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No. 10: Charlotte Hornets
Last Season: 33-49
11th place in East; missed playoffs
This was a big summer for small markets. San Antonio reeled in LaMarcus Aldridge. Milwaukee landed Greg Monroe. And Charlotte got ... well, never mind.
Such is life for the bumbling Hornets, who are finding out the hard way that building a winning team in a non-destination city is tough sledding. The organization's name-reset and purple-and-teal makeover brought good vibes, but the sensation lasted about as long as the average bee sting. The Lance Stephenson signing turned out to be a huge whiff and the Hornets finished 33-49, five games out of a playoff spot.
Good news: The Stephenson era is over.
The bad news: The team still doesn't have a bankable star.
The Hornets added Nicolas Batum, Jeremy Lin and Frank Kaminsky III -- all solid pieces. But there's still no sign of a top-50 player on the roster. Even so, the Hornets enter 2015-16 thinking it can't possibly be as bad as 2014-15. ... Right?
Desperate for shooting and playmaking after losing Josh McRoberts, the Hornets brought in Stephenson on a three-year, $27 million deal. It didn't go well. Stephenson lost his starting job by January after suffering a strained groin midseason and finished with the worst 3-point-shooting season in NBA history with a minimum of 100 attempts (17.1 percent).
However, the Stephenson debacle doesn't explain the entirety of Charlotte's woes. Al Jefferson had flat tires all season and the Hornets routinely fired up bricks around him from the perimeter. Kemba Walker shot below 39 percent from the floor and only one rotation player (Marvin Williams) could hit a 3-pointer at a league-average rate. Michael Kidd-Gilchrist missed 27 games with ankle issues, and the Hornets limped to the worst offense in the NBA on a per-possession basis if we don't count the New York Knicks and Philadelphia Sixers, two teams who didn't mind missing everything.
The sickly Hornets offense was rescued somewhat by the midseason acquisition of Mo Williams. (Are there sadder statements?) However, the team's youngsters -- Cody Zeller, Noah Vonleh and Bismack Biyombo -- weren't able to develop into anything more than roster filler. Second-year head coach Steve Clifford scraped together a ninth-ranked defense, but the offense was just too anemic. After a hot January that raised playoff hopes, the Hornets shut down Jefferson in early April and lost the last six games by an average 16.8 points. Uncle.
The Hornets got to work immediately this offseason, finding a taker in Doc Rivers for the services of Stephenson. In return, the Hornets netted Spencer Hawes and Matt Barnes, the latter of whom went to Memphis almost immediately in a salary dump.
Without enough cap space to lure a big free agent, the Hornets poached buy-low candidate Batum away from Portland in exchange for Vonleh and Gerald Henderson on the eve of draft day. With the No. 9 pick, the team then, according to reports, turned down a tantalizing haul of as many as six draft picks from Boston -- four of them potentially first-rounders -- to select skilled big man Kaminsky. They must love Kaminsky.
With only small exceptions left to chase free agents, the Hornets did well to sign Lin, who brings some more competition to Walker at point guard. After letting Williams, Biyombo, Jeff Taylor and Jason Maxiell find work elsewhere, the Hornets inked Kidd-Gilchrist to a four-year, $52 million extension that should look like a steal once the cap skyrockets in 2017. An annual tradition, the Hornets couldn't help themselves and signed Carolina product Tyler Hansbrough to bolster their frontcourt. All is right in Carolina.
Hornets owner Michael Jordan and general manager Rich Cho seem to be in win-now mode for 2015-16. Just look at what they did this summer: Charlotte dealt first-round pick Vonleh to the Trail Blazers for veteran Batum, who is in the final year of his contract. The club also drafted Kaminsky, who analysts see as one of the most NBA-ready players in the 2015 NBA draft. Couple those moves with the signing of veterans Lin and Hansbrough, and it's clear Charlotte is looking to make the 2016 playoffs instead of playing for the 2016 NBA lottery.
"We feel like we've upgraded the roster quite a bit and we feel like we're better than last year, so I think that the pieces will fit together pretty well," Cho said last month. "We're looking forward to the season." -- Ian Begley
Projected Real Plus-Minus for starters
Kemba Walker, PG: +0.8
Jeremy Lin, SG: -0.2
Nicolas Batum, SF: +0.4
Cody Zeller, PF: +3.7
Al Jefferson, C: -1.1
Scouting reports on every player on the Hornets
Using shot data from 2014-15 and projected starters, Grantland's Kirk Goldsberry ranks each team's offensive efficiency based on square footage.
Al Jefferson doesn't stretch the floor (eight career 3s), but boy, he can score from the left block. He shoots almost 40 percent of his shots from there and makes an above-average 43.4 percent of them.
The Hornets were the league's worst 3-point shooting team last season (31.8 percent), and newcomer Batum, who shot a career-worst 32.4 percent in 2014-15, joins Walker (30.4). Ouch.
All About The Space: 22nd (395 square feet of above-average offense)
To identify players who stretch offenses the most, ESPN Stats & Information created the Kyle Korver Effect -- a metric on a 1-100 scale, factoring in 3PT%, 3-point attempt rate (percentage of total shots that come from 3-point range) and influence on teammate FG%.
Korver Effect: Marvin Williams (83.8) is one of five Hornets -- four of them newcomers -- to project as above average from 3. SCHOENE predicts the Hornets to shoot 34 percent from 3 this season (21st), a significant improvement over last year.
The big headliner here is Batum, who is still just 27 years old and coming off a season in Portland in which he shot just 32.4 percent from downtown. Batum instantly becomes the team's best playmaker and perimeter shooter, although that's admittedly not saying a whole lot. SCHOENE sees Batum having a bounce-back season in the shooting department, with a 35.1 percent conversion rate from deep and averages of 10.4 points, 5.1 rebounds and 4.3 assists. Considering their lack of pure distributors, Batum could become a Hedo Turkoglu or McRoberts-type facilitator for the club. Walker probably isn't the point guard of the future, but the Hornets may just keep finding placeholders like Lin at that position until Stephen Curry signs in 2017 (I'm kidding, Warriors fans. ... Kinda).
With Batum replacing Stephenson, SCHOENE sees Charlotte's offense improving. But the Kidd-Gilchrist season-ending injury deals a haymaker to their defensive firepower. As Pelton outlined recently, losing Kidd-Gilchrist on the perimeter sends their defensive ranking projection from ninth all the way down to 20th. Without a defensive backbone, the Hornets will be climbing uphill to get into the playoffs as SCHOENE projects a 34-48 record, good for 11th in the East. What was once a likely playoff team is now a longshot to make the playoffs (25 percent).
Real plus-minus wasn't as bullish on the 2015-16 Hornets (20th on offense, 10th on defense) even with Kidd-Gilchrist, and it agrees with SCHOENE that the Hornets will likely fight just to get into the playoff fringe. A lot has to go right for the Hornets to make the playoffs; Jefferson has to return to form; Batum and Jeremy Lamb have to thrive in their new gigs; and the 3-point barrage this preseason has to create easier driving lanes for Walker and Lin. But with Kidd-Gilchrist out and Jefferson's wheels being a problem, an eighth seed is the best-case scenario.
East No. 9 | East No. 11 | Full List
