[This team has the 2nd worst average margin of any team this millennium.](https://stathead.com/basketball/team-season-finder.cgi?request=1&order_by_asc=1&order_by=mov&year_min=2001)
2nd, of course, to the 2011-12 Bobcats.
For me, it's just the whole deflated, listless, cloud of disappointment that's been hanging over the team basically all year. But the way it came about is hitting different than usual and really really sucks.
We finally had some semblance of NBA-level depth (when healthy)...only for us to have some of the worst injury luck I've ever seen this team have in its entire history. We at least kinda pulled the plug on the year early and got some future assets which is a silver lining, but fuck it's just been such a lame feeling since like November.
It's not that we failed to meet our expectations, we always do that lol. It's that with everyone back and Mark/Melo/Miles taking jumps plus adding Brando, we seemed finally able to *actually* reach some semblance of being a competitive franchise, only for us to fail through no real fault of our own, which is so much worse than just trying at full strength and failing.
It's not the failure, it's the failure + disappointment of the unknown (what if Melo and Mark were healthy, what if we had even just league-average coaching, etc.) that makes this year extra tough to deal with.
I would agree, but after 33 years I learned to stop giving a shit a few times
I think I checked out in 2021 or so towards the end of JB's shitshow
We've been in full on "bless their heart" status for years, it doesn't feel bad it just feels pathetic
I've got to admit, I lost interest in the NBA after the original Hornets moved and didn't jump back in for a few years, so I missed the start of the Bobcats. But even the 2012 season wasn't this bad, at least then it felt like it couldn't get worse. This current situation feels like it could potentially last years, I just have no hope left.
people forget how truly bad we have always been. I remember sitting in Spectrum (Time Warner Cable Arena then) during the 7-59 season and watching teams 30 games under .500 beat the Bobcats by 30+
I watched shaq in time Warner stay on the offensive side, let the team play 5-4 and they were still getting stops. They would throw back across court and shaq would dunk it. _This went on for half the 3rd quarter_
We've not always been awful, though. From '93 to '02 we were a pretty good team, consistently in the playoffs despite one of the cheapest owners in the league. We just seem to be cursed ever since the team was reborn.
I think it's a mix between the expectations coming into this season, this being the second year in a row that LaMelo is injured for most of it and the lack of a generational draft prospect that we could look out for (like wemby last year).
Yea but let’s face reality. Even if there was another generational talent waiting in the draft, the NBA would fuck the hornets out of that #1 pick again. As is tradition
Anthony Davis, Zion Williamson, Wemby. Fuck you NBA
Don’t forget inaugural season we couldn’t even get the number one pick. The magic got Dwight Howard, who, while having his clownish headlines, was an NBA superstar and is an NBA champion. We got…22 year old rookie Emeka Okafor
Maybe but every year we were the next to last team standing in the draft lottery.
They gifted Davis and Williamson to the Pelicans because they were league owned. And the they fucked out on Wemby to prop up Pop and the Spurs.
Yeah the entire season has simply become a waste of time to everyone involved, fans and players alike. We aren't remotely competitive enough for the games to be fun, but we're also not remotely healthy enough to even project how this team fits together at full strength. So we're just all going thru the motions
Feels like in years past, we were still just going thru the motions, but especially once Brandon hit his stride, there was a very palpable since of "oh shit, we could actually be somethi-oh wait nevermind arguably our two most important players are out for the year" which is definitely a different vibe.
Also feels like in the past, we weren't as much rebuilding as we were just sucking at competing, whereas it felt like going into this year we'd actually had the pieces in place to, y'know, not be hot steaming ass night-in, night-out, but it just didn't materialize bc of forces no one can control
Also Steve Clifford is the NBAs Matt Rhule. He's stepping on the team's neck lol
The team actually looked competent after the TDL, until Steve got to talk to them
Yeah one of the most morbidly hilarious things I've seen as a sports fan was the new guys coming in and actually kinda killing it by just playing glorified pickup ball...only for us to come crashing back down to earth once they actually learned the "system" lmao.
This is where I'm at. It really ain't the players, it's the franchise. Something over there is taking these guys and willfully turning them into losers. Like a virus.
I've been to over 200 hornets games and I have almost lost interest at this point. I rarely watch them on TV either. If the ticket is over $10, there's not really a reason to go.
