Filling in for Rohan today - Go Hornets!

Welcome home, David West. A double recap tonight after this one.

The NBA announced its "Rising Stars Challenge" roster pool yesterday. Unlike previous iterations, the game will feature 18 players on two teams selected by TNT's Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith. Via SBNation, here are the all eighteen invited participants:

ROOKIES: Kyrie Irving (Cavaliers), Derrick Williams (Timberwolves), Tristan Thompson (Cavaliers), Ricky Rubio (Timberwolves), Brandon Knight (Pistons), Kemba Walker (Bobcats), Markieff Morris (Suns), Kawhi Leonard (Spurs), Marshon Brooks(Nets).

SOPHOMORES: Blake Griffin (Clippers), John Wall (Wizards), Evan Turner (76ers),DeMarcus Cousins (Kings), Greg Monroe (Pistons), Gordon Hayward (Jazz), Paul George (Pacers), Landry Fields (Knicks), Tiago Splitter (Spurs).

The Hornets' Greivis Vasquez, Xavier Henry, and Gustavo Ayon could have theoretically qualified, though it's difficult to imagine either Vasquez or Henry trumping the sophomore list, which features primarily starting level players with significantly better minutes, production, and efficiency.

Gustavo Ayon, meanwhile, has a strong case when only efficiency is considered. Here are the rookie leaders in PER for a minimum 15 games played in 2011-2012:

                                                  
                                      Tota        
Rk             Player  Season Age  Tm    G GS  PER
1        Kyrie Irving 2011-12  19 CLE   23 23 21.6
2        Gustavo Ayon 2011-12  26 NOH   18  1 21.0
3        Jimmy Butler 2011-12  22 CHI   16  0 19.5
4      MarShon Brooks 2011-12  23 NJN   17  9 18.4
5      Nikola Vucevic 2011-12  21 PHI   16  3 18.4
6       Tobias Harris 2011-12  19 MIL   16  0 18.1
7           Jon Leuer 2011-12  22 MIL   23  6 18.1
8         Ricky Rubio 2011-12  21 MIN   25 15 17.2
9         Enes Kanter 2011-12  19 UTA   24  0 15.9
10      Isaiah Thomas 2011-12  22 SAC   24  0 14.9

Ayon's candidacy, though, falls short when considering his overall minutes. Monty Williams has simply not used him in the consistently expanded role many Hornets fans have wanted for him, and as a result, his overall counting stats haven't been nearly as impressive.

Donald Sloan, undrafted out of Texas A&M in 2010, has been signed by the New Orleans Hornets to a 10 day deal. The team announced the contract yesterday. Sloan hails from Shreveport, Louisiana and grew up in Dallas, TX where he attended high school before going onto College Station.

Here's the official announcement on Hornets.com:

The New Orleans Hornets announced today that they have signed guard Donald Sloan to a 10-day contract.

Sloan, a Texas A&M University product, appeared in five regular season games with the Atlanta Hawks this season before being released on January 27. Originally signed by Atlanta on December 9, 2011, Sloan averaged 1.2 points, 1.0 rebounds and 1.0 assists in 4.0 minutes of play with the Hawks.

The 6'3" guard has played five games (all starts) for the Erie Bayhawks of the NBA D-League this season, averaging 24.8 points, 8.4 assists and 5.2 rebounds in 40.9 minutes of play. Born in Shreveport, Sloan has appeared in 54 games (38 starts) in the D-League, with career averages of 12.0 points and 4.7 assists.

Sloan, who grew up in the Dallas area, was a first-team Big 12 Conference selection his senior season at Texas A&M, averaging 17.8 points.

Good luck to Mr. Sloan.

Although it might be tough to consider on the heels of a dominant wire-to-wire victory against the Celtics, the Hornets will likely have at least one lottery pick in the 2012 draft, a draft that promises to be the deepest and most talented since 2003. Even though the Hornets are looking great right now, they still are nowhere near a +6 level team that would be expected to make the Finals. And the best way to go from a mediocre team to an excellent team is by drafting well, especially in a small market. Keeping that in mind, I’ll provide a quick field guide to watching College Basketball this year in light of the 2012 draft.

We be jumpin!

Continue reading this post »

Now, we Hornets fans have taken the draft a bit loosely this year. Since The Hornets don't have a lottery pick and Dell Demps traded our first round pick for Jarrett Jack, we kind of don't really care about the first round of the draft. And, since the Hornets are owned by the NBA, it's pretty unlikely that David Stern will be announcing that his franchise has traded into the first round.

