The Charlotte Hornets said goodbye to key rotation players this offseason, placing more of the burden on Kemba Walker’s shoulders. Is he up to the challenge?
The Charlotte Hornets hit this offseason with the bittersweet taste of success in their mouths.
Preseason prognosticators wrote off the Hornets, a team coming off of a 33-win season with an uncertain offseason. Its best defensive player, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, was out for half the season, and its second-best was now suiting up for the Toronto Raptors.
Charlotte stuck it to the media and the league en route to 48 wins and a tie for third in the East. Despite losing multiple players to injury during the playoffs they pushed the Miami Heat to seven games, finally losing under the weight of Dwyane Wade’s unfathomable shot-making.
With success often comes a price, and Charlotte was forced to pay up this summer. Five key rotation players all hit free agency, and Charlotte’s own cap savvy the last few offseasons came to haunt them. Without the ability to re-sign everyone, they had to say goodbye to Jeremy Lin, Courtney Lee, and Al Jefferson.
The Hornets used their first-round draft pick and small amounts of cap space to bring in Ramon Sessions, Marco Belinelli, and Roy Hibbert respectively to replace their lost players. Each replacement is both a different type of player than their predecessor, and almost certainly a step down in talent and fit.
The question then arises, what do we make of the upcoming season for the Charlotte Hornets? Can head coach Steve Clifford work his magic and make the pieces fit together again? Will the return of a fully healthy Michael Kidd-Gilchrist offset the team’s losses?
These are important questions, and both Clifford and Kidd-Gilchrist will be vital for this team’s playoff aspirations. But more so than the addition of Nic Batum last year, or the growth of Cody Zeller, or the career resurgence of Marvin Williams, the Hornets’ seasons was fueled by elite point guard play.
Kemba Walker and Jeremy Lin formed one of the best 1-2 punches at point guard in the league last season, giving the Hornets 48 minutes of strong play from the point. Lin is now the centerpiece in Brooklyn, and Ramon Sessions is not the sort of player to lay large expectations on. The weight of success for Charlotte is now firmly on Kemba Walker’s shoulders.
Walker enjoyed a career year last season, taking a step from solid starter to All-Star candidate. After averaging 70 games played over his first four seasons, Walker played in 81 last season. He increased his scoring average from 16.2 over those first four seasons to 20.9 last year, good for 16th in the league and sixth among point guards. On a quirky note, that mark paced the Southeast division, where no other player cracked 20 points per game.
The former UConn hero didn’t just increase his point totals, but stepped up in other areas as well. Walker set career highs in rebounds, blocks, free throws made and three-pointers made. His shooting efficiency, long a knock against him, took a huge leap forward as well. His true shooting percentage of 55.4 percent was by far a career high, and he shot 37 percent from long-range after never hitting more than 33 percent in prior year.
The advanced stats stand behind Walker’s career year as well, showing a player who broke through onto another plane. He increased his PER from an above-average level to the upper echelon in the league, and his box plus-minus almost doubled. To put the icing on the cake, Walker had more win shares last season than he did in the previous two combined.
Pivoting to the upcoming season, all eyes will be trained on Walker to see if last season was a fluke or a transformation. Without Jeremy Lin and Courtney Lee, will Walker be able to flourish as he did last season? Swapping shooters out for Michael Kidd-Gilchrist could tighten up spacing on the court; can Walker still find space to operate?
These questions and more abound as the team’s fortunes are parsed out. Las Vegas’ over/under totals have Charlotte pegged at eighth in the East, just ahead of the New York Knicks, Miami Heat, and Chicago Bulls. ESPN’s Summer Forecast has the Hornets at seventh, and Bleacher Report has them as high as fifth.
Where the Hornets end up will depend on a multitude of factors, many of them external to the team. If players on the New York Knicks stay healthy, they could be a dangerous squad in the East. New coaches in Indiana, Orlando, and Washington could see their teams go in any number of directions. The Brooklyn Nets…well, Charlotte will finish at least 14th.
But ultimately Charlotte controls its own destiny. How do they respond to success, having won the franchise’s first playoff games since restarting in Charlotte? Will career years from Nic Batum and Marvin Williams mean regression? Can Steve Clifford revitalize Roy Hibbert’s career?
The questions continue to swirl, but at the center is Kemba Walker. If he performs at the level he did last season, this team’s floor is probably a postseason appearance. However, the Hornets’ hopes for improvement this year rely heavily on their X-factor continuing his upward ascension. The new Kemba Walker combines confidence with production, and that’s a mixture for success.
And all signs point to another trip to the playoffs, and another stellar season from #15.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
