Eazy-E

C’mon now let’s be real here. You or I could take the warriors to the playoffs. That doesn’t discoredit the fact that is an average to below average Borregohead coach. He’s a top tier assistant coach who still hasn’t fully grasped the intricacies of a ihead coach during games. MJ and Mitch are probably still hoping for the next Erik Spolestra. They both started as video coordinators and worked their way up the coaching ranks. It’s been 4 years though and I’m just not seeing the improvement from JB.

With a team this young, you need a veteran leader with playoff experience to help stabilize the roster. Look at the difference Steven Adams has made for Memphis. From 9th in the west to 3rd this year. His stats don't show the actual impact he's had on that team. He brings leadership to a team full of young players. Don't get me wrong though, JB needs to step up and be a difference maker when his team is struggling. Right now I couldn't tell you a single thing he brings to the table on gameday. His timeout usage sucks and he always calls them after a run has gotten out of hand instead trying to kill a run before it starts. He doesn't adjust rotations based on matchups even if they are getting destroyed. He doesn't have an offensive or defensive set that he can default to when things start getting sloppy. Does anyone have any positives besides player development which is becoming less and less important since the team has been moving away from playing rookies and young players and trying to make the playoffs?

If I’m not mistaken we can still recall Bouknight and still have an open roster spot to sign some one.

Does deciding to buy the team count? I really don’t think Tepper had/has any idea about what it takes to be an owner of a professional sports franchise. He just wanted to be apart of the billionaires club and have the title of wealthiest owner. I mean the guy is clearly an egomaniac. He probably thought he could just spend money and essentially buy his way into a winning football team. I mean when your that rich you can usually just get what ever you want by just paying for it. He’s definitely not used to being told no it doesn’t work that way and failing. Hence why he hasn’t shown face since everything started going downhill. At first he was everywhere talking about how he was going to turn this franchise around and how he won’t tolerate a losing culture. His first step into thinking he could buy himself a winning football team was paying the coach he wanted an obscene amount of money, outbidding everyone who was interested, all while stroking his ego. That has backfired in his face so badly that the team is now in worse shape than when he bought it. So yeah, Tepper deciding to buy the Panthers is definitely #1 in my book.

The kid is still getting adjusted to the NBA. He’s yet to play a full NBA season. Reduced schedule last year because of Covid + his wrist injury. He’s basically hitting his rookie wall in year 2. This is the most games he’s ever played in a single basketball season. Not to beat a dead horse but this is why we need a freaking backup point guard and Borrego needs to be more flexible with his damn rotations. Did JB forget this is Lamelo’s first full NBA regular season with 82 games? Lamelo is averaging 33 minutes per game right now. He only played 51 games last year and started 30 of them. It isn’t uncommon for young players to start struggling deep into their first few seasons because they have never played this much basketball before. Just another example of poor coaching and player management by our head coach.

This is why we desperately need Gordon back. The past few overtime loses would all have been wins in regulation had Hayward been playing. The team shows their age when tthey are trying to hold onto leads an close out games. The fact that our coach doesn't do anything to help in these situations is a major issue. It's like throwing your kid into the deep end of the pool trying to teach him how to swim and not jumping in to save him when he starts drowning.

and just like that, would love to have Bouknight available but we just had to send him down to the G league. Lamelo and Terry are the only guards available tonight.... wtf are we doing.

Still poor management on JBs part to not have an emergency guard available in case both LaMelo and Terry happened to go down. Guess we will just have to wait and see what happens on the first. Only have 2 more games this month.

@Shocker @jayboogieman Deadline for buyouts and such is March first. Maybe Mitch and JB have their eye on someone and are waiting to see if they become available. Other than that I have no idea why we are still carrying an open roster spot with our depth this poor. Also great timing on sending Bouknight down to the G league when we only have 2 actual guards available on the roster. Wonder if it was some sort of punishment for the UCONN incident? @Shocker What you saw with the Knicks is exactly why I said I don’t understand the Knicks hiring or retaining of Thibodeau. The offense runs entirely through Randle because he is the only “vet” player on their roster who gets significant minutes and Thibs doesn’t trust anyone else. Like I was saying in an earlier post, he’s a terrible coach for that teams current construction.

