Hornets Hype

Per game stats are totally yesterday. Advanced stats are the only thing to use if you really want to sound educated about the game. What we bring you is neither. There’re plenty of good Hornets sites that do that. We bring you inane facts, only marginally “stats,” and as likely to predict results as Voodoo or Bible verses: ticket faces. That’s right. Ticket faces.

In years past, Hornets’ season tickets have featured Hornets’ players, and we’ve used that to karmically prognosticate results, based on the cosmic attunement inherent to each individual. This year, though, with new ticket looks, we’ve expanded our reach. Now, instead of just one indicator of results, we’ve compiled three rotating features and translated them into the future, like speaking to the Fates themselves.

As you can see, Hornets’ season tickets come in either blue, gold, or purple. They also either feature the Fleur-de-Bee, Nola Horn, or Hugo logo. Lastly, they are sponsored by either Capital One, Cox, or 7-Up. Although you’d think that things like player execution, coaching, or whether a butterfly in India flaps its wings would determine the outcome of games, it’s actually the confluence of the not-so-mystical symbols on these ticket faces. True story.

Anywho, to start with, you want a Creole blue ticket. Yup, those are 9-3 this season. Next, you’d want purple tick, at 7-4. But, if you get a Mardi Gras gold face, you’re pushing it at 5-4. If you don’t have season tickets yourself, shame on you. Go get some for next year. But for now, ask around, your neighbor will clue you in to what the game’s ticket face is.

As for logos, the proven winner, at 12-4, is the Fleur-de-Bee. The Nola Horn, at 6-2, ain’t bad either. Just, for the love of Zeus, don’t get Hugo on a ticket; at 3-5, his presence is the single greatest indicator of defeat. Corporate sponsors show just as much difference: Capital One rocks it at 9-2, Cox is a close second at 7-4, while 7-Up is the only other non-winning factor, at 5-5.

Unsurprisingly then, the Blue-Nola Horn-Capital One ticket, with a .774 winning percentage is like the other team kissing your ring. On the other hand, the Gold-Hugo-7-Up ticket, is the kiss of death. What you’re probably wondering, then, is what does this mean for our near future? Like Friday’s game?

Denver is a tough foe, admittedly. But that’s hardly relevant. Here’s what is: a Purple-Fleur-de-Bee-7-Up ticket. It’s a clusterfuck. Seriously. Purple’s good, Fleur-de-Bee is great, but that 7-Up is a killer. On average, the combination is only 15^th out of 27 possibilities. Ehh. On the other hand, the numbers still say we will win almost two out of every three such games. That sounds better. I’m going with that. Look for the Bees to upset the Deadwood Nuggets.

[Note from Ticktock6: It is our belief that the Hornets organization's failure to keep ticket statistics directly led to them missing out on the Western Conference Finals 2 years ago. The Mo Pete ticket was the only ticket that year without a winning record, and they put his face on the Spurs Game 7 ticket. A little research and a staggering playoff loss could have been easily avoided.]

Admittedly, since the New Orleans Hornets landed Chris Paul, it’s been easy to be a fan. After being thrown into the deep West, the once-Playoff-worthy Hornets nose-dived into one of the worst years in franchise history, short as it is. But then we drafted this kid that somehow three other teams didn’t sense would be a once-in-a-generation talent. Other than one half-blind thieves’ fan (yes, Utah, you stole our team and colors and we tend not to forget things like that), Chris was the unanimous Rookie of the Year in 2005-06, and we started to believe things would be okay, even though still suffering from the aftereffects of Hurricane Katrina, and with our team still playing in Oklahoma City.

Injuries tarnished the next year, but then, back in New Orleans, the Hornets suddenly were contending with the Lakers for the top spot in the West, and Chris was contending for MVP, and, yeah, our coach won the yearly honor for turning the ship around. We believed that just as he did in Jersey, this coach would take us to the Finals. Life as a Hornets fan was easy. Two of every three games was a win. We had the All-Star Game in Nola, featuring two Hornets’ players and our coach, and Chris Paul was hailed as the Savior of Basketball in New Orleans. As fans, we honestly, honestly believed that when the media talk of Kobe, Lebron, and Wade faded in May and the dust settled, it was Chris and the Hornets that they’d be talking about in June.

