Charlotte Hornets’ ideal scenario in first round of NBA draft? Don’t pick anybody
.JPG "Charlotte Hornets guard LaMelo Ball (2) feels the presence of Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert (27) in an NBA game. If the Hornets can trade for Gobert, the two could be teammates.")
As the Charlotte Hornets prepare for another NBA draft, their lack of a head coach is an obvious flaw — but one that will soon be rectified.
A far harder problem to solve is their lack of a shot-blocking big man who can strike some fear into the layup/dunk line that opponents too often run on the Charlotte defense.
That’s why on Thursday night, the Hornets should package their two first-round picks — No. 13 and No. 15 — along with a couple of current players and trade for a veteran big man like Utah’s Rudy Gobert, Phoenix’s Deandre Ayton or Indiana’s Myles Turner.
These two Charlotte first-round picks are tricky. They are high enough to be interesting, but not high enough to ensure that you can get a star or even a starter there. And what the Hornets don’t need is a couple of other rookies who are first-round picks but can’t get off the bench. They already had two of those last year, in James Bouknight and Kai Jones.
It’s best to develop both Bouknight and Jones under the new coach, and make these 2022 picks into commodities that can be traded away for someone you know can play.
Keep LaMelo Ball, Terry Rozier and Miles Bridges (a restricted free agent who’s going to get paid a lot of money by the Hornets, and deserves to be). Trade anybody else you have to, along with picks 13 and 15, and make a splash that’s going to mean something.
Let’s say it’s Gobert, who is about to turn 30 years old and may be the most likely option for a variety of reasons.
Surround him with four guys who can shoot the 3-pointer, let Gobert patrol the middle on defense and suddenly the Hornets are a playoff team. And that’s no small thing for this franchise, which has missed the playoffs six years in a row. That’s the second-longest streak in the NBA, trailing only Sacramento’s 16-year playoff drought.
Turner has seemingly been on the trading block for years, but he’s also a shot-blocker who is entering the final year of his contract. Ayton, only 23 and a restricted free agent, has the highest upside and would cost the most. He’s intriguing, but also might require so much in capital that it’s not the move that Hornets general manager Mitch Kupchak would want to make.
In any case, the Hornets should trade the picks somewhere.
But let’s say they don’t. In that case, with one of those picks they should take Duke’s Mark Williams, who has some of the same shot-blocking skills that we are talking about. Williams doesn’t do much offensively besides dunk, but he’s a seven-footer who can alter some shots on the way to the rim. He’d be a risk worth taking in that scenario.
Such a pick, though, would inevitably cause a logjam down low, where the Hornets are going to try to develop Jones and already (at least for now) have veteran Mason Plumlee (whose rim-protecting skills just don’t provide the needed solution).
As for the fact that the Hornets’ next head coach won’t be involved in the draft, that isn’t as big a problem as you might think.
As ESPN analyst Jay Bilas said in a conference call with reporters Tuesday when discussing the Hornets: “It is unusual not to have a head coach in place for the draft. Usually you certainly like to keep in mind what your head coach wants, and how he or she likes to play. But it’s certainly not the be-all and end-all, because most coaches have input but they don’t make decisions. … Those decisions are often made by front-office people who are spending all their time on talent acquisition. So it’s not some death knell.”
What is a problem, though, is that gaping hole in the middle that the Hornets have.
But, on Thursday night, a trade could solve that one.
This story was originally published June 22, 2022 at 2:38 PM with the headline "Charlotte Hornets’ ideal scenario in first round of NBA draft? Don’t pick anybody."