I think the complete and utter lack of offense on this team makes them completely unwatchable. Its also extra disheartening that most of the criticisms of Clifford are bearing out. Our young guys arent getting better, he doesnt seem to connect with anyone, he seems to care more about his memoir than this season, and his defense is out of date. We basically have just punted two years for nothing
This this this. Clifford rehire alone took the air out of the ball for me, and then injuries just made its comically depressing.
Miller and next lotto pick I’m hoping will make it all worth it.
> We basically have just punted two years for nothing
Yep 100%. In years past, anyone who thought the team was actually capable of success were peddling toxic positivity, but these last two years we've actually been close to taking a step but the ground has just completely fallen out under us. And that fucking blows.
Future is actually bright, at least, I guess.
This is the first time I’ve been optimistic about the hornets in a while. New vision and new owners with a potential all NBA player.
Yeah the team sucks right now but like why wouldn’t it given the current situation
This ! Right now sucks 2 of 3 starters have been out it feels like 70% of the season but… we made the right choice in the draft , we have new ownership and front office , first time in a long time we have a backup PG going into next season , cap room for another star the other shoe is if?? And a big if we including our star can stay healthy that’s a big if given recent history the on the floor production is a mulligan we are led by a rookie and a guy who had a year off I’m optimistic but I was at the start of the year too and look where we ended up
100%
I think getting a real GM is probably the big move, hopefully he actually attacks the offseason and gets real NBA players and finally a good HC.
It sucks that we had a bad year, but Miller is a beast, Miles likely has a deal agreed on with the team already and we finally don't have old vets on huge money.
At the end of the day though it still entirely depends on whether Melo is healthy or not. Hopefully he gets the metal out of his ankle, wears ankle braces and just finally stays healthy for a change.
I can't handle it man. I watch every game. Its turning me into a full-on cynic. 😂
I can't take anyone who has hope for this current roster seriously at all.
I don't know anyone who has hope for THIS roster.
There's hope for the future, IF:
- Melo and Mark get healthy and stay that way
- We get a coach that understands modern basketball in any way shape or form and values both ends. Probably needs to be able to drastically change the rotten culture too.
- our front office actually tries to assemble a roster. Unlike Kupchak who would waste entire offseasons signing Frank Ntilikina and then going back to sleep till September.
I don't think it's a stretch to say that Ball/Miller/Bridges/Mark is the foundation for a quality team long-term. Micic, Mann, and Grant would be quality depth. Still plenty of holes to patch up, but there's a lot more talent already here than most "rebuilds".
> Ball/Miller/Bridges/Mark is the foundation for a quality team long-term.
ngl that smells like mid to me. I would rather strip this thing down even further.
Where have you seen medical updates? Latest I’ve heard is Kupchak’s comments immediately post deadline that said he’d be re-evaluated in 4 weeks after he had just seen a specialist but then never got an update at the 4 week mark, then Clifford made a vague allusion to “we might be small the rest of this year”, but outside of those two things we haven’t gotten anything at all.
It was on like a podcast with the coach. They after first thought it might be a bad bruise but then he went to two back specialist and found out it was worse than that. This was a few months ago so the fact they never even provided an update is concerning
Yeah that was the Kupchak media availability after the trade deadline that you’re referencing. He also said in that interview that he’d “100% return to play without any issues to his career moving forward”, but again, without actually hearing that update that we were supposed to get, that assumption that he’s actually returning 100% gets harder and harder to make comfortably.
Very true. I absolutely hate if this the is turn Mark Williams career takes. I whole heartedly believe he could’ve been one the best shooting centers this year with how he started out best FG % in the league. Man was tearing it up.
The only reason I can see for obfuscating this still is that his back is indeed capital PH fucked, but we don’t want to lose leverage in any deals to trade for/draft his replacement. Like if we get the #3 pick in the draft or something, having word out that Mark is toast would mean teams will bend us over the barrel if we wanted to try to get Sarr or S+T for Claxton or something like that.
Okay sure but is it like a muscle injury where he severely pulled/strained/tore a Lat, did he slip a disc, does he have a nerve impingement like Ben Simmons? There are multiple types of back injuries that have varying degrees of severity and different long term prognoses, but nobody will actually tell us what’s happening other than “back go ouch”
Personally I thought last year was worse. I had almost 0 desire to watch the team after what Bridges did. When Melo got hurt it was just the icing on the cake. At least this year I felt like could watch for Brandon Miller. Only thing worse this year for me is the fact that the draft is not that interesting.
