Charlotte Hornets Season Preview
Last year was a lost season for Buzz City, but will LaMelo Ball and his ankles hold up long enough for a playoff berth?
Have you ever woke up in the morning, taken a slow walk to the nearest bathroom, rub the sleep out of your eyes, look in the mirror, and beg Eric Collins to stop screaming HUM-DIDDLY-DEE?
Oh. you don’t know who Eric Collins is? He’s the play-by-play announcer for the Charlotte Hornets and he screams the most absurd nonsense you’ve ever heard while watching a sporting event.
Including, yes, HUM-DIDDLY-DEE
To say Eric Collins gets a bit excited while broadcasting Hornets games is the understatement of 2023. But his level of enthusiasm for the ballers in purple and teal comes second only to mine because I have never been more excited to watch a team play that has no chance of winning anything significant this season.
That’s right dear reader. I’m going to be watching a lot of the Charlotte Hornets in 2023 and 2024. And you will be too. So prepare to say those three magical words loud and proud all winter long.
HUM
DIDDLY
DEE
Why Are We Watching This Team?
It’s very rare that I believe that the handicappers in Las Vegas and various online sportsbooks are incorrect. I subscribe to the belief that they’re very good at their job and finding an edge is difficult. But when you believe you’ve found a mistake, you have to pounce on it, because they’re so few and far between.
In the case of the Charlotte Hornets win total, I believe that the powers that be have made a major blunder. Because this isn’t a 30 win team like they seem to think. This is 40 win team that could win its division.
The question that needs answering is why I think they’re capable of such a feat. And that begins with looking at their roster:
Starting lineup:
PG: LaMelo Ball
SG: Terry Rozier
SF: Gordon Hayward
PF: PJ Washington
C: Mark Williams
Relevant bench players:
Miles Bridges
Nick Richards
Brandon Miller
Edmond Sumner
Cody Martin
Departures:
Kelly Oubre Jr (signed in Philadelphia)
Dennis Smith Jr (signed in Brooklyn)
As always, I’ll kick things off by talking about the team’s best player. In this instance, it’s 2021 Rookie of the Year LaMelo Ball, who has somehow vanished from meaningful NBA discoruse. There are a few reasons I believe this has happened, but most notably it’s because he only played 36 games last season due to some rather untimely sprained ankles. And I say sprained ankles, plural, because it happened three times last season, all on flukey plays:
Instead of focusing on the stop-and-start nature of Ball’s 2022-23 season, I want to briefly focus on his sophomore campaign in 2021-22, in which he averaged 20.1 points, 6.7 rebounds, 7.6 assists, 1.6 steals, and 0.4 blocks in 32.3 minutes per game. These are fantastic second year numbers for a lead guard and those resulted in not only Ball being voted onto the 2022 All-Star team, but Charlotte improving its record from 33-39 in Ball’s rookie campaign to 43-39 — a ten win increase!
So how did Ball perform in his injury riddled third season? We saw some slight improvements, with him averaging 23.3 points, 6.4 rebounds, 8.4 assists, 1.3 steals, and 0.3 blocks in 35.2 minutes per game. Of these numbers, the one I care about the most is the increase from 32.3 minutes per game to 35.2 minutes per game. Under former head coach, James Borrego, Ball would oftentimes have his minutes jerked around, especially late in games, due to being a defensively liability. Under current head coach, Steve Clifford, that has not been the case, as Clifford has his best players on the court during crunch time, warts and all.
If you’ve read any of previous season previews, you know that I subscribe to a philosophy that an increase in minutes means an increase in opportunity. And an increase in opportunity means an increased ability to take advantage of mispriced bets and/or mispriced salary depending on which betting activity you dabble in. But in this instance, this increase in minutes directly correlates to the Hornets season long win total, as the more Ball is on the floor, the more likely it is that Charlotte will win games, not lose them.
I can’t predict how LaMelo’s ankles will treat him this season, but I can say the following with a heavy amount of certainty — the Charlotte Hornets, who went 27-55 last year, are a better team when Ball is on the court. Given that Ball only played in 36 of those games, what are the chances they’ll improve by four wins if he plays close to double that?
Burning Bridges
Let’s get one thing out of the way right now — Miles Bridges is equal parts great basketball player as he is human garbage. In no way do I support or defend him in pleading no contest to his felony domestic violence charge, and if you’d like to learn more about it, a simple Google search is all it takes. If you’d like to learn more about his skills on the hardwood, I’ve got plenty to say.
Here’s the thing about professional sports. Unless you’ve done something morally reprehensible, if you’re good at what you do, you’re going to get numerous chances. And Miles Bridges is really good at the thing that he does. So much so, in fact, that before he was charged with domestic violence, he was a fringe all-star expected to negotiate a 5-year, $173 million dollar contract with the Charlotte Hornets. Now he’s suspended for the first ten games of this season and is playing on a 1-year, $7.9 million dollar prove it deal to get his NBA future back on track.
In his 2021-22 season, Bridges averaged 20.2 points, 7.0 rebounds, 3.8 assists, 0.9 steals, and 0.8 blocks in 35.5 minutes per game. He was arguably Charlotte’s best player that season, the combo of him and Ball was dynamic to say the least, and the two of them showing out was a huge reason why the Hornets saw the ten win increase that they did in 2021-22. It is inarguable that he’s a very talented player.
