Hornets Hype

Lots of people are talking about players’ rights versus owners’ rights, basketball being a business, winning is everything, and it all breaking down into an almost mechanical equation of loyalists of all varieties, arguing three sides to every story.  Lebron this, Amare this, Chris Paul that.  Kevin Durant.  But there is something more to it, something primal, that on a base level, each of us implicitly realizes, no matter how many manufactured storylines are put forth by Stern, the Media, or the so-called reality television shows which are even now infesting this sport.  It’s greatness.  It’s that thing that makes one individual greater than the sum or so many before him that have tried and failed; it’s that which allows one to put his teammates on his shoulders and carry or push them through or over every obstacle to victory.  It’s an intangible quality precious few possess.

Greatness is never given to you.  It must be earned.  You cannot be born into it without sacrifice, dedication, and effort.  It cannot be handed to you on a silver platter.  It must be uniquely yours, a what-some-would-call destiny forged through your sweat and tears: a combination of what is possible and what you will to be.  Today, though, too many people, be they athletes, celebrities, or the well-to-do, have a sense of entitlement, like yesteryear’s aristocracy, that they were born special so they should have it all with little or no effort.  Lebron James is the prototype of this societal model: before he had played a single game in the NBA he was called “King James.”  Yet what’s to say then that he wouldn’t have been the Darko, the DeShawn Stevenson, or even Jermaine O’Neal?  Who knew for sure that that 18-year-old would be a two-time MVP?  Then?  No one.  Nevertheless, it was all given to him from day one, marketed to him, signed, sealed, and delivered to him.  Even now, or at least up until “The Decision,”  he still is  (was) treated like aristocracy despite his anti-climatic disappointments the last two years.  Having the best regular season record in the League only to flame out in the Playoffs?  Let’s let the blame fall where it belongs: on the man who doesn’t have the heart of a champion.

So untouchable was James, before Wojnarowski roasted him, he was lionized despite his obvious faults.  Look at ESPN’s free agency picture for him (above).  The basketball falls behind his head like a too-low saint’s halo.  Which intern broke through his or her boss’ blinders, and was like, dude, you have to lower the rock, people will think we’re trying to make him into Jesus.  Who?  ”King James,” the “Chosen One”?  What?  I know, hard to imagine elevating him with near-religious overtones.  Fortunately, not everyone has fallen under his monumental shadow.  There are those, who have always seen he just doesn’t have It.  But is Chris Paul one of them?

Each and every time Lebron has had a chance to be a champion, he’s faltered.  Every time he needed to show heart, he shrank from it.  If it isn’t part of his billion-dollar plan, he’s not invested.  And now, when there’s no one left to blame, when his team has generously spent well beyond the luxury tax, given him every free agent and trade they could, and even fired his coach and GM, Lebron finally realized it was all on him.  So he ran.  I’m not criticizing him for being a “new generation” player, or as someone one who wants to play with friends rather than see all others as the enemy, as someone in the modern free agency era exercising his contractual rights, or even as an force swinging the balance of power relations between players and owners and striking a hit against The Man; I simply submit that he looked greatness in the eye and blinked first.  Not only that, he turned away, and walked the other way, head down.

The greatest among us, those who we should put forth as examples of what humanity can achieve don’t run from the hardest of obstacles: they smash through them.  History is replete with such individuals, but being what this is, I’ll stay focused on basketball.  Michael Jordan didn’t win a championship until his seventh year, as the media incessantlyreminded us for the first two rounds of the Playoffs last year, the (surprise!) seventh year of Lebron’s faux-reign.  MJ didn’t run.  He worked harder.  He made it happen, he pushed himself to levels that maybe no other basketball player has reached.  A few years later, Kobe Bryant had the good life with Shaq, and then it was all torn apart; egos got involved, Kobe made some questionable personal choices, struggled through both bad seasons and legal battles.  Sure, he made trade demands, chided his team for not improving, and so maybe had some help in being forced to stay along for the ride, but in so doing so, proved all his critics wrong, defying all those who said he couldn’t play unselfishly, that he couldn’t play injured, couldn’t win without Shaq, or beat the Celtics.  He overcame all that and now stands on the cusp of his sixth ring.  Or Paul Pierce.  He could never get over the edge with then-pal Antoine Walker, suffered several miserable years, was badly injured, and even, at one point, was stabbed eleven fucking times.  Did Pierce quit, give up, or run?  That’s not who he is.  Pierce stayed in Boston and waited for his team to improve.  Then, when the moment came, he seized it.  People can talk about KG and Shuttleworth all they want, but anyone who watched those games three years ago knew that it was Pierce who had the soul of the winner, that it was Pierce who put them all on his shoulders and made them champions: highlighted penultimately by his epic Game 7 mortal combat finish with Lebron in the Eastern Conference Finals.  With all three of these players, Jordan, Kobe, and Pierce, you can tell that they have It.  That Something that makes them great.  Lebron, for all his talent, doesn’t.

