The Charlotte Hornets Must Have an All-Star Player Next Season
With the 2017 NBA All-Star Game being in Charlotte, the Charlotte Hornets must have an all-star player this season for the first time since 2009-10.
The Charlotte Hornets will be hosting the 2017 NBA All-Star Game this season for only the second time in their history. They also hosted it back in 1991. This is a huge honor for the city and the team but they will need a player from their roster to make the all-star game to make the event even better.
The last Charlotte player to be named to an all-star game was Gerald Wallace back in 2009-2010 when they were the Bobcats. Kemba Walker was arguably snubbed from last seasons’ all-star game as he was a potential coaches pick. Many thought that he should have been voted in by the coaches but his snub was justifiable based on the other players that made it.
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The Hornets only have one former all-star player on their roster and that is center, Roy Hibbert, who they recently signed this summer. He made the all-star game back in 2012 and 2014. He may also be far off the mark from the all-star player that he previously was in his career.
I think that Charlotte only has two players that have a legitimate shot at making the all-star game this year in Kemba Walker and Nicolas Batum. It is key for one of these players to make the Eastern Conference All-Star team because the tim will be hosting the event this season. The last time that a team hosted the all-star game and one of their players didn’t make an all-star team was in 2005.
The 2005 NBA All-Star game was held in Denver, Colorado and a Denver Nuggets’ player did not make the Western Conference ALl-Star team. That was the last time that a team hosted the event and they did not have a player make the roster. The Charlotte Hornets do not want to be the first team in over a decade to do that.
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This means that Walker and Batum, who were the team’s two best players last season, must have even better seasons this year. It is a lot to ask of them and it adds more pressure to their play but that is what they must do. There must be no question that one of them could be potentially snubbed from the East all-stars.
They each had career best seasons last year and Walker averaged 20.9 points per game, 5.2 assists per game, and 4.4 rebounds per game. The point guard position is arguably the toughest spot to breakthrough and make an all-star team with all of the great talents at the position around the league but Kemba is not he brink of making that happen.
Batum averaged 14.9 points per game, 5.8 assists per game, and 6.1 rebounds per game last season. It will be interesting to see if Nic is listed as a guard or a forward next season based on where he plays. It could make all of the difference when it comes to voting.
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Some may say that the NBA makes it so that the host team has at least one all-star every year since 2005 but if the Charlotte Hornet shave a bad first half to the season and Walker and Batum are not playing their best, they could be left without an all-star player. The team needs an all-star next season. Kemba and Nic have the best shot at making that happen. It would be huge for the team, the city, and the state.