OK, so we all appear to have perked up remarkably fast. It’s good to see that Hornets fans are resilient. Since people seem to be interested in discussing the future in the previous post, I’m going to start a thread. We are definitely in the market to upgrade the bench, particularly at SF and SG. Backup PF to play behind David West and a decision on whether Hilton Armstrong’s going to be enough to backup TC in the future, or whether we dump our umpteen centers-Byron-doesn’t-trust for one good guy, are also considerations. If Pargo doesn’t opt to stay, we need another point guard.
We’ve got Melvin Ely ($890K), Jannero Pargo ($2M), Chris Andersen ($1.2M), Ryan Bowen ($1M), and Bonzi Wells ($2.2M) who could walk. We have Mike James ($6M) and Rasual Butler ($3.6M) who we might be looking to dump because of their large salaries/limited playing time.
Keep in mind the Hornets’ major priority is signing Chris Paul to an extension this summer, since he’s still on his rookie contract, and they’ve already said they’ll be giving him whatever he wants. They’re also looking to extend Byron Scott.
Here are some free agents available (I’m sticking to the ones that I’ve seen tossed around and are mildly realistic):
Chris Duhon, PG (depending on whether Chicago wants to draft Beasley or Rose with their #1 pick)
Eduardo Najera, PF
Monta Ellis, SG (pipe dream, people, his price will go up)
Matt Barnes, PF
Mickael Pietrus, SF
Elton Brand, PF (cannot afford)
Corey Maggette, SF (cannot afford, but Byron Scott apparently has always liked him and might pull something to get him)
DeSagana Diop, C
Stromile Swift, PF
CJ Miles, SG (restricted but real young)
Josh Childress, SF (restricted, but if the Hawks are willing to deal…)
Here’s the thread in which everyone on Hornets Report freaks out when the Hornets get the #4 pick after concluding their 18-64 season. See, and you didn’t think anything could make you feel better today. “Noooo the franchise is cursed!!” It’s funny in retrospect.
No one knew then that that #4 pick would turn out to be the best thing to happen to the Hornets. Chris Paul wasn’t supposed to fall to #4. They weren’t supposed to get that pick.
Or maybe they were.
The ping pong ball that saved the New Orleans Hornets.
(P.S. The Chicago Bulls, with a 1.7 percentage chance, just got the #1 pick minutes ago. Conspiracy theorists, have at it…)
So it’s hard to see right now. It’s really hard to see.
And yet if you asked me when I began this blog in January, I would have told you, “All I want? At least second round and the team stays in New Orleans.”
Guys, it’s going to happen. It’s happening all around you. Back in January, it was flat-out the only thing I cared about. Eighteen thousand people knew it last night. Eighteen thousand, in a building that only four months ago used to echo hollowly with the cheers of barely half that. Thank you, New Orleans.
And then I come home from the game and flip on the TV, only to hear Chris Paul saying, “It almost brought tears to my eyes, because the fans… I think that’s the thing about our team is that we’re really upset that we lost, but I think the thing that hurts the worst is the fact that it’s summer now. You go your separate ways. We don’t get an opportunity to come in before the game and see the thousands of gold t-shirts, the thousands of white t-shirts, and hear our fans going nuts. We gotta wait a few months to hear that again, and I think that’s the part that hurts so bad.”
You come back strong next year, CP, you hear me? Because you know what? We’ll miss you too.
Chris Paul will win a championship. Book it. The Hornets could very conceivably be in the Finals within the next 2-4 years.
But I won’t forget this team.
And I know that’s no consolation right now for a guy like CP3, who is 100% a competitor. Kobe Bryant may have a trophy that says he’s MVP, but he isn’t, and will never be, The Guy Who Saved Basketball in L.A. Whoever wins the title this year, they are not, and will never be, the Team That Saved Basketball in whatever city.
Believe that, and know that we won something here this season.
I didn’t mean to fall in love with basketball. I didn’t mean to start a blog. But here I am, and, even hungover on a Tuesday morning after staring blankly at a computer screen until 3 AM, I can’t say I’d take back any of it. It’s hard to know that you have everything you wanted, and still feel this way.
Am I going to be here next year? Well, I’m not sure I knew how much I was signing myself up for here. Because if “Higher and Higher” is going to be what I say about the team, then we’ve got to go higher too. I’ve got to figure out what I want to do with HornetsHype. There will probably be some changes and additions over the summer. In fact, for one thing, I can pretty much guarantee that this blog will not have a “Demands” section next season, though the S#*t List will stay. Let’s check them out:
“More games on national TV.” No doubt the NBA knows what they have here now. Right now that sound you hear is them scrabbling to hitch themselves to Chris Paul like they hitched themselves to D-Wayne Wade. Check.
