Hornets Draft – What could’ve been (last 5 years)

Take it back one more year and instead of Cody Zeller we could’ve had Giannis. Michael was a helluva player, but that dude has been nothing but trash as an executive.  

While this is fun, it fails to account for several important factors:

1. If they had taken whatever player they should have, it would change where they select in subsequent years.

2. Just because a player taken later by someone else turned into a star doesn’t mean that player would’ve turned into a star for your team. He might not have had the opportunity (minutes, role, usage), he might not have connected with teammates and coaching staff, etc.

3. Every year there are 2-3 diamonds in the rough, found late in the first or anywhere in the second round. This doesn’t mean that every team who passed on them is incompetent (although I realize you didn’t say or imply that they are); if it did, then every team is incompetent, because there are very accomplished players whom every team passed on.

 Don’t talk about Jokic, no team was taking him at 9, if you passed in the second okay, but don’t bring up the 9th pick. The whole league missed that one.

Frankly I don’t mind most of those picks outside Kamisky, you guys turned down that huge offer Danny made because he wanted Winslow. Even if you kept the pick there were like five better guys.

Yet overall the issue is you seem like you can’t develop your talent because you want to win now. Look at Vonleh who was a raw high upside guy, you trade him and now he’s turning into the player you drafted. Powell Wasa very solid pick, yet not for you.

You can’t be a maxed out team cap wise that needs young guys and then not develop them because you want to try and win. They need a reset or bridge year or two. It’s like MJ only cares about profits and has zero long-term strategy.

And to make the Kaminsky pick even more brutal is that the Celtics offered 4 picks for the 9th selection.

If you go back a few years further you could of had kawhi, Bradley Beal and Giannis too I guess instead of biyombo, MKG and Zeller. But that kind of just shows the randomness of the draft and also how difficult it can be to build through the draft if you don’t nail your picks. It’s easy to say now that the hornets should’ve took jokic over Vonleh but no team would have even considered taking anywhere near the lottery in 2014. I do have to say that pretty much all of the picks the hornets have made over the past 6-7 years, I didn’t think any were necessarily terrible picks at the time. 

let me just tell y’all how bad it is being a Hornets fan. No front office stability, dumb trades, horrible contracts and even worse draft picks. Honestly if Kemba walks in free agency I’m gonna flip because we could’ve gotten a pretty good young package for him at the deadline. I expect us to be at the top of the draft for the next few years unless we get Kemba stays and we get another second option next to him. 

If they draft Clarke 11th… they really are dumb.

I think Charlotte’s draft atrocities really took a turn for the worse in the Bobcat days. From 2005… it all went to stink for a whole decade!!! (aside from Kemba)

I think it’s easy to say "they could have picked X player", but we could do that for every team and every star player that was drafted outside the top few picks. I think a more telling measure is to compare Charlotte’s lottery picks to other players taken at that selection in the same time period. So here are the terrible Bobcats era lottery picks and some players that other (sensible) teams chose with the same draft selection – 

13th Sean May (2005)

Other 13th picks since 2005: Donovan Mitchell, Devin Booker, Zach Lavine, Kelly Olynyk, Markieff Morris.

3rd Adam Morrison (2006)

Other 3rd picks since 2005: James Harden, Joel Embiid, Luka Doncic, Bradley Beal, Horford, Tatum, etc etc

8th Brandan Wright (2007)

Other 8th picks since 2005: Rudy Gay, Colin Sexton, KCP, Terrence Ross.

9th DJ Augustin (2008)

Other 9th picks since 2005: Demar Derozan, Andre Drummond, Gordon hayward, Dennis Smith Jr, Kevin Knox, Joakim Noah.

12th Gerald Henderson (2009)

Other 12th picks since 2005: Steven Adams, Dario Saric, Thaddeus Young, Taurean Prince.

2nd MKG (2012)

Other 2nd picks since 2005: Kevin Durant, LaMarcus Aldridge, Victor Oladipo, D’Angelo Russell, Brandom Ingram, Marvin Bagley.

4th Cody Zeller (2013)

Other 4th picks since 2005: Russell Westbrook, Chris Paul, Kristaps Porzingis, Mike Conley, Aaron Gordon, Jaren Jackson Jr.

9th Noah Vonleh (2014)

See DJ Augustin (and all the elite 9th picks).

9th Frank Kaminsky (2015)

See DJ Augustin (and all the elite 9th picks).

 Charlotte has consistently drafted as bad as any team in the league, and the flaw in their logic is preferring known commodities and/or more polished players to high risk/high upside prospects.

To me, that is the bain of their existence. All you really have to do is nail one or two big time high upside players, surround them with team-first, do-whatever-it-takes players, and you have a chance.

If you’re consistently drafting Frank Kamisky and Cody Zeller, however, you basically have no chance at doing much of anything.