Now imagine said talented player played zero games last season. How do you think that would effect his teams win total?
Look, I’m not going to predict what kind of future Miles Bridges is going to have in the NBA because, frankly, I don’t care. He’s a bad person and I don’t root for bad people. But I will say this — LaMelo Ball and Miles Bridges, Charlotte’s two best players, played a combined 39 games last season. With no other information, it should not surprise you that Charlotte only managed 27 wins in 2022-23. However, the last time these two players played an extended amount of basketball together, the Charlotte Hornets won 43 games.
So, again, how does this make any sense?
Marky Mark Is About To Get Funky
Last season, with Mason Plumlee starting at center, the Hornets were about as bad as it gets at defending the paint. They were 22nd in Opponents Points in the Paint (52.7 per game), 22nd in Opponents Offensive Rebounds (10.9 per game), 30th in Opponents Defensive Rebounds (35.3 per game), and 29th in Opponents Total Rebounds (46.2 per game). After Plumlee was traded to the Clippers, Mark Williams was given the starting role and he thrived, as you’d hope the 15th pick in the 2022 draft would do when given an increased opportunity on a bad team.
For the season, Williams averaged 9.0 points, 7.1 rebounds, 0.4 assists, 0.7 steals, and 1.0 blocks per game on 63.7% shooting in 19.3 minutes. However, after Plumlee was jettisoned to Los Angeles, Williams averaged 11.9 points, 10.1 rebounds, 0.7 assists, 0.5 steals, and 1.0 blocks per game on 63.9% shooting in 26.5 minutes per game. But one thing to point out here is that Williams only played five games alongside LaMelo Ball after Plumlee got moved due to Ball’s season ending ankle injury. In those games, Williams averaged 13.3 points, 11.8 rebounds, 1.0 assists, 0.3 steals, and 1.8 blocks per game on 65.8% shooting in 26.2 minutes.
It would not surprise me in the least to see Williams make a jump this season. He was a five-star recruit by 247Sports and Rivals, was named ACC Defensive Player of the Year in his sophomore season at Duke, and looked impressive during the back end of the 2022-23 season.
And because I love a season long highlight reel to further my points, here’s his!
Buzzing Bright In Buzz City
Are the Charlotte Hornets going to win the NBA title this season. Absolutely not and it would be foolish to think so. But this is a team with two all-star level players (Ball and Bridges), three players who could start for most teams in the NBA (Terry Rozier, Gordon Hayward, and PJ Washington), an up-and-coming center to be excited about (Williams), and the second pick in the 2023 NBA draft who I purposefully have not mentioned because I have no idea how much he’ll play and what to expect when he does (Brandon Miller).
This is an above average NBA roster and I would be shocked if they didn’t win at least 31 games this season. And it appears Kevin Pelton and Zach Lowe, two people whose opinions I greatly respect, agree with me (start at 22:28)
The biggest question for me is this — can this team win the Southeast Division? Because right now, our friends at DraftKings don’t seem to think so…
And to that I say:
The Miami Heat went 44-38 last season, got worse this offseason because they assumed they would acquire Damian Lillard and that fell through, and they weren’t particularly good last season before making a playoff run that defied all expectations
The Atlanta Hawks went 41-41 last season, are always rather middling, and didn’t do anything significant to improve their roster
The Orlando Magic went 34-48 last season, also didn’t do anything significant to improve their roster, and are generally a young team who don’t really know how to win yet
The Washington Wizards are expected to be one of the three worst teams in the league and their odds in all markets reflect that
So, I ask you, why can’t this team be last year’s Sacramento Kings? Or the 2021-22 Charlotte Hornets?
Bets I Like
Here are a few things I’ll be keying in on to start the season that pertain to sports betting that you can extrapolate to DFS fairly easily:
Hornets win total over 30.5. I’ve beaten this into the ground already, but for those of you who CTRL + F “Bets I Like”, I see you
Hornets to win the Southeast Division. Explained above and I stand by it. I wouldn’t shove a bunch of money on it, but it’s far more live than I believe people are giving it credit for
LaMelo Ball in DFS. Last season in DFS, Ball was mispriced for the majority of the season. His usage is outrageous (30.1%), he contributes in numerous ways (points, rebounds, assists, steals), and his minutes have increased under Clifford. There’s no reason he can’t put up all-star type numbers once again
Mark Williams over rebounds assuming it’s less than 10. Remember what I pointed out above. Williams’ season long rebound numbers show 7.1. But his rebounds per game after the Plumlee trade show 10.1 and his rebounds with Ball post-Plumlee show 11.8. And in the preseason game the Hornets played yesterday, Williams had 7 rebounds in just 22 minutes. I think he’s legit
Mark Williams over blocks assuming it’s less than 1.5. I don’t bet blocks often, as it’s somewhat hard to predict, but there were teams who I picked on a lot last season (Charlotte being the main culprit, as they had their shot blocked 5.7 times per game last season — second most in the NBA). As the season develops, it will be revealed what teams are getting their shots blocked a lot, and I will share my thoughts on it in this newsletter, but think of it this way — teams that shoot a lot of 3s like Dallas (3nd in attempts last season), Golden State (1st in attempts last season), and Milwaukee (4th in attempts last season) don’t get their shot blocked much
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