Hornets Hype

LOL Rookies! ... oh wait, we're not LOLing

Look, I am not gonna be that overeager fan jumping up and down going, “Start the rookies! They’ll save us! Straight to the championship!” I just wanted to make that clear.

But.

It is frustrating in the extreme to watch the Hornets lose to the Spurs on national TV and be left thinking, “Huh. The same stuff that pissed us off last year has not changed. At all.” The loss is not what’s frustrating. I expected it– the Spurs core has been the same for years, while this Hornets team still hasn’t played an entire game together (Diogu, a guy who we expect to get significant backup minutes, is still out with an injury, and last night was Okafor’s first outing after missing the entire preseason). The Spurs are a good team, and realistically they weren’t going to lose the season opener on their home floor.

I won’t say I’m panicking– I have calmed down after a night of sleep. But I am concerned that our first round pick didn’t see the floor– in a game in which the Hornets were down by 14-20 points in the 2nd half– until 2:30 in the fourth quarter. I am concerned that Byron Scott thought Marcus Thornton, the team’s third leading scorer with 12.2 PPG in preseason, wasn’t ready to even dress. I am concerned we pay Peja Stojakovic and James Posey a combined $20 million and they combined to take one shot in the second quarter while our undrafted minimal-salaried backup point guard took 5 and missed them all. If you’re going to move Peja to the bench, the first thing you do when he checks in is run a play for him. Having him get three shots an entire game is an issue that needs to be addressed by the coaching staff. If Bobby Brown can’t or won’t facilitate for guys more talented than him, he needs to be slapped with a red light and sat down, not given the most playing time of anyone off the bench.

Byron Scott is like a parrot at this point. He apparently felt called upon to defend his decision to not dress Thornton in favor of Devin Brown (my old nemesis….. we meet again):

“He’s still got a ways to go, ” Scott said. “Devin (Brown) is much farther along on both ends of the floor as far as knowing our offense,  and Devin knows almost every position,  which is vital. Defense,  he understands what we’re doing with our rotations and things of that sort. Marcus is getting there. He’s just not there,  yet. I don’t think it’ll be all year long he’ll (be inactive) because he doesn’t get it on offense and defense. He’s going to get it.”

“Marcus is a young player who is still learning. He makes a lot of mistakes in practice. Devin (Brown) is a veteran guy who I think I can depend on a little bit better on both ends of the floor. It was a tough decision, but I think it was the right decision.”

Yeah, well. This is exactly what Devin Brown did when he got into the game: He immediately committed an offensive foul. Then on the next Hornets possession he threw a wild pass that went out of bounds. Whoo. I just don’t buy it. “He understands what we’re doing with our rotations” on defense. Who saw that game? Did ANY Hornet look like they knew their rotations on defense?

Frankly, I’m depressed that “Devin Brown getting talented young players’ minutes” is already something I’m complaining about one game in. I thought George Shinn issued a mandate to play the youth. The coaching staff responded by…. doing the opposite. Great way to start the year, guys. And watching Eric Maynor and Ty Lawson get minutes for Utah and Denver in the late game just rubbed all kinds of salt into the gaping raw wound. The bottom line is, I don’t care what naked pictures Devin Brown has of Byron Scott– what he brings is just not enough to justify playing him over young guys. Particularly Thornton, who can and should be getting at least ten good minutes off the bench because, despite being a 2nd rounder, he fills a huge positional need. Period. As far as Scott’s unnecessary comments to the T.P. about “well, Darren Collison didn’t have the whole playbook memorized before summer league, like Chris Paul did”… don’t get me going. Really. News flash: Chris Paul is a once in a generation talent. That’s so colossally unfair to make that comparison. Drafting a kid in the first round, then trading for a run-and-gun undrafted point guard and giving the draft pick’s minutes to him, and not giving him minutes even in a blowout… if Darren Collison’s confidence ends up getting destroyed, I am just saying we know who to blame.

But there were good points. The defensive rotations were horrific, by the starters and the bench alike. The team just looked like a bunch of guys who hadn’t played together before. But you know what? That can get better. Ryan at Hornets 247 points out the Hornets actually played at a decent offensive efficiency, scoring 96 points on 86 possessions. Okafor’s 18-10 game blew me away, mostly because I had set my expectations low. Imagine with those three guys (Paul, West, Okafor) clicking offensively and defensively. Julian Wright had his ups and downs, but I think he’ll learn. If the three point shooters are involved early, rather than left to stand around, one of Peja/Peterson/Posey should get hot.

Oh, and speaking of which, I think that’s how I’ll wrap this up:

Memo to James Posey,

The season has now started. Anytime you feel like showing up, that would be, you know, cool.

Love,

The Hornets

Don’t be surprised if you see a lot of Marcus Thornton this year.  TT6 calls him Lil’ Buckets, after a night of torrid shooting earlier this preseason, when he seemed to be making it rain buckets.  A second round pick, yes, but not afraid to shoot, and boy can he.  The man has a quick release, a sweet motion, and finds the bottom of the net more than most other cats in Creole.  He gives me that warm kind of feeling inside.

