The Charlotte Hornets are nesting at the bottom of the Southeast Division at 4-11 after a nine-game losing skid. The Hornets showed promise after ranking sixth in the NBA in total defense in the 2014 campaign.
With offseason additions of Lance Stephenson, PJ Hairston, Marvin Williams and Noah Vonleh, the new-look Hornets were expected to get their first playoff win in the 2015 season, at least.
Well, it is not looking great.
In 2014 the Hornets were one of the better defensive teams in the NBA, and now they rank 27th in the NBA in total defense. Coach Steve Clifford even pushed big Al Jefferson to commit on defense.
So how have the Hornets regressed so far on defense? Have Steve Clifford’s smoke and mirrors trick on defense been exposed?
At first glance, the Hornets did not really lose any real defensive talent over the offseason. In fact, at the time, the Hornets brought in one of the NBA’s peskiest defenders in Lance Stephenson over the offseason.
Lance Stephenson has not found his footing on either end of the floor in his first year in Charlotte. Photo by Steve Dykes-USA TODAY Sports
Lance Stephenson came in to Charlotte after a red-hot, breakout year in Indiana. The Hornets thought they signed the player that averaged close to 14 points, five assists, and seven rebounds per game while shooting almost 50 percent from the floor and 35 percent from behind the 3-point arc. Instead, the Hornets have a Lance Stephenson that averages 9.6 points, 5.4 assists and 7.7 rebounds per game, shooting a dismal 37 percent from the field and an even worse 18 percent from behind the arc.
Good thing Lance still has his pesky defense and hustle to keep him a reliable rotation player, right? Wrong.
Stephenson has shown many times that he is either lazy or incapable of playing help defense in Clifford’s schemes.
In the video above we can see that Devin Harris throws up a beautiful alley-oop pass to Tyson Chandler who throws it down with authority. If you look even closer, Lance Stephenson is supposed to step down to cut off the lane Chandler takes to the basket, but Stephenson might as well have grabbing a bucket of popcorn and enjoy his front row seats to that beautiful play.
Let’s not just rag on Stephenson all day, even though we could. The most underrated loss the Hornets endured this offseason was Josh McRoberts.
The Hornets decided pay $14 million Marvin Williams to replace Josh McRoberts at the stretch-4 position. The only problem is Marvin Williams is the furthest thing from a stretch floor. Sure, he stands at the 3-point line, but he shoots a career 33 percent from downtown. The whole point of a stretch-4 is to force defensive players to go against all defensive help principles and stick on their man to avoid an easy 3-point shot.
It is easy to see that defenses do not pay the same respect to Marvin Williams as defenses do to players like Mirza Teletovic.
Needless to say, some of the Hornets offseason acquisitions are working out like they were intended to. With the Hornets reportedly admitting no one is safe on the roster except Kemba Walker and Al Jefferson, could the Hornets be seeing a shakeup on the roster?
I do not see the Hornets making any moves any time soon. I think by leaking to the press that no one is safe on the roster, the Hornets general manager Rich Cho is trying to make a statement to the players – it is time to get your stuff together.
The Hornets are only 4-11 in the worst division in basketball. They are also not a team that is contending for a playoff spot – they know that. If the team’s record is still pathetic come January, then I can confidently say Michael Jordan and Rich Cho will make some moves.
The organization just needs to gather the right pieces together to stay in the playoff picture, attract free agents and then, maybe one day, they will be back in the playoff picture.
For now, the Hornets should focus on winning that first playoff game since the 1992-1993 season.