So where does that leave Chris Paul?

That’s the question isn’t it?  When healthy, there’s no dispute, other than from a few disgruntled Jazz fans, that CP3 is the best lead guard in the League.  Most would probably mark him down as a top-five NBA player.  But is he just one more injury away from being Tracy McGrady?  Is he a half-season of quitting away from being Vince Carter?  Or is he more like Kobe, the man who withstood the challenges to his primacy from those two players, and who pulled up those around him to win two straight championships?

Some people say Chris is a punk, who’s mean, and plays dirty.  Well, although few people other than Jeff Van Gundy said it at the time, it’s now generally acknowledged that Jordan was the same.  There’s a fine line between dirty and using all your tricks to get every advantage.  Ask Bruce Bowen about that.  I think, like Mike, Chris toes that line and is such an uber-competitor that he will resort to anything to get the W.  It’s what sets him apart.

Chris Paul does it all.  He can score, he can control the ball, he can appropriate it from the careless, and he can distribute the rock with an uncanny floor vision: an inversion of the NBA-expected dominant big man.  Most importantly, though, he’s always seemed to have It.  When Lebron has the ball in the last minute of games, I see a man who believes he is entitled to hit the game winner.  When I see Kobe do the same, I see death in his eyes: a man who wants to win more than he wants to score.  There’s a crucial difference between the two.  I see an intense look in Chris’ eyes at the ends of games.  Anyone who watched the first home game against the Nuggets last year got it; months after one of the worst Playoff drubbings every, Chris took over and had his revenge.  The man just would not be stopped.  It’s that Something that lets him take over games and his made him a star.  That edge earned him the nickname The Baby Faced Assassin.  Or, as the Chinese call him, Small Cannon.  Either way, the man is magic and will bring unparalleled talent no matter where he plays.  Which brings us full circle.

Personally, I hope the place he finds his greatness is New Orleans.  I hope that like Jordan, Kobe, and Pierce, Chris Paul decides to find his legacy within and not waste that efficacy by acquiescing to the myth that greatness can be found in aggregate desire.  Is staying in Nola what Chris wants, though?  Does he have the fortitude to lead his team to greatness?  Is that what is written in his soul, or does he just want to play which a bunch of sure things and duke it out with other sure things, the city that he saved be damned?  It’s what the Greeks would call an examination of Character.

One of the most moving moments in sports history is watching the high school game that Chris Paul dedicated to his grandfather.  You can find a video of it if you look.  It’ll send chills throughout you, even here in New Orleans in July.  In tribute to his 61-year-old grandfather who had just been murdered, an emotional Chris swore he’d score 61 points in a high school game.  That day, his will was supreme, and the words “obstacles” and “you cannot” held no meaning.  When CP finally hit the last shot to reach that sublime 61, he fell to the floor in ecstatic relief, which, in itself, is a cathartic experience, even vicariously; but, then, to watch Chris go to the free throw line and intentionally miss his shots?  It wasn’t about a scoring record or what college he’d get to play for the next year.  It wasn’t about him.  It was about a grandfather who had been his heart and soul.  That, I have always believed, is the day the world learned Chris Paul’s character.