Except nothing’s that easy in the chaos of the NBA, and you learn that nothing can be taken for granted; there are no guarantees. Even if you have one of the top three talents in the League. In hindsight, you begin to respect the Pistons and Pacers of old, the Lakers and Mavs now, and all the other teams who are there every year, playing late into the Second Season and legitimately fighting for Rings. For Hornets’ fans, 2008-09 was a rough one, marred again by injuries, but still, at least we were in the Playoffs, which is, of course, why our guys play the game. Even if it didn’t end like we wanted, we’d find redemption the next year.

But then a 3-7 start that even Chris Paul couldn’t save, a coach that lost his team, and then his job, and we all felt sucker-punched. We had assumed the prior year was the aberration, not our success of two years ago. Were we wrong? Did we or did we not have three career all-stars? Did we or did we not have the X-Factor of back-ups in Ringmaster, James Posey? Did we not have two promising rookies that tore up the Summer League? What was wrong with this team? The only bright spot was a sterling home record to give us our money’s worth for our ticket price purchases; but this was overshadowed by the team’s utter inability to win on the road and a porous defense. Then injuries started creeping in again, and then seats that were sold stopped being bought. Those of us, who out of habit, still look around the Arena at the start of every game to gauge the attendance, figured with the Saints’ success, there was less attention on basketball, generally, but the empty seats would be temporary, right? We’d heal up, pull ourselves into the Playoffs, football would end, and the sell-outs would ensue, right? Kind of. That was the plan before Chris got injured.

Life, generally speaking, is a creature of chaos, not bound to order or rules, no matter how hard we try to insist otherwise; the NBA is little different, and perhaps, even a hyperbole of life’s ordinary upheaval: where all the chaos is played out in front of us, to be taped, recorded, and Tivo’d for instant re-watching and slow-motion back angle reviews again and again, concomitant with the back-room deals and quiet trades that transform even the most stable teams out from under us. So, as fans, our neat little plan to back a yearly winner is subject to that beyond our control, and when our expectations collide with a harsh reality, it can take a toll on that which makes us want to be fans in the first place. But one thing I can say about this Hornets team, which may yet serve them well in the short weeks to come: they are fighters. In few games, win or lose, have they refused to fight, to give it their all. Even as they make frustrating mistakes—bad passes, errant dribbles, stupid fouls—they’re trying their hardest. On most nights, they give us the opportunity to experience a wondrous sense of vicarious agency were anything can happen. And on some nights, maybe even Amazing will happen.

That’s why I became a basketball fan. And in New Orleans, where we look-out for anything that’s ours and jealousy guard it even as we willingly share it with our friends and visitors, a paradox that escapes many transients to our City, we’re still excited about the Hornets and support them without reservation. That won’t stop anytime soon, despite all the panic-mongers who have been on the blogs and boards from our first loss telling everyone to blow the team up and start over. If you’re one of those types, then maybe you just don’t get it. Maybe you never will. And maybe you were the one walking out of a 7 point game with 4:32 to go.

It’s hard to be a fan of a bubble-team with higher expectations. But it’s still basketball. And the Hornets are our team. All the hindsight in the world can tell you what they’re doing wrong. But seeing how hard they work to make it right, makes it worth it. I’m impressed with Jeff Bower, and believe he has us moving in the right direction. We have a solid core and a respectable bench, when healthy. Our rookies are fantastic, and, of course, we have Chris Paul, who is still our Savior. Nonetheless, with all the adversity we’ve faced this year, maybe we won’t make the Playoffs. But that’s okay, because I believe that if they don’t become who we think they can be this year, they will next year. Or the next year after that. I’ll wait.

Basketball is a game of passion.  Of swings.  Of runs.  Of jumping onto your feet and screaming at the top of your lungs with eighteen thousand people and clapping excitedly under the thud-thud-thud of arena loudspeakers.  It’s easy to get swept up in being a fan, in celebrating every basket and barking at every bad call.  But it’s too much.  The swings are too high-low and the runs too inevitable.  To get personally involved in each ebb and flow only leads to blown blood vessels and broken remote controls bounced off carpet too close to innocent bystanders.

It’s easy to enjoy the game when CP3 and DX are hitting shots at will, kicking it out to Peja and MoPete for 3 after 3 like a torrential downpour, and all residual possessions are alley oops to Tyson Chandler.  It’s easy to be a fan when you break the franchise record for wins in a season and are a few whistles away from the Western Conference Finals.  It gets a little harder when injuries flare up and the wins don’t come quite so easily, when your big free agent acquisition isn’t really the “final piece,” your bench implodes and collapses into an abyss of statistical hell, and Championship dreams fall flat.  It’s even harder when you start the next season 3-9 and start wondering what happened to all the big easy buckets and blowout wins.  Suddenly, the trolls have crawled out from under their bridges and are out telling you how your team sucks, and even people on your own boards and blogs are calling to blow it all up.  As if that would make your team any better.