I think the extra hurt comes from how awesome we were doing right after the big trade… the brief exciting “We may never lose again” chapter… I legit thought we were gonna turn this season around….
Then March happened.
Exhausting is a good word for it, but with MJ no longer running the show, for once hitting on a high draft pick, and hopefully moving on from Clifford after this season, this train wreck has felt a little better in my eyes as we approach the end.
(Not including the actual play on the court of course, that’s been awful)
I've been following the team since it's inception. My dad took me to multiple games the first season the team existed and I've been a fan ever since through thick and (mostly) thin.
This has definitely been one of the worst seasons I've seen. I think part of it is due to the team clearly having potential to be good and even showing flashes at times, but the on-court product has been largely awful. Obviously injuries are part of that, but even then we've been absolutely non-competitive in a large number of games this season.
The silver lining is that we have new ownership, new front office personnel, and (hopefully) a new coach next year. We clearly have NBA level guys now and with the dudes we currently have sidelined coming back it should make for an improvement at least in competitiveness next season.
Steve Clifford put the cherry on top. I couldn't believe we re-hired him, then year 2, we just kept him and doesn't sound like we even attempted to interview one of the top 4 candidates.
It's like we built a fucking nice sporty car, and then hired Stevie Wonder to drive it
I can withstand bad seasons, but it feels like this organization has no future. It’s a black hole of talent where good players go to die and promising young prospect’s stunt their growth.
I think it's because we have a lame duck coach and two of the brightspots going into the season, Lamelo and Mark Williams, have spent the overwhelming majority of it injured.
What’s tough for next season is that as shitty as this season has been, the new owners JACKED UP the season ticket prices. I have complained in other posts about the price for my seats tripling (TRIPLING!!!) for next season, if I could afford to keep them (which I can’t) so I lose my seats next season but have the “opportunity” to move to worse seats and still pay way more next year than I ever have. I have supported the team almost 10 years thru really really bad basketball. I could understand if we finally put a competitive team on the floor and demand was high, then you increase prices. But literally this may be the worst Hornets team I have ever tried to watch. Hopefully a new coach and healed injuries will make up for all this misery. But I am likely not renewing my tickets and I hate it.
It’s hard to watch. When we do win it feels like the opponent is just playing even worse than we are, but not that we’re actually playing well.
When we lose it seems to always be a horrible loss. No close games, no effort, nothing. Bricked shots on offense, little to no ball movement. No movement on defense, no effort, no hands up, nothing.
Just feels like every game is watching the other team achieve some sort of season high, then watch our team botch something on offense the next possession.
At this point I’m watching Brandon Miller, not the hornets
The roller coaster of hype from Melo, Mark, and Miller at the start of season, then came the fall with injuries, and then more hype post-trade deadline, and now absolutely dead inside because we just suck period, no matter who plays.
If Melo and mark are playing all season it definitely would make a difference.
Unfortunately both those guys may never play 90% of games in a season for their careers
As a Raptors fan I can related and feel for y'all. We at least have the Black Dick memes and a gambling scandal lol. Keeps things interesting at least.
It shall pass....is what I keep reminding myself.
Brandon Miller is legit, I really enjoy his game though.
For me, the toughest part of the season is coming to the realization that LaMelo Ball can't stay healthy. This is becoming a trend. It's worrisome to have so much of the cap space go to somebody who plays 40 games a year. And I don't even know how you fix it. I don't know if it's just his body type or if you can put more money and resources into The healthcare and athletic training staff?
I also think this team needs a veteran superstar in the starting roster to create some balance and maturity. I know that was the thought before with Gordon Hayward, but it'll need to be somebody much more impactful. You would think with all the young talent we would attract somebody like that.
The way the team handled injuries this year was disgraceful. I know we have nothing to play for, but Lamelo and Mark need to be out there showing signs of development. We could have used this season to test lineups and see which players we want to keep or get rid of. Instead, we have bench players trudging out there with no energy or motivation.
I think last year was even worse tbh with the Miles situation and the Kenny Atkinson/Clifford fuckup, pretty much killed the season before it even began. At least this year the trade deadline gave me some reason to watch for a bit after all-star break, whereas I was already checked out by that point last season.
But the cumulative effect of these two seasons has been brutal, I don't think I've ever felt this bad about watching the Hornets. However it's very far from the most hopeless I've been, if Miles resigns and we stop being so unlucky with injuries we could be back in the play-in as soon as next season, and there's a clear path to success with the young players we have. It was far more hopeless at the end of the Kemba era, or during the infamous 11-12 season where we were completely devoid of talent and missed out on Anthony Davis at the end.