So what, Chris, do you think your grandfather would say about your association with LRMR?  It’s not hard to see what they are.  That them, Leon Rose, and Worldwide Wes are all trying to tell you what to do to be a “better” investment, a better “character.”  But is that who you are?  A follower?  What happened to being the Savior of New Orleans?  Wasn’t that good enough?  Whatever you do, it should be you telling them how it is.  We’ve seen your character.  We know you can be great.  But you have to actualize that greatness, and not self-abnegate it.  With it, you can lead the Hornets to a championship.  Without it, you’ll just be that guy who scored a lot of points, made a lot of money, and disappointed a lot of people.

Your choice.

Well, for better or for worse, the Jeff Bower era is over in New Orleans.  It’s 2010, do you know where your general manager is?  No doubt Bower was a conservative force, but a prudent one too.  He brought in Tyson Chandler for almost nothing.  When it was obvious Tyson was hurt, he remedied a potential mistake in giving him back away, by getting Okafor for him.  People bitch, but Tyson played 51 games last year; Okafor 82.  Bower also made sure to lock down Chris Paul through at least 2012.  Oh, and he drafted those Collison and Thornton Kids, First and Second All-Rookie Team picks.  Plus, Quincy Pondexter and Craig Brackins looked pretty good this year in Vegas.

Was Bower a good coach?  Did he want to coach for longer than most of last season?  I thought so.  But it seemed Chris wanted it to go another way.  Regardless, him firing Byron was a tough call that had to be made.  Anyone watching our first 9 games knew that everyone but Chris had quit on Byron.  So let’s hope Bower getting the boot as coach or as GM had nothing to do with Chris.  Not because I care if CP feels that way, but because I don’t want my team giving into him.

Sure, I recognize CP is the greatest player the Hornets have ever seen.  But a team can’t just give a player everything he wants and expect him to respect it.  Look at the Cavaliers.  On the flip side, did the Lakers acquiesce to Kobe’s one-time trade demand, or his call to trade Bynum?  No, instead they told him to suit up and went and got Gasol.  Now, three more championships later, the Lakers’ GM, Mitch Kupchak, looks brilliant.

So the Hornets went out and got a Coach, one CP supposedly lobbied for over Bower’s choice of Tom Thibodeau.  Now they have a young GM from the Spurs organization, a team we keep hearing that Nola has modeled itself after.  So let’s hope those moves were made for the right reasons, because I’m already sick of the Era of the Lebrons.  In this modern era, it seems like too often it is all about what can be done easily, cheaply, fastly.  Spare no adverb.  Market big teams, play up their stars and start rumors of all small market stars jumping ship; easy revenue.  Can’t build a team of your own through trades and draft, just sign all the best players to the same team.  Why earn anything when you can be given it?  Why become a champion when you’re already King?

Unfortunately, the last question is what worries me most.  CP has joined forces with LRMR, Lebron’s management company, ditching his long-time agency, Octagon.  Not one person I’ve spoken to via any medium in existence has thought this a good move.  LRMR has only embarrassed themselves and Lebron this summer.  I’ve yet to hear from anyone that they were competent or have any idea what they are doing.  They are hangers-on of Lebron who are blowing through his money long enough to bamboozle, coerce, and sexually harass their way up the American corporate ladder.  I have my sources too, and none report anything good out of this camp.  Then, there are the media credentials snuffed by Lebron’s camp for bad press, and the dunk videos suppressed.  Are these are today’s role models for young kids?  Be friends with someone who is rich and act like you’re in a rap video.  But let’s berate those nerds who actually paid attention in class or had the audacity to go to college, or gasp, graduate school.  Those are the *gasp* “academic elite.”  Yeah, let’s put down people that work on their brains as much as NBAers work on their bodies and game.  Too bad we don’t respect those people as much as professional athletes.