“Actual articles about the team from the national media.” Man, we seem so far from the days of the negative and derisive attendance article, don’t we? And yet it’s just three months. Check.
“Recognition of the Greatness That Is Chris Paul.” Check x10.
“More Julian Wright.” Oh, no doubt. He stepped up big for the Hornets toward the end of the season, and I look forward to seeing him incorporated to a greater degree next year. Check.
“Better coverage from the Times Picayune.” This is a huge one for us here at HornetsHype. They finally stepped it up, but T.P. Watchdog will continue to monitor the situation warily when football season starts. Check.
See? All I wanted.
It just really, really sucks right now. I don’t really have the heart to link up any articles, because I can’t deal with reading more than a couple of them. I’m done with the postgame video. Watching Tyson Chandler talking in the locker room, red-faced and avoiding the camera with his eyes, was more than enough heartbreak for me.
In the end, maybe it’s more about experience than we Hornets fans wanted to admit.
You live, you learn.
You take this morning. And you learn who you want to be.
No, seriously. Go to this thread on Hornets Report. I promise it will make you feel better, if you keep in mind that it was posted prior to the game. Just click on it. I promise… Peja on a Stick in London!
P.S. SPURS TROLL INDEX: HIGH. If you are trolling, I will delete you. Consider yourself fairly warned. Wah, wah, free speech, wah, Hornets fans suck. I’m not the one who spends my workday after victories making myself feel cool by saying douchey things on the internet. You’re a real f@*king winner. Whatever. Go complain about it to the owner of the site… Oh wait.
that the Spurs are a better team. I’m sorry. There’s nothing anyone can say. I know at this end of the season moment is where you’re supposed to be gracious. Where you’re supposed to wax poetic about how great of a season it was. That’s not going to happen here. Check back tomorrow for ticktock’s post if you want that.
All game, we and the people around us were screaming about the calls. But we thought, a real champion overcomes bad calls. We thought, the Hornets couldn’t make a shot. They were outrebounded. They were outdone from the 3 point and free throw lines. But that said, the Hornets kept fighting and refused to surrender. That being the case, the Hornets were still within 4 points with 3 minutes left in the game. The Spurs made every fucking shot they could and they were still only up by 4. Then a touch foul. Take two free throws. People in the stands go nuts. And suddenly, when you’re that close, you realize that with all the calls that went against you and you’re still there, that suddenly, not just “all” those bad calls made a difference, but any one or two might have changed the game. Suddenly, you’re thinking of the 2nd quarter when you had a 1 point lead, and then a timeout, a missed shot, and a touch foul turned it around.
The refs can’t throw a blowout, but they can change a close game. Take for example this switch. CP goes to the basket and lays it in. Traveling call. Seriously? (Anyone see the 3-4 steps Lebron took at the end of his Game 7 and still got the and 1? Yeah. ) Then the Spurs march down and score. So it’s not just a 2 point switch, it’s 4. Add to that the 187 steps Ginobli takes at the other end of the floor, moving from one side of the paint to the other somehow, which brought the entire back bowl out of their seats–a violation that was NOT called–and the subsequent basket and 1 and it’s a free 3 points. Crazy. You have Mo Pete slapped on a three miss, D-West and Tyson and CP driving and no and 1s, while Parker, Duncan, and Ginobli get them time and time again. Now I have to listen to the idiots on NBAtv say Robert Horry has the experience, and the young Hornets don’t, after the cheap fucking shot he took the other night. After all the pulls and pushes and grabs that Bowen got away with, he’s savvy. Fuck, a few calls go different and they’re all saying the Spurs are too old and we’re the next dynasty.
Fuck the Spurs. I’m sorry. I know already how most of the Hornets blogosphere will react to this, let alone the rest of the country. But I don’t care. It’s my blog. I was there. And this is my opinion. My take. Two games in a row were decided by refs, when the Hornets were up 3-2. You say the Hornets lost it, but when they couldn’t get a call on their OWN HOME FLOOR, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me. It’s easy for the Spurs to be gracious. They’re moving on. But after watching the Celtics get fucked by the refs, and bailed out by Paul Pierce, and the Hornets get fucked tonight, it’s obvious that the calls ordained for the first 20-some games of the conference semifinals were on the reverse in these game 7s. The NBA has a long history of conspiracy theories and there’s a reason for it. People are saying Lebron is king, so they want him to win. People are saying the Spurs “aren’t a dynasty” because they’ve never won consecutive championships. Fuck, well, then, just give them one more.
