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Eric Gordon, "The Commisioner," hits the game winner.

Been a while since I’ve checked in and I apologise, things have been hectic on my end. But alas there’s a new season and a new winning team for the Hornets. With that there’s been a slew of roster moves which we’ve previously assessed. There’s been time to let that sink in and observe some of the other ongoings with the Hornets organisation.

With that let’s fire away some tidbits about the Hornets so far this season (and the off-season).

• Eric Gordon is the real deal. He can be a legitimate building block for a rebuilding Hornets, if they can get some top-10 picks. Gordon has impressed me so far with his class and professionalism. If he really buys into the program in New Orleans and becomes more of a leader (which he’s well on his way to doing) there’s no reason why in 2 or 3 years the team can’t be competing on a much more serious level.
• There’s something that makes Monty Williams a very happy man. They now have two centers who in one way or another are sub-All-Star level. But what’s even better for Williams is that there’s flexibility in his rotations he once never had. Against Phoenix the second year coach was able to substitute in Emeka Okafor late in the fourth for a defensive presence that closed the gap. Chris Kaman can give you a low post option which was lost when David West signed with the Indiana Pacers.
• Greivis Vasquez makes more of an impact than Quincy Pondexter. I loved me some Q-Pon, but unfortunately I believe that Vasquez can give the Hornets, or any NBA team something, even if he’s going to make some mistakes. Watching the Suns game again you actually feel Vasquez’s presence on the floor. That may be because he’s the point-guard, but none the less he takes shots and creates for others, something Pondexter never really did.
• This team is more talented than you think. ESPN placed us dead-last in the Western Conference, something I don’t actually have problem with (because we’d get a very high lottery pick, casual fans and season ticket holders will think other wise). However, looking at the Hornets there’s a sense, particularly from us homer fans that New Orleans is much better than what others are saying. That could be the Hornets marketing department doing a stellar job, but still I can’t help but seeing this team being much more competitive than predicted.
• Hornets will make trades this season, a few of them. I still feel like, as Jake has put it, Dell Demps is that friend you have who makes 319 trades, or attempts to, on fantasy football. With the pieces they have New Orleans is in a position to continue to get draft picks and talent to build for two or three years down the track.

Grayson hanging in the Superdome

Unfortunately both Grayson and I missed the Hornets opening night win over the Phoenix Suns last night. BUT! We had a very good reason. Grayson happens to be in New Orleans, and last nigh we were at the Saints game. In the meantime, I have a guest post up over at Hornets247.com which I posted after the jump. Check it out and comment there or here. We’ll be back with fresh content soon for you! Continue reading this post »

Chris Paul has been traded from the New Orleans Hornets to the Los Angeles Clippers

Breaking news, the Los Angeles Clippers have acquired All-Star Point-Guard Chris Paul for Eric Gordon, Chris Kaman, Al-Farouq Aminu and Minnesota’s first-round pick, according to Marc Stein of ESPN. The League has approved of this deal effective immediately and it appears there will be few problems with this trade down the road.

Clippers Receive:

-Chris Paul

-2 Future Second-Round Picks

Hornets Receive:

- Eric Gordon

-Chris Kaman

-Al-Farouq Aminu

-Minnesota Timberwolves First-Round Pick

This Chris Paul trade saga has been drawn out for weeks now, with teams ranging from the Knicks all the way to the Warriors interested in acquiring Paul. However, the Hornets trade demands of youthful talent and draft picks has been the biggest road block for every team with only the Clippers, Warriors and maybe the Celtics being able to fufill such a demand.

The Hornets now have some kind of flexibility in their ability to rebuild. There are no guarantees that Eric Gordon stays (restricted free-agent in the future), nor is the Minnesota pick, a top-10 one. There is no pretty way about it, the years ahead will be tough. Dell Demps now has some kind of ability to build a team from the ground-up.

Implications are that once this trade is completed that the Hornets crowd numbers will suffer. This worries a lot of people, including the league. However, if a new lease is in place as well as a new owner, perhaps then fans in New Orleans will embrace this team for the long term.

For now we must say goodbye to the greatest Hornet that every was. He’s teased us for the past two years with rumours persisting over his strong desire to leave. We can always wonder why and how, but the truth is, what’s done is done. We must move on, we must rebuild.

Chris Paul was a tremendous basketball player and achieved so much in his career in New Orleans. But, like every NBA superstar currently playing, he’s fallen the way of the desire to play with All-Stars. After all, who can blame him?

Let’s count our blessings and move along, from now on we rebuild until winning a championship is done.

This cartoon was sent to me by Gary Finkler. As wrapped up as everyone’s been in this who Chris Paul-trade-saga, it’s nice to get a dose a humor. Gary does some fantastic work over at his blog 7th Inning Sketch so please go check it out.

Chris Paul has the Los Angeles Clippers on his list of teams to play for

Things just became a lot more interesting with the Chris Paul sweepstakes. Paul is now very open to opting into his final year of his contract if he’s traded to the Los Angeles Clippers.

This is big news because the trade demands of the Hornets are large. It’s speculated and widely reported that Dell Demps and the NBA wants 2-First Round picks, Eric Gordon, Eric Bledsoe, Al Farouq Aminu and Chris Kaman‘s expiring deal. That’s a lot to boot and the Clippers are only willing to give that up if Chris Paul is willing to stay with them “long term.” Here’s some information:

ESPN.com reported late Saturday that the Clippers had emerged as the “early front-runner” in the race to land Paul after the frustrated Lakers finally withdrew from three-team talks with the Hornets and Houston Rockets. One source close to the situation said Sunday that New Orleans has asked the Clippers for Gordon, Chris Kaman, Eric Bledsoe, Al-Farouq Aminuand at least two future first-round picks in exchange for Paul.