Anywho, CBS is reporting Chris Paul has played his last game as a Hornet.  So say “people close to him.”  Close how?  His mother?  His cousin?  His mailman?  The guy he met at Barnes & Noble?  It says he wants to go to the Magic, Lakers, or Knicks.  Unsurprisingly, the article also mentions LRMR as a reason he will “fight his way out of New Orleans.”  Weird, yesterday’s Times Picayune, said that Chris was “likes the current changes under way.”  This only highlights how much the CBS article is pure speculation, which, of course, is all the media is anymore.  Gone are the days of objective journalism.  Whether you’re FoxNews, MSNBC, CNN, whatever, you’re more likely to hear about Paris Hilton than genocide in Somalia.  You’re also not as likely to hear the pros or cons of President Obama’s policies as much as one channel will tell you he’s a Nazi-Socialist guarded by liberal elites, while the other will tell you he’s a brilliant consensus-bringer that has majority support and is hampered by feet-dragging bottom-feeders.  It’s like the world’s controlled by some evil genius who controls all information in a plot to make us all dumber.  All I want is CP back on the court doing his thing.  Is that so much?  I mean, can we leave the gossip alone and talk about how he’s preparing, how is injury recovery is coming, what strategy he’s talked over with Coach Williams?  Let me know.

If you don’t know, New Orleans is an extremely loyal town, but we’re also extremely protective.  We know what we have, we love what we have, and we protect it against all who would take it away from us or disparage it.  We love our cultural icons, whether Huey Long, Louis Armstrong, or Marie Laveau.  Take now the Saints’ Drew Brees?  He’s a permanent hero.  A Super Bowl Champion.  Brees and Co. are also useful in the NBA context, proving the glaring lie that most media outlets have espoused this summer: Chris Paul must leave because New Orleans can’t support a world champion.  Um, February?  Saints?  Super Bowl?  Ring a bell?  I’m finding it harder to be a gentleman.  In fairness, though, Brees came here after being rejected by his former team.  He had his chip.  Chris’ has always been being picked after other guards, being told he was too small.  He used those things to push him.  But does he need to feel the love from some other team too?  I hope not.  Look at the greats before you, CP: Russell, Magic, Bird, Jordan, Kobe, Pierce.  All their legacies are defined by playing for a single team.  Learn from them, not Lebron.

I say show us something, Chris.  Prove to us you can win anywhere.  Jason Kidd’s been to two Finals.  Nash has been to the Conference Finals three times.  They both have you.  Prove you’re the best floor leader in the League.  Show us you’re the best on the floor, show us you have the desire to win because it’s inside you, and that you don’t need to find it in some symbiotic celebrity collage.  Michael didn’t need Magic.  Magic didn’t need Bird.  And you don’t need whoever.  You have David West.  You have Peja.  You have Marcus Buckets.  No, they’re not Wade, Bosh, or Lebron.  But Michael had Pippen and Grant; Rodman and Kukoc.  Magic had Worthy and Scott.  This team, if it stays healthy, can compete.  The world has forgotten, but David West carried this team at times, as did Peja; but when injuries piled up, the results were mediocre.  But with a healthy Chris Paul et al., the Hornets can contend.  We just need CP3 to be out there giving it his all, instead of worrying about getting out of his contract.  So, Chris, leave LRMR at the door and show us your heart.  Or did choosing LRMR show us precisely that?  I hope not.

Bower built this team.  He built it to win.  That’s why @snavetrebor calls him Bower Robotnik; he’s an evil genius, planning on worldwide domination.  Y’all reading this post can look at the pictures above and tell me if they are one and the same.  But my real question is whether this Hornets team be Bower’s legacy, or that of the Lebrons?  That is, will this team built to win now disintegrate in the wake of a selfish star demanding a trade?  CBS thinks so.  But I’ll believe it when I see it.  As for now, it’s all conjecture and madness.  Come fall, I think Chris Paul will remind the world why he should have gotten an MVP award before Lebron.  I think he’ll show the world what 50+ wins looks like.  And he’ll do it in a Hornets uniform.  Book it.

So let me sum up:

I'll be over here with my four friends, trying to process this.

Jeff Bower has been fired. The Hornets are in the middle of free agency and haven’t signed anyone but Aaron Gray. They were already dealing with a million and two rumors of George Shinn’s sketchiness, and now they’re dealing with more because they may have backed out of Luther Head’s contract for no good reason and his agent is pitching a fit. Oh, plus the rumors that Chris Paul wants nothing to do with this mess. Let us not forget the Tom Thibodeau drama. And the rumors that the sale of the team to Gary Chouest has been held up for … why? Who even knows what the deal is? The last time there was a public statement was back in May when the local New Orleans public was told the deal was done.