Photo by Layne Murdoch/NBAE via Getty Images

Tonight, against the Pacers, he got his second start of the preseason.  And it went well.  He had 19 points in 34 minutes of playing time, along with 7 boards, 2 assists, and only 1 turnover, and 2 fouls.  He also had a plus/minus of +5.  Not bad for a rookie.

He started off a bit tentative, and seemed not always confident about where he should be, spacing-wise.  But then a Pacer goaltend gave him a basket, and after that, he seemed to move with a bit more purpose.  He started to find his spots better on the floor, and when his defender wouldn’t give him the room to shoot, he was aggressive going to the basket, and got the calls.  Smart play.

The supposed weakness of his NBA game, defense?  His main opponent, Dahntay Jones, who aside for being known for having parents that can’t spell, is pretty much only known for being rough on CP last year in the playoffs.  (He was jeered and booed by the home crowd, who won’t forgive or forget.)  Jones managed to get a couple open cutters under the basket to make his statline look decent, but had a -14 plus/minus.  His other assignment, Brandon Rush, was 1-4 from the lane.  I can live with both stats.

Byron Scott isn’t known for playing rookies.  But he’d be absolutely out of his gourd to not play Lil’ Buckets.  A lot.

The heartless staff of Hornets.com have posted on YouTube the video evidence of the rookie humiliation that went down at Saturday’s open practice in Lafayette. Darren Collison totally did the best job, but the video of Marcus Thornton is the funniest, because D West and JuJu jump in the middle and start doing the beat– causing the rookie to stop and turn around like, “All right, who the **** is doing that?” Also featuring Darren Collison and Guy With the Braids Who Isn’t Going to Make the Team (now I feel mean about being too lazy to go and look up who he is– OK, the guilt was too much: Larry Owens), who come and help him finish up the song, James Posey MCing, Peja doing something vaguely mocking in the background, and Ike Diogu looking completely unamused. It’s sort of heart-warming… well, as heart-warming as a bunch of huge 30-ish dudes torturing college kids who can’t carry a tune can be, anyway.

Collison:

Thornton:

I dropped in on yesterday’s Hornets.com chat with Jim Eichenhofer and rookie Darren Collison, and managed to get several questions in. I thought I’d recap some important bullet points from the chat, since we did find out some new info that fans, especially local fans, will want to know.

• Season ticket sales have dropped slightly this year, understandable with the economy and the disappointing playoff showing … Remember the first rule of Fight Club, ticktock. But group sales and sponsorships are doing well.
• There will be a pep rally held somewhere downtown the Monday of the week the season starts. The reason we haven’t heard anything is they haven’t finished confirming some of the details. But you can fairly reliably put October 26th on your calendars.
• The Buzzfest will be returning! (For you out of towners, a Buzzfest is an outdoor block party with free local bands, free beers for season ticketholders, and $1 beers and hot dogs for everyone else.) They’re going to have them before every home game, weather permitting. See, we’re so spoiled that it hadn’t even occurred to me they might not have Buzzfests … but this is something we have that most NBA cities don’t have and also something that could easily have been cut out due to the poor economy. So, thank you Hornets!
• I asked which players have the coaches been most surprised with in camp, and apparently– though surprised is not the word since he’s been in the league a number of years– the Hornets staff have been impressed with Darius Songaila.
• Darren Collison said the NBA game is different from the college game in that there’s a lot more space and guys are faster getting around the floor to different spots.
• He has the best chemistry on the floor so far with Marcus, Peja, and Posey, because those are the guys he practices with (guess we’re looking at our bench!).
• He’s been in New Orleans about a month and he loves the seafood.
• He has worn the #2 since his freshman year in high school.
• His biggest goal is to improve his three point shot.
• Dariusz Ejkiewicz’s question totally won at being the best though. He asked, “Is David West as scary in real life as he is on TV?” And Darren said, “Yes. And he’s even bigger in person. But he’s a great teammate.” ….. HA!
  

Free hats. Disclaimer: This picture was not supposed to look so naked. There

We checked out the official Hornets draft party last night down at Gordon Biersch, as some of you who might have been following my Twitter feed already knew. Living in New Orleans we usually try to make it out to as many of the Hornets events as we can.

It was about an hour before the draft when I hopped into a space at the bar and started to follow the rumors that were going down on Twitter, which was creaking along there and might have actually died at one scary point due to Michael Jackson’s death (RIP). Everyone was running with the idea that Phoenix might be trading Amare Stoudemire to Golden State or Ben Wallace to New Orleans for Tyson Chandler or possibly both. Meanwhile an older gentleman at the bar was buying me shots of Jager and trying to convince me that I did not, in fact, want to watch the draft at all– I wanted to go across the street to Harrahs and play the slots.