That leaves the Hornets with the 45th overall pick. We shouldn't belittle the pick, as the Hornets stole Marcus Thronton with the 43rd overall pick in 2009. However, the second round is really just a crapshoot. So to make this draft a bit more interesting (and this thread a bit more interesting), I'm turning this into an awesome contest under the jump.

Continue reading this post »

Hornets bounce back?

They face the Suns in Phoenix

Looking for a win.

I took a long flight yesterday, and on the plane, I decided to thoroughly read the Hornets'  financial statements. To me, it seems completely clear that, absent a significant change in the collective bargaining agreement to favor low-revenue teams or a significant increase in the Hornets' TV revenues, the Hornets will need to have very strong attendance to stay in New Orleans. In the 2008-2009 season, the team essentially broke even though they sold 98.7% of their tickets.

So here's the question: what can the Hornets do to put fans in the seats at the New Orleans Arena? Obviously, a winning team would do wonders, but even when the Hornets started 11-1, attendance was poor. So what will bring people to see the Hornets when there are so many other great attractions in the city competing for people's entertainment dollars?

We were noticing during the game thread yesterday that the second unit doesn't seem to play well as a team on offense – you see random players trying to drive off of a dead ball, and there's not much movement without the ball. The shot selection really decreases when they get on the floor.

How do you think the Hornets can fix this? Do you like certain combinations of players off the bench? Would Monty working harder to keep at least one or two starters in at all times help the offense or hurt it? Should the rotations change some? Are there players you'd like to see more or less of?

Let's kick around the problem in the comments. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that ppelico wants to see more Aaron Gray.

Today, the bench had nothing and Monty Williams adjusted – he boosted the starters' minutes and kept them in a lot. The Hornets responded and dug themselves out of a 13-point first half deficit to cruise to a relatively easy victory in our nation's capital. Bullets after the jump:

Continue reading this post »

This is going to hurt me more than it's going to hurt you. Recap below the jump.

Continue reading this post »

Game Time: 7pm CST.

The TImberwolves Outlook

The T-Wolves are a bunch of really bad players plus Kevin Love. Seriously, look at the T-Wolves four factors: they're significantly below average in all factors on offense and defense, except for rebounding. And Kevin Love is the only reason the T-Wolves are good at rebounding – only one other T-Wolf that has played over 500 minutes has a total rebounding percentage above 10% (Darko Milicic, 12%).

They have the fastest pace in the NBA, a strategy that has probably made it harder for them to play defense (second-worst Defensive Rating in the league). Their offense isn't as putrid as their defense, but they're still worse at offense than the Hornets, and come in at second-worst in the Western Conference. Michael Beasley (remember him?) is the team's leading scorer, but he's a high-volume, low-efficiency scorer.

The Hornets Matchup

If ever there was a matchup to end the Hornets' road woes, it's the Timberwolves. Minnesota's greatest strength is offensive rebounding (second best in the league, due almost entirely to Kevin Love), and that advantage should be neutralized by the Hornets' excellence in defensive rebounding (second best in the league, basically tied with the Magic). The Hornets are clearly the better team, so we'll see if their road problems have developed into a mental block.

UPDATE: Jersey Contest

Here's today's contest. Updated leaderboard tomrorow.

Your daily Links post. Happy St. Stephen's Day (in Eastern Europe only).

• Jimmy Smith of the Times-Pic notes that the Collective Bargaining agreement could provide extra revenues for smaller teams, which would bode well for keeping the Hornets in New Orleans.
• Speaking of Collective Bargaining, here's a great recap of how the NBA got to the edge of a lockout from SBNation's Denver Stiffs.
• The Times-Pic reports on Monty Williams' faith. When Monty was talking to Rohan at Summer League, one of the first things he started talking about was how he was trying to find a church in New Orleans that was as good as the one he left in Portland. Some sports figures use their faith for expedient purposes, but Monty is the real deal.
• Hornets247 recaps the Hornets' win over the Hawks, nothing that defense was the key.
• Reality check: The Hornets are 5th in the Western Conference by Basketball-Reference's Simple Rating System. They're first in the Conference in defense but third worst in offense.

We're almost two months into Monty Williams' tenure as Head Coach, and I think we've seen enough of him to form some early opinions. Let's discuss Monty's early performance as Head Coach – what grade would you give him? Was he the best out of the candidates the Hornets considered during the offseason?