Whether you liked Bower or not (I’m personally ambivalent), having him here was infinitely better than having no one. Who’s making the basketball decisions around here? The Assistant GM is– Oh. That’s right. We don’t have one. The guy in charge is George Shinn’s brother-in-law, who was a food service executive before joining the Hornets in 2005 (leaving aside for the moment the fact that he thinks Chris Paul rumors are started by people like me who “live in basements, in their pajamas” and never the perfectly legitimate New York media who are soooo responsible simply because they have a desk in an office).

Oh hey, maybe the VP is a basketball guy? Ha. Maybe he’s George Shinn’s son who has only a high school diploma, but according to his bio in the media guide “relies on his 20 years of experience in basketball to provide insight about basketball-related decisions” and “has been closely involved with the Hornets organization since its inception in 1987.” That sounds like a lot of experience. Huh. Maybe I am wrong. Except I’m not. Y’all, Chad Shinn is 30. His biography actually, no joke, IS COUNTING THE VAST EXPERIENCE HE GLEANED AS A 10-YEAR-OLD AMONG HIS QUALIFICATIONS. But hey, we do have, like, two scouts though. Let’s give a Hornets Hype shout out to our two scouts! What uuuuuupp Basketball Operations Department! Keep on fighting the good fight there. Yeah.

I mean, have I missed anything here? Can we get some basketball people up in here?

Dear god, I’m surrounded by idiots. Get me six martinis. I’ll be over there, with my fingers in my ears till October. I… can’t… hear… you.

• So Darren Collison is leaving Vegas? Too bad. Thornton looked like he was forcing a lot of shots without him to penetrate last night. Our team will probably beast on everyone a little less than expected.
• Quincy Pondexter is quite the multi-tasker, isn’t he? Nice shot, nice aggressiveness, nice muscle, nice energy. He’s put together two straight nice games. Julian Wright should be worried. Right now this kid looks more deserving of his minutes.
• CON: Brackins pulled down zero rebounds last night. But he did eventually dunk, toward the end of last night’s game. I was so excited to see him in the post I thought I was hallucinating.
• PRO: Monty Williams, on Brackins’ game: “Playing that many minutes without a rebound is not something that we will put up with.” BWAHA! I like this guy already.
• Kevin McHale thinks that David West doesn’t have a post game. No wonder Kevin McHale is no longer coaching…
• Did anyone see Nellie at Friday night’s game? He looked totally drunk or stoned or both.
• Lawrence Frank is now my new favorite thing on NBA TV. After the game, he insinuated with an entirely straight face that Nellie was drunk, so I know it wasn’t just me who thought that. How’d I miss this guy? He’s much more suited to being on my TV than being with the Nets anyway.
• I like this Kyle Hines kid. He plays like he’s much bigger than 6-6. Think the Hornets will give him a camp invite? (Don’t know where he would play… he’s a 4. But he’s way undersized. And we already have all these undersized power forwards. But it doesn’t hurt to ask him to camp.)
• Hornets signed Aaron Gray. Guess that means they don’t need the Dude With the Aaron Gray Hair (Sonderleiter). They already have the real one.
• I think the people who harp on Thornton’s defense are just parroting stuff Byron Scott used to say and not really watching him. He is both fiesty and fast, plus he crashes the boards with abandon down there among the tall trees. I think 5 out of his 6 rebounds last night were on the defensive end. He’s not as long as some other guys, but he works hard.
• In fact he outrebounded everyone on the team… this says more about them than about him, however.
• I did think Lil Buckets was lazy on O last night, however. Every time he tried to involve others, they dropped the ball or something. Lazy or frustrated, couldn’t tell. He took a bazillion poor fadeaway jumpers. Still shot 7-14 though, which is 50% so it can’t be as bad as I remember it being. But those two missed FTs probably lost the game for the Hornets.
• David Thorpe: “One of my lasting memories of this week will be Marcus Thornton ferociously attacking the rim the way a tiger  goes after a deer. He makes an angry face and blows to the hole.  If he was 6′6, he’d be an all-star.  As it is, he’s a terrific NBA player.” This should be on Thornton’s bulletin board.
• That Wheeler guy has brown hair on the sides with a yellow stripe on top. @LSUHornet17 described it best when he said, “It’s like a mohawk made purely out of hair dye.” Haha.
• Hornets had a late lead in both games and somehow managed to lose anyway. #rookiecloserfail
• I think we need a Summer League Drinking Game. Therefore, when Brackins finally gets a rebound on Tuesday night, let’s all do a shot! If he gets two, do another one! … Don’t worry, you won’t get that shitcanned. Trust me. (If you’re reading this, rook: prove me wrong! Get us all drunk! Do it!)

