Eazy-E

It's about a 60/40 split for me. 60% Gordon and 40% JB. The fact that JB can't coach around the loss of Hayward almost makes me want to flip the percentages though. It is tough for any coach to have not have arguably their best player available for a significant amount of time. The problem is there's been quite a few games that we were in prime position to win and ended up losing due to piss poor game management down the stretch. It's almost like Borrego refuses to call timeouts when they are clearly needed to teach players a lesson or something. He also has a tendency to pull the hot hand because he refuses to stray away from his rotations, regardless of the situation. I'd estimate this team to be around 5 to 8 games over .500 with Gordon healthy, putting the Hornets around the 6th or 7th seed in the east.

With this team's luck, you can almost guarantee that if we trade him he will go on to be an all pro and injury free the rest of his career.

Ask the 49er's if they regret giving Trent Williams a monster contract. The guy has only played 2 full seasons in his 11 year career. Williams was one of the main reasons San Fran was able to make it to the NFCCG with Jimmy G under center.

This is what happens when your coaches doesn’t have an offensive and defensive strategy that compliment each other. You can’t play legit defense if your offensive is all about fast paced transition, run and gun scoring. Now that they are trying to lock down on defense, Borrego doesn’t have a half court offense in lace for these guys to run. They’re still free styling it resulting in a lot of iso ball and passing way too many times and often times out of wide open looks. Obviously guys need to be hitting their wide open shots but some structure on offense would go a long way for this team. That falls on Borrego.

I still find it hilarious that Matt Rhule really thought this team was ready to compete for a super bowl last year with Sam fuging Darnold. Literally after starting 3-0 with Darnold playing slightly above average football Rhule said fug it we are going all in on this season and some how once again got Tepper to fall for his BS. I really don’t know if it could have backfired in Rhule’s face any worse. We now have little to no draft capital, cap space, and the worst QB situation in the league. Rhule and Tepper literally have no idea what they are doing when it comes to running an NFL team. All you can really do now is laugh, while slowly dying inside. It’s only going to get worse until Rhule and everyone associated with him are gone. The Carolina Panthers, reinventing the dumpster fire since 2020.

I agree, that's why I started this thread.

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.