Some quick and dirty pros and cons:

Pros

• Consistent focus on defense has led to results - Conference-best defensive efficiency
• Appears to have turned team around after a nasty slide punctuated by the NBA's buyout of the Hornets
• Seems to be keeping Chris Paul happy

Cons

• Questionable decisions with playing time – Green vs. Thornton, Gray vs. Mbenga
• The stagnant offense has been the second worst in the Western Conference
• The Hornets have had bad second halves in several games (e.g. Spurs, Heat)

Let's kick the subject around in the comments. 

For their first time in franchise history, the Hornets will play a game with a person other than George Shinn as the owner. I wonder if David Stern will be sitting courtside when the game tips off at 7pm. Rohan has to take two finals back to back during the game, so you guys get to read my (significantly less good) preview instead.

The Pistons Outlook

The Pistons stand at 7-14, an awful team that is nonetheless competing for the coveted 8th seed with 7 other dreadful teams that all have between 6 and 8 wins. The team's main strength is its impressive stockpile of mediocre players. It's main weakness is that it doesn't have anybody that's all that good. Richard Hamilton's skills have continued to erode (he's expected to be back from injury this game), and Tayshaun Prince peaked three years ago. Ben Wallace is old and mediocre (but still plays surprisingly good defense) and Rodney Stuckey now appears to be the team's best player, a bright spot on an aging and declining team.

The Matchup

This is the kind of game that I would have expected New Orleans to win with ease a few weeks ago, but now I feel that the Hornets are an enigma. Sure, on paper, the Hornets are better at almost every position (the Pistons probably have better bench play, though), but I'm interested to see how the team reacts to the uncertainty surrounding the franchise given the 2-6 slide over the past 8 games. Nonetheless, the Hornets are 8-2 at home, and the Pistons are not a good basketball team. Should be an interesting game.

If you haven't already, make sure you enter the jersey contest today.

Geaux Hornets.

In a Wikileaks-like dump, Deadspin released the Hornets' financial statements from the fiscal year ending 2009. I'll be going through these statements for the next couple of days off and on, but I can share some of my preliminary analysis with you right now. I'm happy to finally be putting my finance major to good use.

The short version of the story is that the Hornets were not profitable from 2008 to 2009, and it doesn't appear that they were particularly profitable before that. The NBA was keeping them on life support, giving them loans, letting them get cheap credit, and deferring payment of the Hornets' liabilities to the NBA. Follow me beneath the jump for some of the details.

Continue reading this post »

The Expos are the only previous case of a major American sports league purchasing one of its teams*, so naturally many NBA analysts are comparing the NBA's purchase of the Hornets to the MLB's purchase of the Expos. And although there are some similarities between the Hornets' situation and the plight of the Expos circa 2000, the Hornets' period of NBA ownership will likely not become the abject disaster that the Expos' period of MLB ownership was. At worst, it will become a different kind of abject disaster.

For as Tolstoy might have said, each successful franchise is alike, but each failure is wretched in its own special way.

1) The Hornets will not be an orphaned, afterthought franchise.

The Expos were actually supposed to be contracted. After months of speculation, Major League Baseball owners met in Chicago on November 6, 2001, in which they voted 28-2 to contract the Expos and the Minnesota Twins. As this happened, John Henry's group, which previously owned the Marlins, bought the Boston Red Sox. To make the deal possible, John Henry sold the Marlins to Jeffrey Loria, the owner of the Expos, who in turn sold the Expos to Major League Baseball, in anticipation of contraction. However, the owners of the Metrodome in Minnesota won an injunction against Major League Baseball, requiring the Twins to play in the Metrodome in 2002. Baseball couldn't contract only one team, since that would have created an odd number of MLB teams and leave one idle on every day, making a 162-game schedule impossible in a 6-month time window. As a result, the MLB was stuck with the Expos and had to try to find a way to get a buyer.

The Hornets, however, are a viable, competitive, and valuable franchise. Their only problem is that George Shinn wanted out of the organization quickly, and that wasn't able to be done quickly enough for his desire and still keep the franchise in New Orleans. It's not a team, like the Expos, that were deemed to be of negative value to the league.