On Our Hero Chris Paul, a final word:

We’ve all seen the various media reports and various goings-on of the past couple of weeks. Man, I want to think the best of Chris Paul. I want to continue to see him and Drew Brees as New Orleans’ heroes. I want him to play here for a long time, and I want to make trades this year to get some great players alongside him. But… it is really hard for me to feel the same way about a player if he has one foot out the door. Maybe we’re into “It’s not you, it’s me” territory. Maybe that’s my mental block. I don’t have a problem with putting pressure on our front office… they’ve been pretty conservative, although to be fair, at the moment the salary cap won’t really allow them to be anything but.

NOLA isn’t a place that’s going to take kindly to you, though, if you’re gonna flirt with other cities for two years. I’m also a bit disappointed that CP didn’t choose to distance himself from the shitstorm of a backlash that’s hitting LeBron and his crew right now. I still don’t think we should trade him under any circumstances, as long as there’s a chance to win with him. And I don’t believe he will pull a Baron Davis and pretend to be hurt, or any of that nonsense. As I said, I really, really want to think the best of this guy who’s been so great to New Orleans up to this point. But do I have the same unwavering faith in him that I had a month ago? No. It’s like how you can sometimes sense a breakup coming, so you start picking fights and distancing yourself before it happens. I hope Chris Paul has the ability to step away from his friendship from LeBron James, just for a moment, objectively, and see how some of his friend’s behavior in the last two years was inappropriate and inconsiderate. Not the person, the behavior. They’re not the same thing. (Or are they? Are we who we say we are, or are we our choices? Something to think about.)

Anyway, I hope he continues to be the upstanding person and representative for New Orleans we have known him to be. I would never want to lose that Chris Paul.

He’s a talker, this one. Welcome to New Orleans, Craig! We don’t care if you washed your socks or not.

Hornets 247 has a video of his reaction to being drafted. (I am a sucker for heartwarming draft night videos, oh yes I am. Especially when they cry. Just kidding. Well, maybe not.) More interesting is this story and this one, indicating that Iowa State’s coach — and former T-Wolves exec– Fred Hoiberg knew or guessed at least a half hour in advance he would go to New Orleans. (He wrote “No. 21, N.O.” on a piece of paper after the #16 pick and put it in his pocket.) I wonder if we just liked his workout that much… I know some Hornets fans don’t like this pick, but you really can’t go wrong with two first round prospects for the price of one (not to mention trading Mo Pete’s $6.5M contract). Fun Fact: Brackins wore #21 and was the #21 pick.

Here’s Quincy Pondexter’s post-draft interview. One reporter mentions that there are rumors OKC traded his pick to New Orleans, and he brushes it right off. Guess he was so excited to get drafted he didn’t care where. Haha. Fun Fact: Pondexter’s also responsible for this bit of YouTube hilarity:

I hope both of these kids make the team. They both sound awesome. Oh, and I guess we also hope they’ll play some ball…

Hat tip to @LSUHornet17 for the link to this radio interview on WIST 690 AM by Hornets President Hugh Weber. He addresses Chris Paul and the ownership transfer, and he does it much better than the official statement from George Shinn did yesterday.

I definitely recommend you check it out.

I would listen to it again and transcribe the interesting bits, but I was so annoyed by the chunk in the middle where he blames the Chris Paul rumors on “bloggers in the basement in their pajamas writing at midnight” that I can’t bring myself to. In fact, you can expect a scathing post in response when the draft is over.

