Hornets Hype

If this blog posts any more stuff about Marcus Thornton you’re going to get me a restraining order.

But.

I had to:

Is this when you know you've made it?

Of course, I didn’t read the article because it’s Insider only. But we all know the article is not important!! (But if you want to know what they said about him & Collison, Hornets 247 has an excerpt…)

A bunch of us were brainstorming NBA player comparisons for Marcus Thornton on Twitter after the Suns game. His game is sort of hard to pin down, because he has more speed (including that lightning-fast release… seriously, watch him next time) than a straight-up three point specialist is usually working with. He’s stockier and plays tougher around the basket than most of the usual “little guys” you could compare him to.  But he doesn’t have the crazy athleticism of some of the other inside scorers. Neither is he a point guard or a multi-tasker who’s going to fill up much of the stat sheet besides points, threes, some rebounds, and one or two steals. “Pure scorer” is probably the best description for him, since he’s shown an instinctive ability to get his hands on the ball and get points from anywhere on the floor. Comparisons get more difficult when you consider his role– which is, currently, coming off the bench as a 6th man who, since the All Star Break, is responsible for 75% of the Hornets bench points. (Seriously. CST dropped this stat last night.) He plays the role of Manu Ginobili and Jason Terry, but his game is different. Some of the comparisons I’ve been hearing either don’t fit or are too old school for me to really agree with or disagree with.

Who else in the NBA plays or played like Thornton? Here are some of the ideas we (@snavetrebor, @LSUhornet17) came up with, plus a few other names I’ve seen thrown around. If you have a comparison you think is spot-on, let me know in the comments and I’ll add it! Oh, yeah, and if you think it’s a combination of two of the players on the list, you are allowed to select up to two. And if you picked “Someone completely different” you better leave a comment and say who, or else… well, you’re no fun.

In the meantime, take it to the hoop, Buckets. Maybe you’re just playing like you.

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This time the kids go to LSU to check out Marcus Thornton’s old stomping grounds. I think my personal highlight is when the 6-year-old kid runs up to the tiger fence and yells, “Hey kitty kitty!” and both rookies run away. Or when Buckets makes a little tiger noise. You decide for me.

As always, we thank the Hornets for dragging their rookies out and recording this stuff for our entertainment. In case you missed the previous installment, in which Darren and Marcus visit a California Pizza Kitchen UCLA, it’s here.

Kelly Dwyer on Ball Don’t Lie:

These guys are really, truly, giving great effort. Jeff Bower has been the coach of the Hornets for about four months, and he’s had Chris Paul(notes) on hand for less than half that time, and yet he’s had this team playing .500 ball in the West. It’s a phenomenal accomplishment, because more than any other team with any other player, the ball really rolls right off the table once you take Paul away. Bruce Sutter-styled dropoff, my man.

But the Hornets worked their way back. These two rookies are unflappable, Darren Collison(notes) might be a bit excitable, but Marcus Thornton(notes) is as cool as … geez, don’t touch that! That’s freezing. Damn.

When are we going to start considering this kid for the Sixth Man Award?

And speaking of dropoff, after Collison, on the Hornet bench? Darius Songaila(notes), and Aaron Gray(notes). Every opposing announcing duo laughs at Gray when he comes off the bench. Seriously. Every one.

The Hornets are always there, though. So much respect for this team. Give ‘em a watch if you can.

I’m really glad someone else (besides our little band of Hornets fans) sees this. I know we’ve lost, what, eight out of the last ten, and it’s hard to get used to the losing. But damned if I’m not having so much more fun watching this team lose than watching last year’s group of disappointed vets. I’m now truly at the point where Thornton and Collison are worth the price of admission, and don’t look now but David West has actually done a pretty good job leading this team lately.