This is what tests your fandom and reminds you that basketball is a hard fought game where nothing comes easy.  This is what tells you you need to relearn how to watch basketball.  How many adverse runs have I watched from the couch and told ticktock6 to calm down, this is a game of runs?  Easy to preach, but putting it into practice comes harder.  For sure, this season, more than any other in recent years, has reminded me that basketball is a 48:00 minute game; no matter how ugly, no matter how frustrating, the only thing that will matter is the W.  When the playoff seedings are made, nail-biters against bad teams don’t count any more than statement games against division rivals; and blowout losses don’t hurt any more than the games we gave away, only to come back by fighting hard at the very end, only to blow any way.  So you remind yourself that the runs don’t matter, only who’s left standing at the end; any one run, most nights, will not break the game.

Basketball has the unique quality, unlike most major sports, that 90% of the time, that one big play will NOT decide the game, just get another two points amidst the ninety-some others.  The nastiest block at best takes away one possession, among eighty or so others.  So what you teach yourself is to celebrate what you can, and to be patient the rest.  You relearn the swell of the game and remember how a team that looks horrible for a 2-14 stretch over 3:47 can call a timeout, make a key substitution, and quiet the crowd while regathering and then come back with a renewed intensity on defense, better ball movement on offense, and just flat-out more go-get-itness, and suddenly reverse that deficit just as fast as they gave it up.

The truth is, more games than not, math works; the team that averages 40% from the field, but comes out shooting 60% in the first half, is often enough going to shoot 20% in the second half.  It’s not an exactitude for every game, but as a typical balance, holds true.  So as a fan, you have to brace yourself for all this.  To be patient.  To wait until the final buzzer, because virtually no lead is insurmountable, no run is unanswerable, and every swing of the pendulum one way will inexorably fall back the other.

Games like tonight’s home game against Memphis are precisely this kind of game, where we ran out ahead early, but Memphis answered.  Where our second unit blew open the lead and the starters came back and held onto it, up by ten at the half.  Then, incredulously, we started out the third, on our home floor, giving up a horrible 8-27 run, getting absolutely abused by a very good Grizzlies’ team.  Game over?  You could hear someone in the crowd muttering that this would be two home losses in a row.  But then a Hornets run trimmed a ten-point Grizzlies’ lead to three heading into the fourth.  Whatever optimism that may have engendered, however, was tempered as the tide swelled again and Memphis pushed it back to nine, deflating the crowd.  That is, until Darius Songaila hit a highly unlikely contested three as the shot clock went off, shrinking the deficit again to a much more manageable six.  But again, Memphis outworked the Bees until its lead was back up to ten, forcing the Hornets to call a time out.  A few minutes later, Zack Randolph at the line can make it ten again, with only four and change to go; yet, after missing the second, Hornets get the rebound and Chris Paul rallies the troops, getting in everyone’s grill on both ends of the floor, and after a relatively quiet three-and-a-half, just flat-out goes nova: scoring 6 points, grabbing 1 rebound, and diming 3 assists in a five-possession span over barely two-minutes.  Game over?  Hornets win?  Hardly.  Still two-and-a-half left and Memphis fought back like devils and forced the Hornets to earn it.  But they did.  Hornets make the last shot with 0.8 to go and fight off Memphis’ final scripted play.  Finally, the game swells to an end.

So, after becoming spoiled by success, I’ve had to relearn how to watch the game.  But it’s been worth it.