I don’t care. You can’t tell me otherwise. The Hornets were the better team. Were they beat? Yes. Were they beat by a better team? No.
All 14 of the players (and those of you who were on the team and are now elsewhere), the coaches, trainers, and assistants, I salute you. You guys are the best team this city has ever seen. Mr. Shinn, the Hornets organization, you’ve been amazing. As far as the Spurs go, you’ve won 4 championships. Congratulations. But this series, you stole it. No one can convince me otherwise. I hate you.
It’s almost refreshingly simple. Almost. Two roads diverged in a wood.
Tonight there are only two outcomes, two paths: Win, and go to the Conference Finals. Or lose, and the season ends.
Tonight the New Orleans Hornets have the opportunity to take the next step, a step that wasn’t supposed to come until next year, or the year after. A step that was supposed to come after a gradual building process. Lots of young teams come out of nowhere to have playoff success, but they’re 6 or 8 seeds. Few go from missing the playoffs entirely to finishing the season as the #2 seed in the toughest Western Conference race in years. The Hornets skipped a step in the 3 year plan, as it were.
And tonight? It’s just one more step.
But how ironic that it’s fallen out in this particular fashion. Game 7 against the one team that could possibly deserve the title of “dynasty” over the past decade. Game 7 in a once-empty arena, an arena these Hornets filled. Game 7 to determine, decisively, if you’re really ready.
Because you already know the truth. If the Hornets are ready, there is no way they lose this game at home. They flat-out do not allow that to happen, because champions (or future champions) don’t. If they’re not ready, no one’s going to hold it against them– they’re simply not ready. But if this team is ready, then they know what has to happen here.
I’m jittery, man. I can’t really focus on anything. This week has been an emotional rollercoaster. You’re up, you’re down. You lose, you win. The season is over, it’s just beginning. What do you think about? What do you write about, on this day that might be the end of a season or the beginning of an era?
I find myself thinking about this season, about the moments that shone. Peja from the corner, forcing overtime against Dallas. And– it seems funny now to think of, doesn’t it?– possibly the defining moment of the season against the Spurs, the 102-78 road spanking that made people sit up a little and take notice, that drew 15,600 to the arena on the following Monday in what I consider to be the game that signaled the turning of the tide attendance-wise. The night that made people in New Orleans think, “Maybe I don’t want to be missing this.” Peja again in double OT at Phoenix. The night we booed the Boston Celtics off the court. Chris Paul vs. the Chicago Bulls. Chris Paul vs. the Dallas Mavericks. Chris Paul vs. the World.
The Suns are done, man. The Mavs? Done. The Spurs… they might have a couple more years left in them. But they’ve got to know they’ll fade, and the Hornets have got to know they’ll be clinging hard tonight.
But Chris Paul just turned 23. Tyson Chandler is 25, and David West 27. You better believe the Hornets have been building for this. As Chris Paul said the other night, “This is what we play for.”
Game 7, and here’s what it comes down to: You go down– and there’s no shame in that– to the defending champs.
In professional sports, one of the dumbest things you can do is run your mouth about an opponent. It just provides bulletin board material that the other team will use against you. Ask Rafer Alston about that. But I’ve been wondering for a little over a week now if the Hornets were not giving the Spurs a little too much respect.
You hear a lot that they’re the “champs.” Byron Scott affords them that respect in press conferences. Chris and Melvin refer to them as the “Champs” in interviews. Random White Dude just used the term on NBAtv. Here’s the thing. So far, there are no present-tense “champs.” No one has yet claimed the title for the 2007-08 season. What they are, accurately, and with all due respect, are the “former champs,” “defending champs,” or even “reigning champs.”
My initial thought was that it was dangerous to keep using this term. Because psychologically, aren’t you less likely to beat the “champs” than just some other contender? But then I thought, maybe it’s a ploy, to inflate the Spurs’ egos. But really, I’m not sure that’s Byron’s style. He’s a pretty straightforward guy.
So what my point is, is that I hope the Hornets don’t really see these guys as the “champs.” Because I strongly believe that the labels and words we use do have power. And the last thing they want to do in a difficult game 7 is psych themselves out. So while the Hornets need to see the Spurs as a very dangerous team, as a very seasoned team, and as a team that knows how to win championships, they are just another team. A team that, this year, is a lower seed. A team that according to the numbers should lose.
Therefore, you just have to have a greater respect, this year, for yourselves. The 18,000+ in the Arena will. And it’s just this that the organization as a whole has been saying all year long. Passion. Purpose. Pride. Believe it.
… in size XXXL. Haha. For those of you who didn’t know yet, we’re getting a WHITE out on Monday, with everyone in attendance getting a white Fan Up! shirt.
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