Mr. Weber, I went to war for this team yesterday on Twitter. Both At the Hive and Hornets 247 cover your team with a depth of statistical knowledge that vastly, vastly surpasses both the local paper and the mainstream national sports media. Who, by the way, were 100% responsible for the creation and perpetuation of the Chris Paul rumors that, if you bothered to look at all, your local bloggers were savvy enough to scoff at immediately. I know all this “new media” is scary, but we’re not your enemy. And we certainly know your team better than Chad Ford and Bill freaking Simmons.

I’m sorry you don’t know it.

We’re glad to have you with us.

Monty Williams, the new Hornets Head Coach

Fun fact: I believe the Hornets now have the youngest head coach in the league, since Williams is slightly younger than the Heat’s Erik Spoelstra.

I’m so over Tom Thibodeaux it’s not even funny. So how come he can’t get over himself? Then we’d all be on the same page here. I’m so over him I took his X away. Yes! I did. You wanna play us, you don’t get no nice Louisiana X from me no more, ya heard?

Seriously. So we make an offer. Then we don’t. Then we do. Then he meets with Chicago in the dead of night. Then he doesn’t. Then he does. Then Jeff Bower gives the man a deadline (which has passed as of today) and leans toward pulling the contract offer and offering the job to Portland assistant Monty Williams.

This is fine with me. That’s the thing about hiring assistants. You don’t really know what you’re getting. But if we don’t know what we’re getting with Williams, let’s not forget we don’t know what we’re getting with Thibodeau either. Neither has been a head coach before. We could strike it rich or strike out. It’s rolling the dice on someone. We were all over Thibodeau because of the defensive scheme he implemented with the Celtics. It would have been nice, especially for a team that played little to no defense this year. But Gregg Popovich apparently saw something in Monty Williams, and that’s not nothing.

I’m glad some national media members have picked up on the drama and seem to be indicating through their tweets (@chrismannixsi and @wojyahoonba particularly) that Jeff Bower’s peers around the league think this is utter B.S. I admit to getting a tad defensive, and really it’s hard not to, because we’re always the bad guy. “The Hornets Arena is empty!” when there are 16,000 people in it. “The Hornets are ruining Chris Paul’s career!” “The Hornets traded for a guy with a bigger contract because they’re CHEAP.” (I’ve never figured that last one out.) It’s nice to see some people saying, “Yo. Stop. This is a dude who’s interviewed for a bazillion head coaching jobs and never been offered one. And now that he’s suddenly popular and in the news, he jerks Bower around.”

This isn’t the Hornets fault. They got their coaching search started early. Why aren’t we blaming Chicago and New Jersey for being the ones who haven’t gotten their shit together to start interviews yet? The longer this gets drawn out, the more the Hornets lose the advantage of having started a long search before everyone but the Sixers. Bower has to be pissed about that. And Thibodeau has to realize that if the Hornets wanted to wait for every candidate to talk to Atlanta and Chicago and New Jersey and Cleveland and their grandmother first, they would have waited till July to start the damn search.

And no, I don’t buy the “It’s the middle of the Finals! It’s sooo mean to set a deadline!” argument. The man went on an interview with his team deep in the playoffs. It was reasonable to expect that that interview might result in a job offer. It’s not like he went to the freakin’ Krispy Kreme and oh look, surprise, there was Jeff Bower offering him donuts and a head coaching job the day before the Finals! He interviewed. This is not about being deep in the playoffs. It’s about wanting to talk to 2 or 3 other teams first. Let’s not pretend it’s not about anything but that.

And see, here’s the thing. The longer this goes on, the more like suckers he makes Bower and Weber and Chouest and whoever look. We are entering a new ownership era and we’re going to have more expiring money to play with this year than we’ve had since, oh, before I started following this team. You need to start this off strong. And more importantly, you need someone who wants to be here. MW was saying that this morning, and he’s right. New Orleans is a unique city. It’s not for everyone, but it’s definitely not for people who don’t want to be here. Choose to come here, do a genuine good job, get Chris Paul on your side, and it will love you. But to put it bluntly, if you’d rather be in New Jersey, we don’t want you here.

