Post. I am the editor and writer. I’m running most everything here at the site, and aside from the other side articles my writers produce for the website, I’m the guy that covers all of the games. This makes my 22nd recap. This one will incorporate games 22 and 23, so you are getting a two-for-one. Lastly, I am a Charlotte Hornets fan. I was a Charlotte Bobcats fan. I was also a Charlotte Hornets fan. I have always loved this team. The result of always loving a team is that you get emotional when you watch the game. If you follow me on Twitter (@tradestreetpost), sometimes, you can tell I am getting agitated at the team. I get mad on Twitter. That is something that I did not used to do. With that anger also comes lots of anger from other fans, lots of negative ideas, lots of drastic measure suggestions. The longer you sit on Twitter and read it all, the easier it is to fall into spouting out all of what the negativity is. The purpose of Trade Street Post is for me, a life long fan, to share my thoughts about the direction of the team and interpretation of their performance in MY eyes. The result is to hope that folks will comment here, and Twitter, and Facebook. I want fans to share in their agreement, or disagreement of my thoughts and observations. If I write the recap as soon as the games end, some of those ideas and thoughts that I have are pure emotion fueled by the anger I am absorbing from enraged fans. This season has given every single fan a reason to be enraged. I deflect and defer that anger to try and rationalize things and I do it a day after I have calmed down. With all of this said, I will now briefly touch on why we lost the last 2 games.
Charlotte versus Memphis
We lost a double-overtime game against one of the best teams in the NBA. Memphis, who is sporting a now 19-4 record, was no easy team to face and we rode that team into 2 overtimes before we fell to them, 113-107. This could have been a momentum building victory had we played a more solid man-to-man defense, but a corner 3 by a wide open Vince Carter set into motion the game’s extension into 2 overtimes. Why did we lose? Well, a vast part of our loss is the same thing that won so many games for us last season; defense. Last season, we were a defensive juggernaut. While our offense was far from stellar, it was enough to put points on the board. The defense kept the other team from scoring as well, and the result was wins. This year, with the addition of Brian Roberts, Lance Stephenson, PJ Hairston, Marvin Williams, and Noah Vonleh…well, it has not really helped at all. On the addition by subtraction, let me explain who for what, where and why.
We lost Josh McRoberts. For clarification to the fans, it was not about the money. It was more about the contract length. We had McBob last season and we had Cody Zeller. We needed McBob in order to teach Zeller to a certain extent. McRoberts was a key player to keep the ball moving around, making great passes, and grabbing rebounds. He would also be able to hit the 3-pointers when they were needed. We don’t have him now, and it is because we drafted another PF this past off-season because he was the best talent available that fell to us. Obviously, Zeller and Vonleh are the future, so signing McRoberts to a 4-year deal would not have been fair to him, Zeller, or Vonleh, as playing time would not be there for the rookies or for McRoberts. I know we are not seeing Vonleh, but just be patient. We will see him when he is ready. That is a discussion for another day.
Also, in losing Josh McRoberts, understand that his replacement is not Marvin Williams. Marvin was brought in to physically fill a 3rd power forward position, but his skill set does not match to McRoberts at all. Lance Stephenson is the skill set that was brought in to fill McBob’s shoes. My belief was that we needed a scorer at shooting guard. Lance is not a volume scorer. Gary Neal can be a volume scorer, but he provides scoring with a regression on defense.
PJ Hairston and Noah Vonleh were additions due to the NBA draft. They really did not replace anyone, and you do not see much of them on the court yet, so just consider them a “work in process” for the team. I briefly covered that Vonleh was the best talent available at our first pick in the draft, so we snagged him. Think of the season that we drafted Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Jeffery Taylor. We added good players at the SF position, and this year we added another good player at the PF position. He is just going to take time to develop. I’m not talking 4 years, but I am talking at least a healthy portion of this season. I still fear that the PJ Hairston signing was a bit of a publicity stunt to “bring home” a former UNC player just because he was what the fans wanted. I won’t even touch the year we drafted Felton and May. I’ll just say that was not a good idea, and I am wondering whether drafting Hairston was a good idea or not. He’s a product from the D-League, and has a little experience, and “could” become an impact player sooner than some of the others that were drafted, but as of right now, I’m thinking that keeping Chris Douglas-Roberts might have been the better move. I will say that if a trade goes down that moves Henderson to another team; it makes sense for the team to have Hairston. I just need Hairston to improve his decision making, on and off the court.
Brian Roberts was brought in to fill the hole left from the Sessions trade, and Luke Ridnour being gone. I’ve not seen anything yet that makes me like the guy we got to fill in behind Kemba. 1 to 2 decent games do not make for a good backup PG. We needed a consistent guy, and we have Roberts instead. Again, I do not know why he isn’t fitting.
Oh yeah, that recap…
In short, the guys played well against one of the NBA’s finest. More than anything, we collapsed on defense down the stretch. We allowed 45.9% field goal shooting and we only mustered 41.8% ourselves. Al being 7-21 and refusing to have his hands up on defense allowed for way too many Marc Gasol shots at the end of the game. It is always amazing how the bend-down-and-stare-down-the-shooter defense is never as effective as the hands-in-the-shooter’s-face defense works. Al, please put your hands up on defense. HANDS UP! Marc Gasol was 8-20 with 19 points versus Al’s 16 points. That was my only big takeaway from that game. We played lax defense down the stretch that allowed for easy shots that should have never gone in. Going to double-overtime also meant that this was a win we really, REALLY needed since we had another game the next night. We lost, the players were exhausted, and back to Charlotte they came to face the Nets on Saturday.
Charlotte Versus Brooklyn
We scored 17 points in the 1st and 3rd quarter. I guess you can guess what that results in. We fell to the Nets 114-87 last night. Heavy legs and more of the same mess we’ve seen for the past 22 games. We allowed red-hot shooting from the 3-point line (the Nets shot 16-23 from 3 which is 69.6%), allowed 58.3% field goal shooting from the floor compared to our 39.2%, we were out-rebounded 43-34 and out-assisted 29-16. So, was exhaustion the key? Are the Nets that much better? The Nets blew us out by 27 points on our home court, without Lopez or Williams even playing. Michael Kidd-Gilchrist led all of our scorers with 15 points, Brian Roberts with 14, then Lance and Kemba with 11 a piece. Our starters gave us a total of 37 points in the game last night. Part of that reason is because they didn’t play 30 minutes due to the blowout.
Bright spots?
The starters got some rest. The arena was emptying out by mid-way through the 3rd, so traffic going home wasn’t bad at all.
What can be said about a loss like this? I didn’t have a good feeling about this game after the double-OT loss, and I was right. I just expected that it would have been some sort of contest. Sadly, it wasn’t. No effort at all. If anyone is wondering, Vonleh was inactive last night, Hairston was 0-5 in 12 minutes of play, and we have 1 more game before Jeffery Taylor returns.
Let’s pray that when we play the Cavaliers on Monday, the Hornets show up with a hunger to win. They have the tools. They have the talent. At this point, I’m wondering where their heart is. I’ve seen folks jokingly say “Bring Back the Bobcats”. Here’s a reality check for everyone; they never left, they just changed clothes.
Come on Hornets; LET’S GO!
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