• January 2009: Tracy McGrady is very nearly voted into a starting All Star Game slot over Chris Paul. Tyson Chandler gets hurt. David West gets hurt. Hilton Armstrong gets hurt (not usually a noteworthy thing in itself, but noteworthy in combination with the former two items, meaning the Hornets were almost entirely without big men).
• February 2009: Chris Paul gets hurt. Tyson Chandler and David West continue to be hurt. The Hornets trade Tyson Chandler. Then untrade Tyson Chandler.
• March 2009: Peja gets hurt. Tyson has, as aforementioned, still not been traded…. but is still hurt.
• April 2009: Hornets go 2-6 heading into the playoffs, causing them to fall to the seventh seed. But otherwise, nothing important happens this month, especially on the 27th.
• May 2009: Hornets fans are in a state of stunned shock as it is revealed that Devin Brown has a player option for 2009-10. Some other teams play some playoff games somewhere and stuff.
• June 2009: The Hornets draft DC and Marcus Buckets. Oh wait, these were good things. I guess this was a good month for the Hornets, then. Perhaps unironically, the month in which the least actual basketball was played.
• July 2009: The Hornets trade Tyson Chandler. Again. And sign some underrated guy who will never actually play for the team. Because–I know you won’t be able to guess this one– he gets hurt.
• August 2009: Hornets trade Rasual Butler for our new best friend, Cap Space.
• September 2009: Emeka Okafor gets hurt. If you were going to say, “Wait, the season hasn’t actually started yet!” … you would be right.
• October 2009: The Hornets rookies look great in preseason, and are, of course, promptly benched by Byron Scott.
• November 2009: Hornets lose a bunch of games. Byron Scott gets fired. Chris Paul gets hurt. (To add to the fun, those last two things happen within a day of each other! Good. Timez.) The national media writes 15,761 million posts and articles about how Chris Paul doesn’t smile, even though Chris Paul has never smiled on the floor. And then 365,298 posts about how the Hornets should trade him, preferably to _____ (insert beat writer’s local team).
• December 2009: Hornets have three consecutive chances to get to .500 against teams worse than them. They fail three consecutive times. Hornets, showing a real knack for capping off the Worst Year Ever in a way that pretty nicely sums things up, trade Devin Brown to the T-Wolves for cap space. And then it gets taken back. Oh, and just to bring things full circle, Tracy McGrady is very nearly voted into a starting All Star Game slot over Chris Paul. Again.

"No, no, no. Go past this. Pass this part. In fact, never play this again."

Did I miss anything? I think we are all in agreement when I say, “Here’s to 2010!”

Otherwise entitled, “Dear lord, Hornets, you had two previous chances to hit that elusive .500 mark by beating weak ass teams like the Knicks and the Raptors and you lost both games. Well, tonight you have the reeling Bulls, who lost a game in which they had a 35 point lead AT HOME. I know you suck on the road this year, but come on.”

Look, Hornets, we need to talk. You want to be over .500, right? Well, mathematics says that before you can be over .500, you have to actually be .500. As in, at the balance point at which you have as many wins as losses. That’s just math, guys. Math is your friend. And yet you are treating it like it it not. You have been looking at math like it is some crazy nigh-un-overcome-able weird mental block. But it’s just math.

Or look at it this way. You are currently the 15th best team in the NBA. Yay for being incredibly average! Nay, the very definition of average. But there are some teams above you that you can be better than. You can be better than OKC (they’re .500). You can be better than Miami (they’re a one-dude team like you, and they’re in the East). You can be better than San Antonio (they’re not lookin’ pretty this year) and Utah (ditto). You could be better than Houston if you tried as hard as they do and had their coach (they got even more nobodies than you on their team and they’re 17-12!)  Pass ONLY TWO of those teams and you are in the playoffs despite one of the more depressing starts in the league.

.500 game. Let’s try this one more time.

P.S. It’s Devin Brown’s 31st birthday on December 30th. Should I get him something?

I don’t care what you or anyone thinks.  This game was fucking embarrassing.  TT6 thinks I was embarrassing because I was so angry about this game. I think everyone in the stands should have been furious.  The Knicks scored the last 18 points.  Let that sink in.  A team with 3 wins last week just torched us.  Think about it.  The last few sloppy games haven’t been “off games.”  Nope They are us.  TT6 also says I can’t “Shit List” our own team.  Too bad.  They deserve it.

I’m sorry, did I miss something?

A screenshot of ESPN's front page last November

I thought Chris Paul hated Byron Scott. I thought this had been established. Like, mainstream established. I mean, I saw it on ESPN. They’ve been mentioning something about it every third day since last November. But then I get up and here are all these articles saying he’s terribly upset over Scott’s firing.

WHAT IS GOING ON HERE, PEOPLE?