— ESPN’s Marc Stein

This is big news for the Hornets because it might allow them to effectively rebuild, but who knows how long that will take. This deal will be contingent on the Hornets getting youthful talent and picks, it seems like that may be possible.

For the Clippers it would mean they would now have two building blocks for a championship. Looking into the future the 2013 free-agent class looks amazing. The problem however has been and always will be owner Donald Sterling. It’s been noted several times that Sterling has little desire to go for a championship, content with pocketing dollars. But with the potential and lucrative prospect of building a stronger brand that competes deep into the playoffs, he may now have no choice but to throw cash at his employees who play the game.

David West, my favourite Hornet and NBA Player

A white, clean jersey is cut with teal and gold at the side. A man standing over six feet and nine inches fills it and the hoop as he fades away. The announcer proclaims – “Daaaaavid West” with a hiss at the end.

This was my fondest memory of David West, my favourite NBA player.

The 2003 NBA Draft was headlined by some pretty big names. Lebron James, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Bosh all were headliners in the first round. However, the man from Xavier and one of the best college players, David West went unheralded largely because of physical attributes.

No one really wanted an undersized power-forward. How could he possibly matchup with the much taller power-forwards of today’s game?

This is what made him so special and it’s why the Hornets decided to go with him with the 18^th selection in the 2003 NBA draft. He had four things that both the organisation and I still admire to this day. His toughness, humbleness, work-ethic and desire to be the best at his profession all stood out as the traits that made him who he is.

Personally though, there’s something I hold much closer to me when it comes to David. He was somewhat of a role model for me the past 5 or so years. The reason has always been that I could see some of myself in him.

West was never the most athletic player on the court, but what he lacked in dunking ability, he made up with craftiness and toughness. I tried to live up to this through sporting endeavours or just the way I embraced challenges. His determination, the way he never backed down (like the Dirk Nowitzki face tap of death) were things I loved about David.

There was no way of breaking his spirit and drive, this stands true today.

—

David now joins the Indiana Pacers, a small market team, with big ambitions. The New Orleans Hornets hope to one day be an organisation with those same ambitions.  Nobody can blame West for wanting to leave. For a long while now people have been resigned to the notion that he had booked his ticket out of town a long time ago.

But he never once checked out for the Hornets, he always gave it his all both on and off the court. If he didn’t the virtues he lives by would stand for nothing.

Rather than complain to his agents, do interviews with Chris Broussard, West kept his mouth shut and weighed up his options. His desire to return to New Orleans was tied into the Chris Paul situation. Without Paul, West could not compete for a championship.

—

Now the Indiana Pacers get West, in what will be an exciting new Eastern Conference team. West joins familiar the face in Darren Collison as well as Danny Granger, Roy Hibbert and Paul George. The Pacers now have a low post scorer who can give you eighteen points a game. Moreover West is the veteran they’ve been dying for who can calm any storm. If Indiana can add some shooting-guard’s then they will be poised to make a playoff run.

We’re all going to miss David. He won’t get his jersey retired in New Orleans, but he sure as hell will be remembered as one of the best to ever wear the creole blue. I’ll miss David and now wish him all the best for the end of his NBA career.

The Los Angeles Lakers have pulled out of the Chris Paul sweepstakes.

The ongoing discussions between the Los Angeles Lakers and New Orleans Hornets have been progressing for the past five days. According to Marc Stein of ESPN these talks have now broken off after both sides tried to re-work the deal once it was rejected by the NBA and commissioner David Stern.

For the Lakers, they’ve decided to trade Lamar Odom to Dallas for their trade-exception. It gives the Lakers some much needed cap space as well giving Odom a new place to play basketball.

However, the real story is what all this means for the New Orleans Hornets and general manager Dell Demps. It’s much known among the Hornets community that Chris Paul does not want to be on the team. For whatever reason he wants to leave and the Hornets have obliged by trying to get rid of him as soon as possible.

Now that the Lakers have broken off talks the Hornets are in a precarious position needing to get value for CP before he bolts in free-agency.

New Orleans plan for free-agency is ruined every minute Paul is on the team. The Hornets can’t go out and get Paul help knowing that he’s gone in six months. They can’t not get him help knowing that it will make him more disgruntled and the team worse.

This has ruined the Hornets goal to rebuild through gaining trade assets and getting first-round draft picks and youthful talent.

So what do the Hornets do now? This deal may be broken off and the questions will surround whether they can resurrect it, but that looks doubtful. Dell Demps will have to go back out and find some teams that are interested. Golden State didn’t want Paul, nor did the Clippers. Now the Lakers are out and the one option being left is the awful Boston Celtics who have recently signed David West.

Things don’t look good in New Orleans, they look downright disastrous.

Here is a letter that NBA commish David Stern sent to Hornets ticket holders today. Notice his signature is just his first name. I could make some sort of Diva-soccer-(football)-player joke but that’s just too obvious. I’ve said before that I think of Stern as a comic book villain and this signature just reinforces that. Other than that, it was nice to see his commitment to keeping the NBA in New Orleans.

The Hornets are interested in Nick Young, Jamal Crawford, Shannon Brown and Glen Davis.

The New Orleans Hornets and Dell Demps are hard at work, using the phones to plug into free-agents and express their interests. Among the free-agents mentioned in the title there are others including Glen “Big Baby” Davis, Jason Smith and the much higher priority of resigning both David West and Carl Landry.

Demps clearly knows that he has to renew optimism among the team, that it truly can contend. The question will be, how many players think that it’s an actual possibility?

Continue reading this post »