The Problem With the Charlotte Hornets Isn't Injury: Here's Why

Two hours ago, I was going to tweet about this strange new feeling of hope around the Charlotte Hornets. Things were going better than I can ever remember, at least in my time of being a fan of this team. The vibes were buzzing (pun intended), the offense was flowing despite extended key losses in Terry Rozier and Gordan Hayward. The defense was as good as it’s ever going to be with LaMelo Ball as your point-of-attack defender. Miles was back, and astonishingly appeared to pick up where he left off 19 months ago. We had a bright young star showing us regular flashes of his superstar potential, scoring from all 3 levels and spending time guarding the oppositions best players. And, my word, LaMelo Ball looked like a legitimate MVP candidate. See, with LaMelo going down for weeks if not months, on a typical team, of course losing your best player would hurt, but when everyone else is playing to the standard the Hornets are playing at right now, you could expect them to coast, without giving up too much of the ground gained by their superstar. But it’s different for the Hornets. Our backup point guard, the most important position in all of basketball, is Theo Maledon.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m actually a massive fan of what Theo brings to the table, and I truly believe he belongs on an NBA roster. But not as our starting point guard. See, this brings up the seemingly age-old discussion for Hornets fans; the constant inaction, laze, and incompetency of our front office. Time and again, we have been let down, even had season destroyed, by injuries that typically wouldn’t have a major effect on other teams seasons. So why does it affect this franchise more than any others? Because of the reactive attitude this front office has. We wait for things to happen for us, or more often to us, rather then take the prerogative, show some initiative, and get things done. There was a number of solid backup PG’s on the table this past offseason: Di’Angelo Russell, Gabe Vincent, Dennis Schroeder, Jevon Carter.

Yet, here we are again: evaluating talent for a draft 8 months away. If this team is serious about competing, relinquishing the title of being a ‘poverty franchise’, and freeing ourselves from being the but of every joke, then the front offices attitude needs to flip from reactive to proactive. We all saw this coming.