Previously, on Lifestyles of a Small Market Team With a Top 5 Star Who Everyone Thinks Is Being Wasted In a Small City and Oh My God It’s So Horrible How Dare They Want a Star? Who Do They Think They Are, New York? … Bill Simmons went to a Clippers game in November 2008 and wrote his usual sports humor column. I’ll excerpt the relevant parts:

“The way players walk toward the bench after a timeout. (Goes one of three ways: “I’m interested to hear coach’s thoughts,” “I look forward to sitting down” or “Great, I get to listen to this bonehead again.”) How fast someone jumps up when the coach calls for them as a sub. (If they jump up fast, that means they’re totally in the game; if they jump up slow, that means they were either daydreaming about that night’s sexual conquest or imagining he’s punching the coach in the face.) Whether they listen or don’t listen in the huddle. The body language of the coach himself. And the telltale sign … what happens when a top player gets called over by coach when someone is shooting free throws.This can unfold one of three ways:

A. Player runs over respectfully and seems genuinely interested in the coach’s wisdom. Watch what happens when Popovich calls over Duncan or Parker in a Spurs game. Total respect. They look like someone jogging over to a police officer.

B. Player jogs over, doesn’t seem totally interested, but doesn’t want to seem like a jerk either. This usually sums up 75 percent of the league.

C. Player does a double-take and his head kicks back briefly (like he’s thinking, “Really, I have to talk to this guy again???”). He saunters over disdainfully. When he reaches the coach, he makes eye contact for the first two seconds, then starts subconsciously pulling away (first with his eyes, then with his body leaning back toward the coach), and at about the six-second mark, he just starts walking back toward the court whether the coach is finished talking or not. Everything about the exchange says, “I’ve just had it with this freaking guy.”

I mistakenly believed that Chris Paul and Scott had an “A” relationship but in the second half of Monday’s game, it was revealed that they were a “C.” At least right now. Translation: I am no longer sold on the 2009 Hornets.”

Basically, Simmons thought the Hornets as a team were in trouble– which turned out to be true– way back in the beginning of last season. I am back and forth on this. He went to one game, didn’t talk to any of the players, and just looked at body language. As a bench-watcher myself, I get that. I sit close enough to the Hornets bench (I’m not saying I sit low down, but I do sit on that end of the arena) that I can see who interacts with who, but unlike Bill Simmons, I see them for 41+ games a year. What he neglected to mention in his column, for instance, is that the game in question was at Staples Center back when the Clippers were abysmal and the Hornets were expected to contend in the Western Conference. The Hornets ended up winning that game, but they were down by around ten points for a big chunk of it, and understandably pissed about it. Simmons skipped over that part. That Byron Scott, by the end, had maybe lost David West and some of the Hornets is true. But it seems he never lost Chris Paul.

For his part, when this Simmons thing took off like wildfire through the articles and blogs, Chris Paul even came right out and told the media it wasn’t true. “I would think me and coach might have one of the best relationships out of the entire NBA. I guess people got to have something to talk about. Maybe he should come to a game. Let’s talk. If I had a problem with coach, I’d say it. I guess he comes to one game, and he can figure it out.” But of course, no mainstream media outlets ran with that story. It stayed buried halfway back in the sports pages of the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Let’s be crystal clear here. My issue is not that Bill Simmons wrote an opinion column. My issue is that every mainstream media outlet and their mother, brother, and sister ran with it. “Sources say Chris Paul and Byron Scott are not seeing eye to eye.” “Reports are that Byron Scott has lost Chris Paul.” “Amid reports of conflict between Byron Scott and his star player…” Etc. It was in the Daily Dime. It was in the NBA Rumors section of every site. It was thrown in as a little parenthetical aside in articles about the Hornets losing games. My problem with it then is still my problem with it today: Bill Simmons is a guy who writes a humorous internet column. What he is not … is a source.

It’s also the selectivity of the headlines and news items that pisses me off. Simmons’ column was about the Hornets team chemistry as a whole, and it asked the question of whether they were tuning out their coach. I didn’t think it was true at the time– that was very early in the season, and the team would make a few more good runs before the season ended in rescinded trade drama, injuries, and a devastating playoff loss. Plus for every instance of the Hornets not looking like they liked each other, I had 41+ instances, personally witnessed, that told me they did. But most of the reports that pushed along Simmons’ observation and misrepresented it as fact, like a bizarre game of media telephone, weren’t worried about the rest of the Hornets team chemistry. Instead they saw the words “CHRIS PAUL” and “BYRON SCOTT’ and salivated, like wolves lunging for scraps of meat.