Marcus Buckets gettin more buckets

6th Man of the Year, though? I’m happy someone brought this up, although just like the rookie honors, I think we can blame Byron Scott for blowing Thornton’s chances early. From every indication, from LSU to summer league (led all rookies in scoring) to preseason (outplayed Devin Brown and Morris Peterson yet unfairly was the guy starting the year in a suit), he could have been doing this all along for the Hornets given the opportunity. However. For your consideration:

Buckets Post-All Star Break

30 minutes
21.5 points
4.2 rebounds
47.2% shooting … FROM THREE
48.5% overall
1.5 assists, 1.5 TOs, 1.1 steals
All off the bench

I think I speak for us all when I say, “Eeep.”

In person, this looked like he was hugging him around the waist. It was heart-warming and stuff.

Besides this picture.

• Aaron “BIG NASTY” Gray and his random yet masterful D-ing up of Dwight Howard in the Hornets win over the Magic on Friday
• The Hornets giving away a prize a day this month, which you’re eligible for if you renew your season tickets (oh all right, fine, the reason this is on this list is because I won something…)
• Marcus Thornton’s game-icing three on Friday. Everyone had already risen to their feet before he took the shot. It was a moment! It was fun!
• D West’s 40-10 game. Mr. West is in the building! (for people who don’t come to home games, this is the sound clip that plays after every D West bucket… this is its first season. At first I didn’t like it but it’s sort of grown on me. His prior clip was “Wake up, Mr. West-est-est!” Good thing we have Kanye around to provide D West with all his nice beats.)
• Darren Collison’s last 5 games: 24.2 pts/7.6 ast in 43 minutes (43! Oof… CP! Come back!)
• Marcus Thornton’s last 5 games: 22.6 pts/4.8 reb/shooting 49% from the field (seriously) and 43% from three in 32 minutes. Can we please please please put more emphasis on per minutes stats instead of points per game? The Buckets Monster is crazy good at what he does (get buckets) and his stats still look like crap from all those games early in the year when he got 5 minutes of garbage time. Boo.
• Crazy comebacks! This team doesn’t die.
• Myself and mW went to a Hornets season ticketholder dinner on Thursday and Jeff Bower told us that CP is “one to three weeks” away from returning. He’s shooting and riding the bike right now and progressing well in his therapy. Chris Paul himself, when interviewed by ESPN last night, said he doesn’t plan to come back until he’s “110%, because of the style of ball I play.” Let’s hope he’s smart about this!
• THE MARDI GRAS BABY IS GONE! It wasn’t at the game Friday.
• Last night I had a totally weird dream that was probably the result of playing Mass Effect 2 all afternoon and then watching basketball: I dreamed that, while scanning a planet, we unlocked an upgrade that would turn Darren Collison into Chris Paul. Now I’m all fascinated by what kind of an upgrade that would be… “Sticky Gloves — your Shepard holds onto the ball better for 30% less turnovers.” “Prothean Visor– plus 15% to court vision.” “Mental Quickness Implant– you are now a veteran, working the refs in a craftier manner for a 10% free throw bonus to your entire team.” Oh, the possibilities! (Wow, I need to stop gaming… just kidding, no I don’t…)

My non-favorite thing about this week/weekend was the losing. Boo losing. It ruins everyone’s fun. Let’s not do it anymore.

We are all just occupying it from time to time.

Marcus Thornton gets Buckets. And that is why it is his name.

By the end of a scrappily-fought road loss to the Cavs, Lil Buckets owned two Hornets franchise records and tied the rookie scoring mark with 37 points. According to the official Hornets blog, he set the record for points in a quarter (23) and points off the bench (37). I think he had the first 19 or so of those second quarter points in like six minutes. Damn, I had a great time watching him, but I could not say I was surprised. I’ve believed something like this was coming since training camp. You can’t teach a pure instinct for scoring, you can’t break it down and you can’t quantify it. But it’s what this kid has. Is he streaky? Sure. Is he undersized? Whatever. Ask Chris Paul and the five Cavs on the floor who couldn’t stop Buckets tonight how that’s going.