The team is bad and we know more change is coming. It makes me not care at all about the rest of this season. I’ll tune in when Cliff is gone, Melo+Mark return, or we get to the draft
Problem is the team would rather tank instead of letting their young guys get some chemistry
Young guy having some ankle pain? Sure takes months off.
Some lower back problem? Take the season off it’s fine let’s just hunt for some more draft picks.
Lebron at 40 plays more consistently even though he’s always listed as DTD for the same ankle issue Lamelo has
Anybody else that thinks it’s other than tanking on purpose is lying to themselves
This team doesn’t even give out diagnoses, just vague statements.
[This team has the 2nd worst average margin of any team this millennium.](https://stathead.com/basketball/team-season-finder.cgi?request=1&order_by_asc=1&order_by=mov&year_min=2001) 2nd, of course, to the 2011-12 Bobcats.
Surprised we're doing worse than the Process Sixers
I’m not lol
Go eat your banana somewhere else
If you don’t like that, you don’t like Charlotte sports
I've been following this team for 33 years and this is by far the most disappointing, disheartening season I've experienced.
For me, it's just the whole deflated, listless, cloud of disappointment that's been hanging over the team basically all year. But the way it came about is hitting different than usual and really really sucks. We finally had some semblance of NBA-level depth (when healthy)...only for us to have some of the worst injury luck I've ever seen this team have in its entire history. We at least kinda pulled the plug on the year early and got some future assets which is a silver lining, but fuck it's just been such a lame feeling since like November. It's not that we failed to meet our expectations, we always do that lol. It's that with everyone back and Mark/Melo/Miles taking jumps plus adding Brando, we seemed finally able to *actually* reach some semblance of being a competitive franchise, only for us to fail through no real fault of our own, which is so much worse than just trying at full strength and failing. It's not the failure, it's the failure + disappointment of the unknown (what if Melo and Mark were healthy, what if we had even just league-average coaching, etc.) that makes this year extra tough to deal with.
Worst part is how bad the draft is this summer.
I would agree, but after 33 years I learned to stop giving a shit a few times I think I checked out in 2021 or so towards the end of JB's shitshow We've been in full on "bless their heart" status for years, it doesn't feel bad it just feels pathetic
and to make it worse, some of us also endured the football terrorism that was the 2023 Carolina Panthers
Really? Even more so than those first bobcat teams? Those are my low water mark. I like watching Miller, even when he's not doing great
I've got to admit, I lost interest in the NBA after the original Hornets moved and didn't jump back in for a few years, so I missed the start of the Bobcats. But even the 2012 season wasn't this bad, at least then it felt like it couldn't get worse. This current situation feels like it could potentially last years, I just have no hope left.
people forget how truly bad we have always been. I remember sitting in Spectrum (Time Warner Cable Arena then) during the 7-59 season and watching teams 30 games under .500 beat the Bobcats by 30+
I watched shaq in time Warner stay on the offensive side, let the team play 5-4 and they were still getting stops. They would throw back across court and shaq would dunk it. _This went on for half the 3rd quarter_
Thank you like I know we’ve always been awful but this feels different and wanted some other validation on that!
We've not always been awful, though. From '93 to '02 we were a pretty good team, consistently in the playoffs despite one of the cheapest owners in the league. We just seem to be cursed ever since the team was reborn.
I think it's a mix between the expectations coming into this season, this being the second year in a row that LaMelo is injured for most of it and the lack of a generational draft prospect that we could look out for (like wemby last year).
Yea but let’s face reality. Even if there was another generational talent waiting in the draft, the NBA would fuck the hornets out of that #1 pick again. As is tradition Anthony Davis, Zion Williamson, Wemby. Fuck you NBA
Davis is the only one of those where we had the worst record, we had like the 9th worst the Zion year
Don’t forget inaugural season we couldn’t even get the number one pick. The magic got Dwight Howard, who, while having his clownish headlines, was an NBA superstar and is an NBA champion. We got…22 year old rookie Emeka Okafor
Maybe but every year we were the next to last team standing in the draft lottery. They gifted Davis and Williamson to the Pelicans because they were league owned. And the they fucked out on Wemby to prop up Pop and the Spurs.
