Hornets Hype

This is just a heads up for those who don’t know: Hornets.com is giving away a set of season tickets for the rest of the year. You have 24 hours to enter, which means until noon tomorrow (Thursday, 12/10). Hey, it’s worth a shot!

We’ve already got ‘em but I thought I’d get the word out, in case anyone who reads the site wants to enter. You know how I feel about things that are free…

I love this interview. They’re wearing matching outfits!

They actually cut off the funniest part, which was after they said goodbye. They cut back over to the feed for a couple of seconds, and Little CP was trying to shove all the wires into his mouth. I don’t think Chris Paul knew they were still on the air. The NBA TV crew got a great kick out of it. In all seriousness, though, I think we will all agree that it’s a great relief to see Our Small Hero back on the floor. (Not the really small one, the other one. Haha.)

Huge news : Chris Paul practiced today!

It was his first practice since spraining his ankle in the Blazers game. The fact that the team gave no official timeline worried a lot of Hornets fans. Weeks? Months? No one was saying. And yet– surprise!– here he is practicing, and now NOLA.com is saying he hasn’t been ruled out for tomorrow night’s game. Tomorrow! Wow. That’s…. unexpected.

CP participated in a full contact workout. The Hornets have been 4-4 in his absence.

This is just a random photograph of Chris Paul practicing. It is meant to be symbolic.

In case you turned off the game, the Hornets bench went on a 28-16 run in the fourth quarter and managed to close the gap to 9 points in the last minute, before finally losing to the Lakers 110-99. There’s about a minute left. The Hornets foul. I thought nothing of it– it’s a perfectly reasonable thing to be doing. It’s under ten, you have timeouts, things can happen. We’ve already seen one game this year (the Dallas overtime win) where it did happen. Clock runs down. Hornets foul again. There’s 4 seconds left and they have the ball. It wasn’t really until then that I notice the crowd is booing. CST does a close-up on the Hornets bench, and it’s Posey (you might have known he’d be behind something like this) and Armstrong hollering at the rookies to go, go, go. Collison throws up a shot that doesn’t make it, game ends.

What’s the fuss? Apparently the Lakers fans have some sort of taco promotion if they score over 100 and hold their opponent to less than 100. It wouldn’t  have annoyed me so much if I hadn’t seen fans of two other teams, the Raptors and the Blazers, complaining on Twitter earlier in the night about the exact same thing: fans who cheer at the wrong times because they want free food. We’ve got one of those food promotions too, for Popeyes, only luckily ours is fairly new and people don’t usually make a huge deal over it. I think it’s tacky.

You wanna mess with the rooks? You gotta go through me.

But then I check Twitter and see several people in my feed making fun of the Hornets bench for trying, and man, that got me fired up. “If they had played that hard the whole game they wouldn’t have been down 20!” “Lakers fans shouldn’t be embarrassed because they cheer louder for tacos than the game– the Hornets should be embarrassed for losing!” “The Hornets are poor sports for not rolling over!” (I made sure to bookmark that one for days when I need a good laugh.) Etc. One of these people was an ESPN writer, which is kind of inexplicable to me.

You people did notice that this wasn’t exactly the lineup that lost the game? The Hornets had three guards out there under 6-4, and were playing 6-9 Darius Songaila at center. I mean, that’s not exactly an NBA lineup. That’s serious small ball, and they were pushing the pace.

Two of those guys were rookies. Three of them were under the age of 23. Four of them have been in the league three years or less. Darren Collison is a rookie. Marcus Thornton is a rookie, who was 0-4 in the first three quarters, and is fighting for a spot in the starting lineup, while trying hard to get out of a three game shooting slump. Bobby Brown, who didn’t meet a three ball 4 seconds into the shot clock he didn’t like all evening, has to prove he shouldn’t be glued to the bench forever when Chris Paul gets back. Julian Wright is playing to get back in the rotation. Darius Songaila was trying because he is a bench vet who always tries. They’re playing for minutes. They’re playing for their careers.

It’s embarrassing the Hornets bench tried to erase a lead?

I’m sorry, have we met? I’m Ticktock6, I’m a Hornets fan. I was sitting in the stands all forty-eight minutes of a 58 point home playoff blowout, for which I did not receive free food. A blowout in which a bunch of veteran bench players managed to turn a thirty point deficit into almost a sixty point hole by completely giving up. That’s embarrassing. The point of this isn’t to get into a game of  “who’s a better fan,” but some people last night on Twitter were trying to tell me the meaning of embarrassing.

You know what? I don’t play basketball. I wasn’t on the floor in LA last night. The bottom line is, I don’t have to live with giving up at the end of a blowout. The five guys on the floor do.

With the loss at Sacramento the other night, the Hornets fell to 1-8 on the road this year. This is a new look for our fave team, which actually sported a better record on the road than at home in early 2007-08. Ah, but those were different days… the Hornets were sneaking up on teams, and New Orleans Arena wasn’t quite so full of loudness and win. (I can’t really complain, being a season ticketholder– I’ve only seen two losses live in a waaaayyy down season, and that’s including preseason: NO is 6-2 at home.) Seriously, though, the team needs to get its road mojo back. Thoughts?

Lil Buckets' home and away look... what's up with that?

1) More drunks. Look, I am sure there are drunk people in every arena. I am not naive. But there are a lot of drunk people in New Orleans. The Hornets need to import like 100 bums, you know, from off the street is okay, and give them free beer. Maybe beads too. Do you think the drunks would yell more with beads? Hell, give the drunks some beads.

2) Lil Buckets needs to wear his sleeve! Has anyone else noticed this but me? I actually didn’t notice till last week. Marcus Thornton wears a shooting sleeve on his left arm in all the home games but never on the road. Why? I am dying to know. But we’re begging him. Wear the damn sleeve. Please.

3) Place a large humidifying machine in the locker room and all hotel rooms and practice areas. Make it very damp and gross. This is to simulate New Orleans’ humidity.

4) Bust out the pregame prayer. Surely we’re the only arena that has that. Let’s take George Shinn’s holy rollerisms on the road! Jesus for everyone! In every city! (Disclaimer: My distaste for the pregame prayer is not a knock on Christians. It is not meant to be intended that way. We do not like the prayer because it reflects a lack of diversity. You may feel free to disagree with us. We’ll still love you.) We are at the point where prayer might be a legitimate option.

5) Is David West sitting on his bouncy ball on the road this year? I haven’t noticed. If he’s not, he needs to be.

6) Pass out iPods to the team and play “SHOUT!” on the Hornets bench. This song wins games. It is statistically impossible for the Hornets to lose a game once “SHOUT” has been played in the fourth quarter. Why is it statistically impossible? Because it’s never happened. “SHOUT” is like 65-0, seriously. It’s an ice cold closer.

7) I know James Posey distributes hugs on the road. But does he give fist bumps to the entire bench, coaches, team personnel, the waterboy, the ballboys, and the like six other random people who happen to be sitting around there? C’mon, Hornets. Get this man some random people to fist bump. Each extra person is an extra dose of PURE LUCK. Filled with champagne and championship sparkles and stuff.

8.) Peja on a Stick. I’m sure you have room for one on the plane. Put one of the rooks in charge of it.