At one point, someone on Twitter mentioned that they weren’t watching the game, just looking at the boxscore, and asked how Thornton was scoring. I just sort of laughed. Because “how was he not scoring?” was more the question. Threes, mid-range jumpers, getting to the rim, and-1s, free throws, steals, fast breaks. I don’t think he had a dunk, but at 37 points, who even cares? His team didn’t come away with the win, but he outscored LeBron James by 17 in his own building.

It’s not exactly a big secret that Buckets has become my favorite Hornet. There’s just one way to sum up how much I love his game, and it is to say this: he is the only Hornets player who can make me feel great after a loss. Period. Ever. You’re sitting here like, “Chris Paul is out, we probably aren’t going to make the playoffs, what’s the point?” And then here comes Marcus Thornton, the local kid out of the second round, ballin like he doesn’t know what fear is.

Oh, and I almost forgot.

I said if Thornton dropped 30, we could drop the “Lil” from the “Lil Buckets” nickname. I said it, and I shall not go back on it. Those were big boy points tonight. They deserve a big boy name. Congratulations, Marcus “Buckets” Thornton.

The Hornets May Have Won the Battle But Lost the War– a post on the Dime blog about the Hornets salary moves. With input from me, Hornets 247, and At the Hive. Oh, and Bonus!Ranty Comments by me, I guess. Sorry about that. This is one of my very favorite topics for ranting, as you well know. But props to Dime. Noticed how they went and actually asked Hornets media & blogs. Amazing concept, that.

New Orleans rookie Marcus Thornton seizing the moment– According to the TP, there are rumors (which he denies) that Marcus Thornton told some kids at LSU over the summer he’d be starting by midseason. Ha. I said so too. Guess we’re both right.

Buckets doesn’t make the Rookie Team — kinda lame but not surprising. He’s averaging 9.7 pts-2 rebs on 43% shooting in 19 minutes, way less than the minutes some of those kids are getting to put up their numbers. I wasn’t that impressed with either Flynn or Curry (ugh, watch me say that and he goes off on us tonight, haha). I mean, you can’t really argue with any of the rookies who made it, but I will say it’s too bad Byron Scott hurt Thornton’s chances by not playing him early. I wonder, though, if it’s harder to make a team like this as a pure scorer– even a very efficient one– when you’re not putting up significant numbers in any other categories. All those point guards have numbers in the assists column too. Marcus’ stats per 36 are 18.2 pts-3.7 rebs– some of those other kids already play 36 and aren’t close to that.

But! He’s #5 in the NBA.com Rookie Rankings this week! — Go figure.

This column from Mark Monteith at SI.com fails so hard at containing real facts (especially Okafor versus Chandler) and following a chronological timeline of what actually went down that it made me weep tears of pure sarcasm. Or wait, is that not possible? Try to spot the two places he  contradicts himself. Let’s make it a fun game!

Introducing... your new Hornets backcourt

Last night was huge for TEAM THORNTON. Huge. Hornets Hype’s favorite rookie (Can we make him our mascot? We could put him in the banner… would that be weird? No, OK. It would) came crashing out of the gates in his first NBA start, putting up 9 points in the first 5 minutes of the first quarter. He would quiet down after that, finishing with 19 on 8-12 shooting, but he and Darren Collison, in that crazy fast three-headed guard lineup that sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t, played a huge part in 10-1 run the Hornets went on in the last three minutes to squeak out yet another close game over the Blazers.

Highlights of Lil Buckets’ big debut night included a sick alley-oop from Chris Paul and a flagrant 1 foul when he elbowed Rudy Fernandez while fighting through a screen (whoops). Portland fans, feel free to come call me a Dusche Bagel, but he totally Euro-flopped. He whipped his head back and dropped like a rock, even though the replay showed Marcus’ elbow never even touched his chin. (Not the first elbow, the second one. Leading with the elbow into the chest was a foul, though flagrant is a stretch.) But enough on the foul because it didn’t end up being an issue; it was a solid debut and my favorite part of the night was the big smile on Thornton’s face when CST interviewed him postgame. Or maybe it was the rare smile on Chris Paul’s.