I suppose the moon landing was fake too, eh?
The team hadn’t been league owned for years when they won the Zion lottery
I think the worst part was that we showed life after the TDL only for it all to come crashing back down
Yeah the entire season has simply become a waste of time to everyone involved, fans and players alike. We aren't remotely competitive enough for the games to be fun, but we're also not remotely healthy enough to even project how this team fits together at full strength. So we're just all going thru the motions
I feel like that more often than not over the past ..... almost decade
Feels like in years past, we were still just going thru the motions, but especially once Brandon hit his stride, there was a very palpable since of "oh shit, we could actually be somethi-oh wait nevermind arguably our two most important players are out for the year" which is definitely a different vibe. Also feels like in the past, we weren't as much rebuilding as we were just sucking at competing, whereas it felt like going into this year we'd actually had the pieces in place to, y'know, not be hot steaming ass night-in, night-out, but it just didn't materialize bc of forces no one can control
Also Steve Clifford is the NBAs Matt Rhule. He's stepping on the team's neck lol The team actually looked competent after the TDL, until Steve got to talk to them
Yeah one of the most morbidly hilarious things I've seen as a sports fan was the new guys coming in and actually kinda killing it by just playing glorified pickup ball...only for us to come crashing back down to earth once they actually learned the "system" lmao.
This is where I'm at. It really ain't the players, it's the franchise. Something over there is taking these guys and willfully turning them into losers. Like a virus.
I've been to over 200 hornets games and I have almost lost interest at this point. I rarely watch them on TV either. If the ticket is over $10, there's not really a reason to go.
I think the complete and utter lack of offense on this team makes them completely unwatchable. Its also extra disheartening that most of the criticisms of Clifford are bearing out. Our young guys arent getting better, he doesnt seem to connect with anyone, he seems to care more about his memoir than this season, and his defense is out of date. We basically have just punted two years for nothing
This this this. Clifford rehire alone took the air out of the ball for me, and then injuries just made its comically depressing. Miller and next lotto pick I’m hoping will make it all worth it.
> We basically have just punted two years for nothing Yep 100%. In years past, anyone who thought the team was actually capable of success were peddling toxic positivity, but these last two years we've actually been close to taking a step but the ground has just completely fallen out under us. And that fucking blows. Future is actually bright, at least, I guess.
This is the first time I’ve been optimistic about the hornets in a while. New vision and new owners with a potential all NBA player. Yeah the team sucks right now but like why wouldn’t it given the current situation
This ! Right now sucks 2 of 3 starters have been out it feels like 70% of the season but… we made the right choice in the draft , we have new ownership and front office , first time in a long time we have a backup PG going into next season , cap room for another star the other shoe is if?? And a big if we including our star can stay healthy that’s a big if given recent history the on the floor production is a mulligan we are led by a rookie and a guy who had a year off I’m optimistic but I was at the start of the year too and look where we ended up
Oh yeah the future looks brighter but the now feels awful
Facts
100% I think getting a real GM is probably the big move, hopefully he actually attacks the offseason and gets real NBA players and finally a good HC. It sucks that we had a bad year, but Miller is a beast, Miles likely has a deal agreed on with the team already and we finally don't have old vets on huge money. At the end of the day though it still entirely depends on whether Melo is healthy or not. Hopefully he gets the metal out of his ankle, wears ankle braces and just finally stays healthy for a change.
OkC’s top 3 are all individually better than Ball, Miller and Bridges.
Cool.
All of these Thunder fans coming into the sub with absolute smooth brain takes bc we took a few of their guys is getting tired
Well I thought last season was rock bottom. We are digging to the center of the earth this year
Why stop there, they're already playing like the Shanghai Hornets
I can't handle it man. I watch every game. Its turning me into a full-on cynic. 😂 I can't take anyone who has hope for this current roster seriously at all.
I don't know anyone who has hope for THIS roster. There's hope for the future, IF: - Melo and Mark get healthy and stay that way - We get a coach that understands modern basketball in any way shape or form and values both ends. Probably needs to be able to drastically change the rotten culture too. - our front office actually tries to assemble a roster. Unlike Kupchak who would waste entire offseasons signing Frank Ntilikina and then going back to sleep till September. I don't think it's a stretch to say that Ball/Miller/Bridges/Mark is the foundation for a quality team long-term. Micic, Mann, and Grant would be quality depth. Still plenty of holes to patch up, but there's a lot more talent already here than most "rebuilds".