2) The Hornets organization will ensure that the team remans competitive

When Jeffrey Loria bought the Florida Marlins, he took more than his talents to South Beach – he took the Expos' front office, on-field staff, and even the manager. When the Expos tried to rebuild, they had no personnel, no scouting reports, and no office equipment. Loria even took all of the team's computers to Miami. Major League Baseball then installed an entirely new front office, one that was largely incompetent. The man running the show was Omar Minaya, soon to become yet another failed Mets GM. Minaya was just as incompetent in Montreal as he was later in New York, but nobody noticed because he was tanking the Expos, who nobody cared about. He made one of the most hilariously lopsided trades in recent MLB history, trading future all-stars Grady Sizemore, Brandon Phillips, and Cliff Lee for the fat and incompetent Bartolo Colón.

In 2003, the Montreal Expos were in the middle of a wild-card race when September 1 rolled around, usually the date that teams bring up 10 extra reserves to swell rosters to 35 players and give some much-needed rest to the core roster players after a grueling 5-month season. Though doing so would only cost the MLB $50,000, the League decreed that the Expos couldn't spend the money to bring the players up, effectively crushing the wild-card hopes of the Expos.

The Hornets have, at long last, a solid front office. GM Dell Demps has made solid transactions so far, Monty Williams has proved to be a promising young head coach, and President Hugh Weber somehow convinced both of these guys to come to a team without an owner, so he's clearly a great salesman. Their personnel, scouting reports, and computers are all secure in New Orleans.

In addition, there's no NBA analogue to the refusal of the MLB to bring up the reserves. Though the Hornets will likely head into free agency without an increase in their budget, we weren't anticipating that the Hornets would pay the luxury tax any time soon. As a result, it's likely that the Hornets, due to their strong organization and their already low payroll, will continue to remain a competitive NBA team while the Expos were relegated to punchlines.

3) Basketball is viable in New Orleans.

The Expos had nobody showing up to their games. They ranked dead last in attendance for four years before the purchase, and they were dead last in the three years after the purchase in which the Expos stayed in Montreal. Many years, they had half the attendance of the team with the second-lowest attendance. Baseball was not viable in Montreal.

In contrast, the Hornets are in the lower tier of NBA attendance, but are nowhere near the Expos' level of futility. For the last three years, the Kings, Nets, and 76ers all had lower attendance every single year, and nobody says that basketball isn't viable in Sacramento, New Jersey, or Philadelphia. The Hornets haven't finished in the bottom three in attendance over the past four years. While the Hornets aren't going to be a major-market team in New Orleans, they have the fan base to make them successful over the long haul.

In addition, the NBA supports basketball in New Orleans, and has shown a lot of confidence in the city. David Stern says that the League is stepping in to keep basketball in New Orleans as part of the League's commitment to the city post-Katrina. The MLB clearly wanted baseball out of Montreal, and Bud Selig always said that he wanted the Expos to be relocated (and even made the Expos play half of their home games in Puerto Rico in 2003).

4) Basketball is rising, baseball was falling

The Expos were a desperate team in a desperate sport. The juice that the McGwire-Sosa home-run-athon provided MLB had waned by 2001, and league-wide attendance was continuing to fall. Interest in the sport was waning, and baseball was having to confront the reality that it might have expanded too quickly. Many wondered if the talent in the league had been spread too thin.

The NBA is a league still on the rise. Attendance, revenues, and interest are all on the uptick, even in a terrible economy. Fundamentally, the league is sound, and there's more than enough talent to go around. As a result, the Hornets are a much more valuable franchise than the Expos were if only because they compete in a growing and vibrant League.

*The Phoenix Coyotes do not apply because the NHL is clearly not a major American sports league.

• The Hornets are set to play the New York Knicks today. That means that Chris Paul is set to play the New York Knicks today. You might recall there was some speculation last summer about Chris Paul going to New York. New York media, go nuts.
• The New York Post reports that Chris Paul likes Mike D'Antoni, so maybe he'll come to New York. Two thirds into the article, the Post mentions that Chris Paul also likes Monty Williams.
• The New York Times is higher-brow than the Post, so they get Justin Kubatko from Basketball-Reference to write an article saying that, gasp, Chris Paul is really good.
• The New York Daily News says that Raymond Felton is going to be pumped for this game because he is miffed to be considered a mere consolation prize after the Knicks couldn't snag Chris Paul.
• Even the Times-Pic got in on the action, reporting on Chris Paul's discussion of the infamous summer wedding toast.
• Pro Basketball Talk is more circumspect, gently pointing out that the New York media's speculation might be a bit ridiculous.
• In other Knicks news, John Reid posted a video blog that actually previews the game.
• The Times-Pic also has an interesting article about Jarrett Jack. He's having a hard time fitting into the new system, but Monty says that he's willing to be patient as Jack settles in.
• The familiar James Grayson at Swarm and Sting and Joe Gerrity at Hornets247 both have thoughts about the Hornets' attendance woes. Grayson's is tongue-in-cheek, while Gerrity is pissed off.
• And finally, here's an awesome video of Jeremy Pargo (yeah, that's Jannero's brother) making a tremendous dunk in the Euroleague.