I was pretty sure I wanted to watch the draft, however, so I stayed, and chatted with some nice people I’d been Twittering back and forth with (I’m not sure Twittering is the verb, but I really hate to say Tweeting, so I’m going to declare that, on this blog at least, I was Twittering.) After a while mW got there. Oh, in fact here we are (The below video is approximately 12 seconds of me yelling because I can’t hear myself. I actually had no idea if you could hear me at all until I just watched it. Um, you can. Because I’m yelling.):
Hornets draft party! on 12seconds.tv

Now, for those of you looking for all the salacious celebrity pics, I forgot my camera and was following the draft on my laptop, which I had out on the bar. I also realized that I’d picked a spot close to one Hornets table, but the players were actually at a different table on the opposite side of the room. So not only did we not want to lose our spot, which I had staked out 2 hours prior, but there were about a hundred people packed into the approximately 30 foot space between us and CP. I was more concerned about melting before we even got as far as the #13 pick than stalking Hornets players. Therefore I had to acquire all these pics the good old-fashioned blogger way: uncredited, from Getty Images. But I will assure you that Chris Paul and Julian Wright were there. I could hear their voices, even if I couldn’t see them. (If it had been Tyson Chandler, I probably could have seen him over the crowd from my barstool, but we are talking about CP here.) The Hornets ran some interactive fan contests, and it seemed like everyone packed into that itty bitty area had fun.

CP is interviewed outside by some local stations, ticktock6 realizes in terror that this is the same CST mic that was stuck in her face into which she has NO. EARTHLY. IDEA. what she rambled on about. Oh help.

I have to admit I was unenthusiastic about #21 pick Darren Collison. I know next to nothing about him. Well, I know next to nothing about college ball in general, so that’s hardly a surprise. But I really thought we should’ve take DeJuan Blair, who ended up falling into the second round presumably because teams were scared off by his knee surgeries. I am fairly sure I managed to control these opinions when some cameramen came up and shined a light on me and asked me what I thought. I am also fairly sure I talked for a while. I am also fairly sure the two Jager shots had a significant effect on the fact that I kinda forgot about this whole experience till the above picture of Chris Paul and the CST mike jogged my memory and I realized that’s who I talked to. So, if you’re watching whatever draft montage they put together and air as a pregame or halftime feature next fall, and the girl wearing turquoise and (I think, oh lord) a Hornets draft cap backwards comes on and talks a mile a minute, that is me. CST, feel free to not use this footage. Anyhow, I feel a lot better about the Collison pick today, having checked out At the Hive’s post regarding his stats (they’re right up there or better than some lottery PGs). He was a 4 year college kid and didn’t have the hype of some of the others, but I think we’ll all remember we have a guy named David West who was in a similar situation when we drafted him and turned out all right.

I should make a note here that by the time we left the party I’d managed to collect Hornets beads, a turquoise T-shirt (I already have this particular one, and it’s XL… we may have 1 or 2 up for grabs), and the aforementioned Hornets draft cap, which was given to me by @hornetsdotcom. I have been asked a lot of times around town where I got such and such magnet or sticker or whatever, and the answer is you should try to make it to at least one official watch party a season, because they give out massive amounts of Hornets shwag. This particular party, however, should probably have been at a larger venue, because the place was packed wall to wall from when the draft started through when Chris Paul left. But overall, the staff at GB is highly awesome and they’ve hosted some solid Hornets events.

This nice man drew CP's picture

There were other fun moments about the draft, like the Minnesota Timberwolves Mad Point Guard Rampage of 2009, but the other significant moment for the Hornets didn’t happen until we were already home. We watched Blair finally go to San Antonio (where he’ll probably be perversely good, causing us to hate San Antonio more than we already do), and LSU product Marcus Thornton go to Miami at 43. Then a couple of minutes later, David Stern’s apprentice minion (I didn’t know that Stern doesn’t hang around to do the second round, funny!) came to the podium again. As soon as he said, “The Miami Heat convey the rights to the #43 pick Marcus Thornton…” I just had a feeling it was us. And sure enough, it was! So the Hornets ended up with two picks after all. (From what I’ve read today, Thornton was always on our board, and as soon as he didn’t get picked in the first round, the Hornets got on the phones.)

Whew. Crazy end to a crazy week in the NBA. But you know what? We got through another big trade week without selling low on Tyson Chandler, who, I have been vehemently arguing to anyone who will listen, deserves a chance to prove he can rebound from his injury before we melodramatically rant and rave about how he’s “NEVER GOING TO BE THE SAME AGAIN!” We turned a lone low #21 pick in a junky draft into two guys who can hopefully fill roles on the roster and allow CP to get some rest and the Hornets to shop Antonio Daniels’ expiring contract with no worries. We drafted safe, 4-year player types. The Hornets’ front office sneakily drafted a 2nd rounder who, if he makes the team, will appeal to local fans and create buzz. Sometimes I am concerned that they don’t “get” this market, so that was a good thing to see. And maybe I’m being a girl here, but it kinda made me all warm and fuzzy to see the team give the local kid a chance to play for his hometown team.

About the t-shirt. I’d give it to a commenter who wears an XL, but I don’t know…. I think the Hype Cat has an interest in it…

Hype Cat's New Hornets T-Shirt