Shit or get off the pot, Mr. Thibodeau. We got other things to do.

To Jeff Bower & Co. Pull the offer today. Call Monty Williams. Please.

Should that even be the question?  How about “to watch the games or not to watch the games?”  Like the Hornets themselves, I’m not originally from New Orleans.  That means, I loved the NBA before I loved the Hornets.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the Hornets now and am die-hard, or else I wouldn’t even be here writing this. But my question is, with our team out of the Playoffs, what should our role as Hornets fans be?  I think it’s still to watch the games that remain.

Sure, I really appreciate what atthehive.com and hornets247.com are doing; both blogs are doing great speculative analysis of what the Hornets should do, which coaches they should go after, analyzing what went wrong with this season, and what the team’s needs are for the upcoming draft.  Of course, the media, never failing to miss the point, is focused on manufactured storylines more than actual play, and is too busy crafting headlines like “As Celtics eliminate Cavs, all eyes turn to James.”  Thanks Times Pic.  Listen, let me start with the easy one.  I don’t care about Lebron James.  Seriously.  If he ends up playing with Josh Childress and Linus Kleiza for Olympiakos for $50 a year so he can become a “global icon” and billionaire by 32, sweet.  Seriously. And Nike, what, do you not have a bloody, Steve Nash muppet?

Fuck all that.  This is the time of year when only the best of the best remain, and this year that doesn’t include the Hornets or the Cavs.  So while I’m always one to hype the Hornets, and glad other people are talking about what our team should do, I can’t care too much myself because I’ve been so focused on watching great Playoff basketball.  Hopefully the Hornets are watching too, because it should be making them antsy to know that this is what they want to achieve, and that they have a lot of hard work to do to get there.

Until then folks, enjoy the real final four.  Laissez les bons balles rouler.

1. Chris Paul’s wizardry. There is no other word to describe it. The way he slips into the lane, like dancing. The way he eludes bigger players. That little running teardrop. The feeling that any time you watch a game, you could see something really, really special.

2. CP was the obvious one, but a couple of weeks ago I got to thinking about how I was really craving a good David West game. A good David West game is sneaky, silky, and subtle. It’s a dagger from mid range that looks so easy. It’s 30 points before you realize he has 10.

3. James Posey’s tall socks. I love Pose. I love tall socks. I own his jersey AND a pair of NBA regulation tall socks…. Okay, fine, this one might be particular to me. But I miss tall socks.

4. How Peja starts out the season really dark and then gets pastier and pastier as time goes on. Oh, and I guess, real things too. Like, “Peeejjjjjjaaaaa for threeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

5. Julian Wright’s bounce. What can I say? He’s got that thing in his step. Leap for the stars, JuJu.

6. Mercilessly tormenting Mocking on Twitter Being snarkily sarcastic toward Devin Brown jokes. I know, I know. There’s a place reserved for me in the Special Hell.

7. My seat. It is very comfy, although I wish it had a cupholder. It has a nice glass wall behind it to lean on. It has a good view of the bench. In fact an all right view of pretty much everything except someone standing in the Hornets’ bench end on the right elbow shooting a jumper. I’ve been sitting in the same seat for three years running. I’m rather attached to it. And, the New Orleans Arena janitorial staff being what it is, if I put a sticker on it that says “TICKTOCK6′S SEAT” it’ll totally be there at least 3 weeks before someone removes it.

8. Westitude. This is my term for the scowl on David West’s face when he’s being particularly beastly. Or doing things like tapping Dirk Nowitzki’s face. Or not smiling in pictures.

9. This is for things we haven’t seen yet– “Chris Paul to Emeka Okafor! Ohhhhh!”, Ike Diogu’s potential finally being realized, a young and hungry second unit.

10. This is for things we’ll never see again– the Crescent City Connection, Ryan Bowen hustling down the court, game winning threes from Rasual Butler, Tyson’s goofiness.

It’s been a long summer, longer than we would have liked, and it took me until about August to realize it, but… I miss my team. I don’t care about the trades. I don’t care about Game 4. I just want to see you out there again.

As far as the future goes, I wish only one thing for you: That when the lights come up and you get out there on the floor, you go hard and never look back.