This is exactly why I made this thread. A lot of what you just said I feel is true because of our head coach. We need Borrego to actually coach on game days. Especially when Hayward is out. Having our gamelan consist of just going out there and playing unorganized, run and gun basketball, while our defense suffers because we don’t crash the boards or rotate properly because guys are trying to initiate fast breaks and just straight up have tired legs is killing us. We need structure and guys to be held accountable. Right now Borrego’s rotation is set in stone. Doesn’t matter what the match up is or if guys are having an off night, Borrego does not stray away from it. Even with injuries, he barely gives any of our young guys on the bench minutes when our main guys clearly need a rest. We need at minimum a 10 man rotation, probably a 12 man on some nights. Past few weeks we’ve been running an 8 man and our guys look exhausted. We’re also blowing games with sometimes double digit leads into the 4th quarter. I think the only time I notice this team run offensive sets are right after a time out or when Gordon is playing and he brings the ball up the floor. You can’t consistently win basketball games like that.

Sorry, should have specified with Lamelo that I didn’t expect him to be this good when we drafted him. I thought he could become something special with a few years of development. Instead in basically a little over a year, since last season was shortened due to Covid, we have an All Star and the MIP. Would never have imagined this if you asked me back before the 2020 draft.

I’m sure Mitch and MJ did not expect Miles and Lamelo to make such huge leaps in their development this offseason. I know I sure as hell didn’t. Both of them have blown my expectations of them out of the water.

I have no problem with JB but he clearly has reached his peak with this team. It’s looking like back to back play in tournament years. Borrego need to go to a team like the Knicks. Have no idea why the hired a coach like Thibodeau when their roster is full of young players. They need someone with patience who is willing to coach through the growing pains and help develop their roster, not bench guys after a mistake or just flat refuse to play them. Borrego is currently stuck somewhere in the middle and it’s hurting the team. Certain players are allowed the freedom to learn as they go. Others are glued to the bench during a time when the team is struggling and dealing with injuries. We have two young centers who could possibly help and contribute when center is clearly our weakest position. Borrego doesn’t like to work with anything outside of his gameplan and rotation even when it is clearly not working. The worst part is I honestly couldn’t tell you what his gameplan is on a nightly basis. It normally seems like Hayward is the coach on game days and when he’s out of the lineup this team looks completely lost. This is exactly like when Ron Rivera held on to Cam Newton and Luke Keuchley’s coattails for dear life. When those two guys missed time the Panthers were one of the worst teams in football.

We need a coach who can take this team to the next level. JB is great for development but he’s about run his course here. I don’t think there is much left he can do to help improve Ball and Bridges’s game. The whole “freestyle it” offensive and defensive strategy isn’t going to work in the playoffs when you play a 7 game series against the same team. We need to bring in a coach who can implement a real NBA offensive and defensive scheme and give this team an Identity. It’s one of the main reasons Mike D’Antoni never won a Championship with the Suns or Rockets even though those teams were loaded with talent. That style of basketball kills you defensively and in the final minutes when trying to close out close games. A great example is the Michael Jordan Bulls. Doug Collins didn’t run an actual offensive scheme. The offense was basically give the ball to MJ and have the team play around him. At one point Collins even decided to make MJ the point guard. They made the playoffs and MJ put up crazy numbers but they couldn’t break that barrier and get over the hump. (Make it to the Finals) The Bulls brought in Phil Jackson and he implemented the triangle offense and emphasized a man to man pressure defense and the full court press. He changed the identity of those Jordan lead Bulls teams and lead them to 6 championships. Even with Jordan averaging over 30 ppg, those Collins lead Bulls teams never made it to the NBA finals. If the Hornets want to make that jump to a consistent playoff team with this core we are going to need a new coach to help get us there.

So this is basically 3 drafts worth of players. So I’d look at it as 1.25 Hurney drafts and 1.75 Rhule drafts. Do they show their metrics on how the WAR was calculated? 2019: Hurney got us Burns who should be a + WAR player. Literally every other pick Hurney made that year was a bust. 2020: Still not sure what to believe. Seems the most common rumor was Hurney wanted to trade up to draft Justin Herbert and Rhule wanted to trade down. The ended up deciding to stay at 7 and draft Derrick Brown since they both were high on him. Brown is probably still a slightly + WAR player for us since our DTs were terrible in 2019. Chinn and YGM are + players. The rest of that class is -/=. 2021: Horn got injured so I don’t know how they calculate that. He was easily a + WAR player before he went down. Unfortunately the rest of this draft class is all probably a bunch of - WAR players. That could change for guys like Brady Christensen and Deonte Brown if they actually got significant playing time.