These close games, wow. WOW. When was the last time the Hornets were in a game that didn’t come down to the very last possession? (I checked. It was when they lost to the Spurs five games ago. Before that it was the Clippers win. People, that’s only TWO games out of the 14 they’ve played in January that weren’t close. And neither of them were by more than 8 points either. Between this team and the Saints the other night, I’m going to develop weird hand tremors and a heart condition.)  But you know what? Don’t look now, but this team has become fun to watch. They’re coming out scrappy, and they’ve fashioned themselves into ice cold closers. With the West as crazy as it is– the Hornets are currently in a three-way tie for 9th place but are only 2 games out of 4th– they’re going to need these close games.

And finally. Chris Paul.

You know, I was going to elaborate, but what’s the point? Is there a verb that even describes what Chris Paul did last night? Or is he himself the verb? Yes. That’s what we’ll go with: The Blazers were Chris Pauled.

UPDATE: Lil Buckets shoutout on The Basketball Jones today! It’s at the very end after the Whoa Boy (which– I’m just gonna ruin it for you– is Chris Paul).

Just kidding.

Only, not about the Devin Brown part. The Hornets are apparently finalizing a deal that should send him to Chicago for backup big Aaron Gray, who may not be good but at least he’s a seven footer, later today. Despite what you might think of me, I do feel sorta bad for Devin. He played hard, and he played above expectations. Plus, who will I mercilessly hate on? But the future doesn’t wait, and Devin Brown isn’t the future of this team.

Is Marcus Thornton’s first career NBA start a lot closer than we thought? Like, in about six hours?

Man, y’all know there isn’t much I love more than Marcus “Lil Buckets” Thornton and James Posey. But you know what might be an exception? A post all about Buckets and Pose. Which this SB Nation one by Andrew Sharp is. Is Thornton a future “glue guy”? He’s certainly got the hustle to be, even if the biggest knock on him is that he doesn’t have the height.

Watching the end of the Hornets-Grizzlies game last night…  I noticed Marcus Thornton, the rookie guard for New Orleans. He’s surprisingly solid, and has been playing well all season long. Last night in the fourth quarter, in a close game, he didn’t look out of place on the floor. Between Chris Paul and James Posey, there was Thornton in the backcourt, more than holding his own.

For a rookie drafted in the second round, that’s a pretty serious endorsement. And while it may not happen in New Orleans, there’s a good chance that Marcus Thornton will wind up making serious contributions to a contender down the line. He’s that good. Or more specifically, he’s good at specific things that are important.

Really, I think the thing I love most about loving a rookie is not knowing who he’s going to be. There are players like Emeka Okafor who’ve put up the same stats every year of their career from the get-go. And there are guys who show flashes as rookies, only to disappoint. And then there are players whose numbers are only all right, until a switch inside of them flips and they suddenly “get it” two or three years in.

Today Thornton is averaging 9-2 in 18.5 minutes. He’s been in double figures for seven straight games, after that December rough patch, and he’s recently graduated to seeing crunch time minutes. So I guess the question is, has Thornton “gotten it” yet? What’s his ceiling? We ended up getting a sweet seat upgrade for the Grizzlies game the other day, and were pretty low down in 111, right behind the Hornets bench. From there it was interesting to see how much time the coaching staff is spending talking to Marcus. Chris Paul, commendably, is also always in both the rookies’ ears. Thornton is only about 6-3 but he crashes the boards more aggressively than most of our guards (and forwards, really). He has one of the quickest releases on the team, hustle, and good instincts. And he plays like he’s got absolutely no fear. I’ve been reading “if only he was three inches taller, he could be our shooting guard for the future.” With all due respect, that’s kind of B.S. coming from fans of a team that is led by the best small guard on the planet. How much of success is raw physical tools, and how much is drive? You can’t quantify that, and Buckets happens to have one of the best role models for doing amazing things with the size you have.

You keep that chip on your shoulder, Buckets. Draft position ain’t nothing but a number.