A preview of Marco Belinelli and his fit with the Charlotte Hornets

The Charlotte Hornets made a shocking trade for Marco Belinelli this offseason. He is a reliable NBA veteran but how exactly does he fit with this team?

Marco Belinelli has been (no Italian pun intended) a renaissance man in the NBA. Having played for six different teams in a matter of nine years, he has been a very consistent basketball player his entire career. He has never played with the same team for the more than two years starting the early part of his NBA career being traded in succession from Golden State to Toronto and then to New Orleans with each city being in a different time zone from the last. He then turned a productive season with Chicago into a memorable fling with the San Antonio Spurs where he would become the very first native Italian player to win an NBA championship.

Charlotte’s General Manager Rich Cho has had his eye on Belinelli for a while now as he was in pursuit of the Italian from the get-go in last year’s free agency class. Belinelli decided to sign with Sacramento instead as he joined a talented but notoriously underachieving team. He still managed to put up decent numbers, but fans of the Kings were disappointed in his play as he averaged career lows in field goal and three-point percentage. After trading the 22nd pick in the draft in exchange for Belinelli, it was clear that Cho was impressed with the player’s skill-set and sees him as an important chess piece for what he is attempting to build with the Charlotte Hornets.

Despite not having an ideal season with the Kings, Belinelli is still a more than capable player coming off of the bench. The San Antonio Spurs proved that when utilized in the right scheme, he can be a very effective player. Despite being on a top 10 three-point shooting team, he was surprisingly one of the worst shooters for the Kings last season. Most of it can be blamed on the toxic style of play the Kings employ as they over rely on being offensively overwhelming but give up silly turnovers and play uninspired defense regularly throughout the season.

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Probably the best examples of the Kings play are the two games they played against the Hornets this past season. The first in which they let a 22 point lead slip away from them and in the second game they allowed the Hornets to score 42 points in the 3rd quarter before losing it in double overtime in an absolute thriller of a game in which DeMarcus Cousins scored 56 points before eventually fouling out of the game.

On paper, Belinelli seemed liked a good fit for a team like Sacramento. He is a terrific spot-up shooter and will make other teams pay if they leave him alone on the fringe. With the Kings though, there were extenuating circumstances for his poor shooting percentage.

Despite being more of a bench player that provides a scoring punch, the Italian didn’t have many facilitators for him on the team besides Rajon Rondo. To put it in perspective, the third leading assist leader on the team was Cousins who averaged 3.3 a game.

Considering Belinelli had to share the court with the second team, for the most part, his skills weren’t put to good use. Whenever he was put into the game, teams had a pretty good idea to hone in on him. The fact that he still averaged 10.2 points a game despite poor shooting and playing a little more than 24 minutes a night is actually not too bad.

With San Antonio, Belinelli was very effective as the Spurs are prominently known as one of the best passing teams in the NBA. On that 2014 championship squad, 10 players averaged over 1.5 assists a game. Whether Belinelli was starting or coming off the bench, he was getting looks on a regular basis and made teams pay for it. Playing alongside wily vets like Boris Diaw and Patty Mills off the bench led to him having the best season of his career.

The Hornets were impressive last year in that they completely changed their offensive identity from the worst three-point shooting team in the league to a top 10 three-point shooting team. The addition of Nicolas Batum was the main reason, as he took off a lot of pressure that was on Kemba Walker who was previously the primary facilitator for the Hornets.

When looking at Charlotte’s line-up, it’s pretty clear that Belinelli and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist are almost complete opposite players. Whereas Belinelli is the more polished shooter with limited defense, MKG has tremendous defense and likes to slash his way to the basket. I believe that Bels will more than likely come off the bench more for MKG than he would for Batum at shooting guard due to his fit on the team.

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Belinelli will give the Hornets a different look on the floor than with MKG and depending on the match-up, both players can give opponents a lot of problems. Playing him alongside Walker, Batum and Williams will give the team an ability to space the floor a lot and prevent other teams from packing into the paint. With MKG, the Hornets can exploit teams that are weak on pick-and-roll defense as Batum showed with his rapport with Cody Zeller this past season.

Although typically defined as a sharpshooter, Belinelli also has a quick first step and can outmaneuver and out-hustle opponents on his way to the basket. Sometimes he will surprise opponents with his athleticism and has made some poster-worthy dunks before. He also executes the head fake real well when he gets the ball and is good in playing pick-and-pop offense.

There were times last year where he made bad passes and caused unnecessary turnovers, but typically he’s a good passer. What the Italian brings that the Hornets love the most is his ability to make clutch shots. Most of his career highlights revolve around him making multiple three-pointers in the fourth quarter.

Historically, Belinelli has not been a great defensive player, so he will need some fine-tuning this season under Steve Clifford. Coach Clifford has shown that despite everything, his team will play fundamentally good defense and has turned players around before. Just look at what he’s done for a guy like Marvin Williams this past season.

Williams was a hot commodity in free agency for his rare ability to be a stretch 4 and rim protector at the same time. Belinelli will get regular minutes regardless, but if he doesn’t play good/consistent defense he will see those minutes dwindle as the season progresses.

My opinion is that Belinelli is an ideal fit for how the Hornets play. He will be a good complement for MKG off the bench and can make clutch shots when the team needs it. I expect to see him play close to 30 minutes a game this upcoming season.

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He will not be as great on defense as Courtney Lee was, but he will be a more willing and confident shooter. I’m sure Belinelli will want to prove that his down year in Sacramento was nothing more than a fluke, and hopefully the Hornets will reap the benefits on the upcoming season.