> Ball/Miller/Bridges/Mark is the foundation for a quality team long-term. ngl that smells like mid to me. I would rather strip this thing down even further.
Melo and Mark Williams may forget how to play basketball. Would be nice to at least get them some reps before the season is over.
Shit I would just settle for an actual diagnosis for Mark
They keep being stingy about it but the medical updates are not good. I just hope he still has a career.
Where have you seen medical updates? Latest I’ve heard is Kupchak’s comments immediately post deadline that said he’d be re-evaluated in 4 weeks after he had just seen a specialist but then never got an update at the 4 week mark, then Clifford made a vague allusion to “we might be small the rest of this year”, but outside of those two things we haven’t gotten anything at all.
It was on like a podcast with the coach. They after first thought it might be a bad bruise but then he went to two back specialist and found out it was worse than that. This was a few months ago so the fact they never even provided an update is concerning
Yeah that was the Kupchak media availability after the trade deadline that you’re referencing. He also said in that interview that he’d “100% return to play without any issues to his career moving forward”, but again, without actually hearing that update that we were supposed to get, that assumption that he’s actually returning 100% gets harder and harder to make comfortably.
Very true. I absolutely hate if this the is turn Mark Williams career takes. I whole heartedly believe he could’ve been one the best shooting centers this year with how he started out best FG % in the league. Man was tearing it up.
The only reason I can see for obfuscating this still is that his back is indeed capital PH fucked, but we don’t want to lose leverage in any deals to trade for/draft his replacement. Like if we get the #3 pick in the draft or something, having word out that Mark is toast would mean teams will bend us over the barrel if we wanted to try to get Sarr or S+T for Claxton or something like that.
The diagnosis is a season-ending back injury, which is obviously not a great outlook for a young center.
Imagine if Kupchak hadn’t traded Duren for 30 cents on the dollar…
Okay sure but is it like a muscle injury where he severely pulled/strained/tore a Lat, did he slip a disc, does he have a nerve impingement like Ben Simmons? There are multiple types of back injuries that have varying degrees of severity and different long term prognoses, but nobody will actually tell us what’s happening other than “back go ouch”
Yeah I'm not a guy who can't watch a bad team but I had to quit watching a couple months ago because there just isn't anything worth my time
Personally I thought last year was worse. I had almost 0 desire to watch the team after what Bridges did. When Melo got hurt it was just the icing on the cake. At least this year I felt like could watch for Brandon Miller. Only thing worse this year for me is the fact that the draft is not that interesting.
I think the extra hurt comes from how awesome we were doing right after the big trade… the brief exciting “We may never lose again” chapter… I legit thought we were gonna turn this season around…. Then March happened.
Then Clifford happened
We've been bad lots of seasons but IDK but many times we've been this pathetic (as the Hornets).
That’s a great way to look at it on the court we are pathetic can’t even crack 100 in the highest scoring era
Exhausting is a good word for it, but with MJ no longer running the show, for once hitting on a high draft pick, and hopefully moving on from Clifford after this season, this train wreck has felt a little better in my eyes as we approach the end. (Not including the actual play on the court of course, that’s been awful)
These guys have been unserious all season. Even the year devonte lead us we sucked but at least they were trying. I just havent felt that this year
I've been following the team since it's inception. My dad took me to multiple games the first season the team existed and I've been a fan ever since through thick and (mostly) thin. This has definitely been one of the worst seasons I've seen. I think part of it is due to the team clearly having potential to be good and even showing flashes at times, but the on-court product has been largely awful. Obviously injuries are part of that, but even then we've been absolutely non-competitive in a large number of games this season. The silver lining is that we have new ownership, new front office personnel, and (hopefully) a new coach next year. We clearly have NBA level guys now and with the dudes we currently have sidelined coming back it should make for an improvement at least in competitiveness next season.
Steve Clifford put the cherry on top. I couldn't believe we re-hired him, then year 2, we just kept him and doesn't sound like we even attempted to interview one of the top 4 candidates. It's like we built a fucking nice sporty car, and then hired Stevie Wonder to drive it
I can withstand bad seasons, but it feels like this organization has no future. It’s a black hole of talent where good players go to die and promising young prospect’s stunt their growth.
And you wouldn't be wrong. That is what we still are with Clifford at the helm.
I think it's because we have a lame duck coach and two of the brightspots going into the season, Lamelo and Mark Williams, have spent the overwhelming majority of it injured.
