Charlotte Has Lost Its Sting

Or maybe, the Hornets have been stung by some bad luck. The injuries have piled up in North Carolina, and so have the losses. Charlotte head coach Steve Clifford will be forced to dig deep into his available roster to find something that works, or face the possibility of missing the playoffs.

We’ve still got a long way to go. All-Star Weekend is still a good month or so away. After play resumes, we should have a pretty good idea of exactly what each team looks like in relation to their playoff potential. For now, the Hornets are one of those teams that you might call a “grab bag.”

The grab bag state of existence for Charlotte has a lot to do with the elephant in the room – injuries. You can’t control injuries beyond a reasonable extent. Sure, your training staff needs to do their part to keep the players ready to go, but no amount of kinesiology or medical magic can guarantee you won’t tear your labrum (Michael Kidd-Gilchrist) or meniscus (Al Jefferson). Things happen – sports have always been that way; human bodies have always been that way.

With the extended absences of Jefferson and Kidd-Gilchrist, life hasn’t exactly been easy for Charlotte. Players have had to step up and fill roles that they weren’t intended to take, and that isn’t good. What is good? The players who have stepped up were performing well at the beginning of the season. Recently, the injuries, which have now included Jeremy Lin, Nicolas Batum and Kemba Walker, have piled up to the point where the Hornets have started to slide.

How do you fix this slide? Well, get healthy, of course. Big Al and MKG are both expected back this season, what a boon for Charlotte to get the MKG news. The other players who have been banged up should be healthy before long. That All-Star Weekend mentioned earlier? Not many teams should be looking forward to the rest more than the Hornets.

Lin looks like he is playing through his ankle injury physically, but mentally he doesn’t look so great. In Wednesday night’s loss to the dumpster fire that is the Phoenix Suns, Lin started the game by botching a handoff, giving the ball directly to an opposing player. Later, Lin drove and found himself alone about five feet from the hoop. His shot barely grazed the front of the rim. Skip ahead, Lin has a drive stifled by some physical defense, passes out of it and then stops mid-play to turn and stare at the referee. And lastly, he also missed both free throws on a trip to the line down the stretch in a close game. Fortunately, an offensive rebound – which is of some significant VIOR importance for Charlotte – led to a Lin score after those missed attempts.

Sure, players have off nights and Lin was clearly off in a lot of ways. That was on display, as Lin’s woes were indicative of the team as a whole, losing to a Suns team that has been the worst in the league over the last 10 games. Conversely, in a post-injury world, Lin has a been a valuable piece in Clifford’s grab bag.

According to this filter on Basketball Reference, run by Nathan Walker of Nylon Calculus, the Hornets have found something that works. Actually, works particularly well. Spencer Hawes, Frank Kaminsky, Jeremy Lamb, Lin, and Marvin Williams: a five-man lineup that Basketball Reference says is currently seventh best lineup in the NBA in net margin at +21.6 using the filters run by Walker. Those filters are set to a minimum of 66 minutes with the reasoning being that the Golden State Warriors “lineup of death” has only played 66.7 minutes together this season, thus making sure that this query would include them. If, for example, you bumped the minimum minutes to 67, two Warriors lineups would fall out and the Hornets lineup would actually be fifth best in the entire league.

That lineup is working extremely well this year. Using that criteria, only the Warriors, Spurs and Pistons have better lineups this season.

Hawes, or homeless Steven Segal as I like to call him, seemed to spend more time in a suit than suited up for the Clippers last season. Kaminsky is a rookie, Lin is supposed to be a backup and Lamb was a guy that the Thunder deemed unnecessary, unlike big name players Dion Waiters and Kyle Singler. These are the grab bag pieces that are making it work.

Part of the story for Charlotte was supposed to be their depth. They lack a LeBron, Butler, or Wall, but they were supposed to be one of the more significantly deep teams in the East. Instead of being deep, the second line has been called into action. Eventually, that depth should be back – remember, Jefferson and MKG will be back yet this season. That depth alone should help the Hornets’ playoff push.

While they wait on health, Charlotte should lean more on this new lineup. For comparison, using the criteria of 10 or more games and five or more minutes, the Hornets have played five 5-man lineups while the Hawks have four, Pacers three, Nets three, and Knicks two. The Hornets are also the only one of those teams sampled that didn’t have a five-man lineup, using my criteria, that has played at least 20 games together this season, per NBA.com.

Another nice feature of this lineup is the improvement in first-round draft pick, Frank Kaminsky. The Wisconsin product was the Naismith College Player of the Year in 2015, but there was a healthy amount of skepticism about the lanky Badger entering the NBA. After a slow start, some acclimation combined with a bump in minutes has produced big results. Kaminsky has flashed some range, decent touch, and great footwork. He averaged 10.0 points and 4.6 rebounds in December, enough to make him a significant contributor on one of the league’s best lineups.

Clifford will have a lot of time to experiment with his lineups over the next month or so, and he shouldn’t be afraid to do it. The Hornets already lost to the Suns and are an Eastern Conference worst 2-8 over their last 10 games. Despite the slide, they are still only two games out of the playoff picture. With the anticipated return to health for Jefferson, Batum, Kidd-Gilchrist and the rest of the squad, now is the time to give that deep bench a run – that way when they truly are the bench, the Hornets can be a playoff team.