So there's a game today, the second half of a nasty back-to-back. Here's the Yahoo game preview.Tip off is at 7 Central.

We'll see if the Hornets can bounce back from yesterday's nasty loss against the enigmatic Thunder.

Pregame discussion topics:

1) Why are Paul and West fading in the second half?

2) How good are the Thunder? Where do you project they'll fall in the Western Conference?

3) Who wins the game, and by how much?

See you in the Game Thread.

In our continuing quest to become the leading Gary Chouest news aggregation site on the internet, At the Hive is proud to present the very latest news and analysis regarding Gary Chouest's rumored purchase of the Hornets. [ed: and "by very latest," we mean "at least a week old."] When we last visited the subject, the local New Orleans media and the New York media were at odds about the likelihood of the sale going through. The New York Daily News claimed that the sale had fallen through, and most major media outlets took that story and ran with it. The Times-Pic, however, believed that the sale was still likely to happen.

After a month, it appears that the Times-Pic knows more about what's going on in New Orleans than the New York Daily News. The majority of news articles are currently predicting that the sale from Shinn to Chouest will be finalized by the end of the year. However, these articles take morsels of tidbits of rumors and amplify them in an echo chamber until they sound like credible and robust reporting. Take this example:

Matt Moore writes at CBS Sports:

Most interestingly, FanHouse reports that part of Paul's newfound contentment is due to the near-sale of the Hornets to Gary Chouest. Apparently Paul was concerned about current owner George Shinn's commitment to spending for a winner.

This sounds like a big deal: sure, the sale hasn't gone through, but it's so close to completion that Chris Paul is more happy about the Hornets' direction. Surely, the sale must be impending. Now, let's look at the FanHouse article that Matt Moore cited:

Perhaps most importantly of all, there are reports that the team's ownership change from George Shinn to Gary Chouest that was supposed to be completed by the end of April should indeed happen by the end of the year. Sources closes to Paul insisted all along that his concerns about the Hornets were rooted in a fear that Shinn was either financially unable or unwilling to take the necessary steps to contend for a title. 

Taking a step backwards in the echo chamber, the rumors become less concrete. FanHouse reports two unrelated rumors, one citing "reports" that the sale could be finalized by the end of the year, and another that claims Paul was unhappy with Shinn's frugality. Matt Moore then lumps the two together to say that Paul is happier with the direction of the Hornets because the team might be sold. But where are these "reports" about the supposedly impending transaction coming from? The FanHouse article cites this Mark Stein article. It's hard to find, but there's a little rumor he tosses on the sidebar about the Hornets' sale:

One source with knowledge of the Hornets' thinking maintains that the long-stalled sale of the franchise from George Shinn to minority partner Gary Chouest will still happen by the end of the year.

And that tiny, almost comically vague morsel appears to be the original source of several articles written about Gary Chouest in the past week, each one more certain that the sale will take place by the end of the year than the one before it.

The only other original source of Gary Chouest news comes from Hornets 247's reporting on the Dell Demps Chalk Talk:

About the Ownership Transfer: It is not complete, but it's in "dotting the i's, crossing the t's" phase and that part takes more time than coming to the larger agreement. Both owners support him completely and he has yet to have a move he wanted to make meet with resistance on that front.

That statement doesn't give me much hope, since the Hornets front office has been saying that Chouest and Shinn have supposedly been "dotting the I's and crossing the T's" since April. When I hear that phrase, I'm thinking about filling out legal paperwork and getting the deal that's already been agreed upon on paper. It seems like Chouest and Shinn are still working out the framework of the deal, since legal work can't possibly take six months.

However, since the New York Daily News rumors that the sale has fallen through appear to be debunked, and there is a vague rumor that the sale could be completed by the end of the year, I'm officially moving the Gary Chouest Purchase Threat Level from "Guarded" to "Elevated." Go shout it on the rooftops. [ed: should have new terror chart when I get some time]

One final piece of news: we appear to be making the last color coded terror chart in America. That's what happens when you get in the business 9 years after it's cool.