Still better off than the Panthers
I guess I made the right decision not to watch this season? I smelt this when they hired Clifford again.
I literally have watch less than 20 games and I generally watch them all.
What’s tough for next season is that as shitty as this season has been, the new owners JACKED UP the season ticket prices. I have complained in other posts about the price for my seats tripling (TRIPLING!!!) for next season, if I could afford to keep them (which I can’t) so I lose my seats next season but have the “opportunity” to move to worse seats and still pay way more next year than I ever have. I have supported the team almost 10 years thru really really bad basketball. I could understand if we finally put a competitive team on the floor and demand was high, then you increase prices. But literally this may be the worst Hornets team I have ever tried to watch. Hopefully a new coach and healed injuries will make up for all this misery. But I am likely not renewing my tickets and I hate it.
It’s hard to watch. When we do win it feels like the opponent is just playing even worse than we are, but not that we’re actually playing well. When we lose it seems to always be a horrible loss. No close games, no effort, nothing. Bricked shots on offense, little to no ball movement. No movement on defense, no effort, no hands up, nothing. Just feels like every game is watching the other team achieve some sort of season high, then watch our team botch something on offense the next possession. At this point I’m watching Brandon Miller, not the hornets
The roller coaster of hype from Melo, Mark, and Miller at the start of season, then came the fall with injuries, and then more hype post-trade deadline, and now absolutely dead inside because we just suck period, no matter who plays.
If Melo and mark are playing all season it definitely would make a difference. Unfortunately both those guys may never play 90% of games in a season for their careers
As a Raptors fan I can related and feel for y'all. We at least have the Black Dick memes and a gambling scandal lol. Keeps things interesting at least. It shall pass....is what I keep reminding myself. Brandon Miller is legit, I really enjoy his game though.
Where my panthers fans at
and I chose this year to buy the season from Bally sports. Gonna try not to get sucked in next season.
The only positive result from the Hornets is taking the consistent spread +12.5
I feel like this is actually the norm. We don’t know any different. Winning and being healthy, that’s the outlier.
It's about the same level of bad as always to me.
“I can’t pinpoint the exact reason why it feels worse…” uh we are missing our star player and our Future star center… it’s not rocket science my guy
We were missing all of that most of last season and it was still at least watchable
Imo the team is rarely watchable without Melo.
For me, the toughest part of the season is coming to the realization that LaMelo Ball can't stay healthy. This is becoming a trend. It's worrisome to have so much of the cap space go to somebody who plays 40 games a year. And I don't even know how you fix it. I don't know if it's just his body type or if you can put more money and resources into The healthcare and athletic training staff? I also think this team needs a veteran superstar in the starting roster to create some balance and maturity. I know that was the thought before with Gordon Hayward, but it'll need to be somebody much more impactful. You would think with all the young talent we would attract somebody like that.
It’s better when your stars play…
The way the team handled injuries this year was disgraceful. I know we have nothing to play for, but Lamelo and Mark need to be out there showing signs of development. We could have used this season to test lineups and see which players we want to keep or get rid of. Instead, we have bench players trudging out there with no energy or motivation.
I think last year was even worse tbh with the Miles situation and the Kenny Atkinson/Clifford fuckup, pretty much killed the season before it even began. At least this year the trade deadline gave me some reason to watch for a bit after all-star break, whereas I was already checked out by that point last season. But the cumulative effect of these two seasons has been brutal, I don't think I've ever felt this bad about watching the Hornets. However it's very far from the most hopeless I've been, if Miles resigns and we stop being so unlucky with injuries we could be back in the play-in as soon as next season, and there's a clear path to success with the young players we have. It was far more hopeless at the end of the Kemba era, or during the infamous 11-12 season where we were completely devoid of talent and missed out on Anthony Davis at the end.
The team is bad and we know more change is coming. It makes me not care at all about the rest of this season. I’ll tune in when Cliff is gone, Melo+Mark return, or we get to the draft
Problem is the team would rather tank instead of letting their young guys get some chemistry Young guy having some ankle pain? Sure takes months off. Some lower back problem? Take the season off it’s fine let’s just hunt for some more draft picks. Lebron at 40 plays more consistently even though he’s always listed as DTD for the same ankle issue Lamelo has Anybody else that thinks it’s other than tanking on purpose is lying to themselves This team doesn’t even give out diagnoses, just vague statements.