Looks awesome. Where did you get the original ring if you don’t mind me asking?

When you get towards the middle / end of a season you are playing teams for the second, third, fourth time that season. Good coaches and players watch film and create strategies to fix issues they were having in previous matchups. It seems like the only team we did that for was Indiana since they blew us out inthe playin game. Everyone else it looks like these guys are completely winging it. Not a good look for your head coach.

Watching the team try and close games out in the final minutes, that makes a ton of sense. While I think that can work fine during those long middle stretches of the game, the first and final few minutes of the game need to have some type of organized/structured offense being ran. That honestly explains why we get off to such rocky starts some times and have such a hard time closing games out. Borrego used to be a video guy. You would think he’d be all about watching game film and trying to create something to exploit opposing teams weaknesses in the beginning and end of games. Sometimes you need to have some sort of structure for younger players. It’s the same thing with kids. I’m not going to let my kids just wing it and eat pizza for breakfast and ice cream for dinner whenever they want. You have to have some guidelines and give them some direction so they can mature while creating good habits.

It’s not just the NBA. All professional sports are fixed.

The fact that we’re dealing with a terrible losing streak and injuries and haven’t filled our empty roster spots is a complete head scratcher. We’re also still barely playing our rookies when our main guys clearly are gassed and don’t have their legs under then. What the hell are they waiting for?

Yes he can. He needs to be breaking up his cemented rotations and play guys like Bouknight and JT Thor more than 10 mpg when the rest of the team can’t hit the broad side of a barn. Also he should be telling Mitch he needs to be filling our empty roster spots and calling up a g leaguer or signing someone to a 10 day to cover our asses since we are dealing with injuries. He has Miles playing like 40 something minutes a game the past few weeks with Gordon and Cody out. Every other team in the league has been handing out 10 days and calling up g leaguers left and right and we’ve done nothing. Call up Kulboka since we need shooting. Just do something to try and stop the bleeding and stop sitting on your hands.

Both of Gordon’s injuries that have made him miss significant time since becoming a Hornet are completely unrelated. Awkward falls and bad luck. If it was something like reoccurring hamstring issues like CMC then I would say that’s cause for concern. Hayward currently is just too damn important to this team. In a couple of years when these young players mature we can move on and luckily his contract fits perfectly with that timeline. Right now without him on the floor the team is totally lost on defense. Offensively, the team plays with a sense of panic down the stretch without him. The last two games are perfect examples and ended in the same way because of poor situational awareness. A lot of this falls on Borrego as well since he should be telling these guys to slow it down. He should be using some sort of under 4 minute game plan to run a slower paced half court offensive when we have the lead to burn clock. Instead our young guys just look like they’re winging it out there. Gordon was able to keep these guys cool, calm, and collected which is why we were winning close games earlier in the season and our record showed that. Just look at the team record with and without him playing and that is all you should need to see to understand Hayward’s value.

Borrego’s seat should be pretty warm right now. Guy has been great for development but damn does he suck as a coach on game days. Without Gordon these guys have some seriously low Basketball IQ and zero situational awareness. Lamelo was trying to push the tempo and run fast breaks that led to multiple turnovers with only a few minutes left in the game and a 6-8 point lead. Calm the fug down and run a half court offense and burn the damn clock. You got guys like Kelly and Terry chucking contested 3s only a few seconds into the shot clock. Did the exact same poo against Memphis on Tuesday and the games played out exactly the same. Borrego seems to never play the actual matchups and just sticks to his whack ass rotations that consistently get torched. He’s been getting out coached on a nightly basis and the Hornets have lost like 8 out of the last 10 and are now 2 games under .500. Borrego has literally done nothing to try and improve the situation besides letting JT Thor play a few minutes a game if you want to count that. We have an open roster spot and are dealing with injuries. Why not bring up a guard from the GLeague or sign someone to a 10 day like the rest of the league and then see what buyouts happen on the first. The team should be fuging embarrassed right now. Just piss poor basketball at every level.

This is exactly what Rhule envisioned happening last year and the Media was totally buying into it after our first 3 games. Everyone was talking about Golden Boy Joe Brady and him leaving and becoming the next Sean McVay. Funny how quickly things changed.

He survived this past season and is still somehow our coach. He will probably play out this season regardless of the outcome. Tepper still has yet to speak on the situation and that doesn’t instill much confidence. Will another losing season be enough for Tepper to forget about his ego and do the right thing for the franchise or will we still be talking about Jay-Z’s 7 years?