And here’s, really, why I’m such a big supporter of fan blogs, social media, and beat writers. In this age of the internet, when firsthand information about every team, observed by people who actually watch the games, is right here in my blogroll and my twitter feed, why should I trust these national aggregators of “news” and “rumors”, citing their “sources”, to tell me what I should believe? I haven’t included ESPN, with the exception of True Hoop, as a daily read since spring of 2008. To me, they’re a dinosaur. Don’t even get me started on the Associated Press, which will quote a blog or a Twitter account and not even put a link to it. Me, I want a trail of hypertext leading back to my source. Scratch that, I don’t just want it– I demand it.

And so today you will see the same mainstream media giants, whose team preview for the 2009-10 Hornets probably included a snippet about “if the Hornets can overcome the rumblings of friction between Chris Paul and Byron Scott,”  pound out columns. How could the Hornets do this to Chris Paul, fire the coach who was his best friend and father figure without telling him? How can a franchise be so small-time and clueless? Not a single one of them will mention how wrong they were about any of this.

Dolla dolla bills, y’all.

If the media had its way, the Hornets season would be over.  That way, big markets like New York, Los Angeles, Boston, and Chicago could get back to winning championships.  Never mind those pesky San Antonio, Orlando, or New Orleans teams that think they can win it all.  But that annoyance aside, New Orleans does have problems.  Nowhere is that more apparent than at the shooting guard position.

The word from Nola.com is Mo Pete is getting the hook next game in favor of Devin Brown.  If we’re really lucky, D-Brown will ultimately be replaced by B-Brown at the 2-guard.  Against Kobe Bryant.  Kobe has started off the season scorching, averaging 35-6-3-3, in about 40 minutes per game, and might have just taken it personally that LRJ was given the MVP last year.  Certainly, Devin won’t be able to stop him.  Neither will Bobby.  Mo is the best physical match against him, so the timing of the switch is suspect.  I’d say put Julian on him, but then who guards Artest?  West.  Then who guards Lamar?  Ugh.  Regardless of what insanity Coach Bryon Scott employs against the Lakers, it won’t work.  Kobe will score at least 40 and the Lakers will win by double-digits.  Count it.  But you know who could dish it right back to Kobe, or any other premier shooting guard?  Allen Iverson.

Kobe has never been able to stop A.I., and the task has usually gone to the other Laker guard.  But forget the Lakers, the bigger question is could Iverson be the answer to the Hornets problems at the 2-guard?  He’s really not happy playing in Memphis off the bench, and ownership is backing the coach, with whom A.I. doesn’t exactly see eye to eye.  And, now, Iverson’s taking a personal leave from the team.  Sounds like things aren’t working out.

So why not go after him?  Yes, I’m talking to you Jeff Bower.  Iverson only makes a touch over $3M per year, for just this year.  I mean, we could trade him for Hilton.  Maybe for both Browns.  Or maybe we could take him and Stackhouse for Mo Pete (sorry Mo).  However that math ultimately works out, it could be done, and reasonably so.

It might drive Byron nuts, but can you imagine the chaos that CP and A.I. would wreak on the Western Conference?  One former MVP and one one-day-to-be MVP attacking from anywhere, anytime, and dishing to Peja (swish), David (swish), or Emeka (slam)?  I definitely think it would be worth pursuing.   And, Mr. Shinn, it’d sure as hell fill any of those empty seats, that’s for sure.

The Hornets with Iverson is a team I’d pay to see.  Well, I already do.  So, it’d be a team I’d be really excited to see.  I don’t think I’d be the only one.  Except for other Western Conference coaches and gms.

Just like that, the power in the West would shift again.  Think about it, Jeff Bower.

Here are some places Hornets Hype has been recently:

• Ticktock6 talks preview & Raptors at Heels on Hardwood. (What a coincidence. I love both heels AND hardwood.)
• mW discusses offseason additions over at MavsBall
• This is old, but in case you haven’t seen it, I did this write up on how much I love the Fleur de Bee for Both Teams Played Hard’s logo ranking series

In other Hornets news, rather ominously, the NOLA.com folks dropped the news last night that, not only is Emeka Okafor now questionable for the season opener, as he has yet to get on the floor and practice with the team, but David West and Julian Wright both tweaked themselves in various ways yesterday at practice. Considering we’re not sure who’s starting at the 2 (although we’re 95% sure that at this point in the season it’s going to be Mo Pete), that means the only person in the starting lineup left standing is Chris Paul. You go, Chris. Apparently, however, Ike Diogu is now practicing and I think he’s going to play tonight. You go, Ike.

But let’s not dwell on unpleasant, unimportant nonsense like the entire team being injured again. Here, enjoy a photograph of David West posing with some cute kids. There. Don’t you feel better?