Buzz City Beat: Why the Charlotte Hornets won’t win the Finals, Bob Weiss joins Denver
Welcome to Buzz City Beat, a daily roundup of the best articles from around the internet surrounding the Charlotte Hornets.
Here’s a quick breakdown of the team’s schedule for this season. In this edition of Buzz City Beat, we look at why the Charlotte Hornets won’t win the NBA Finals, Bob Weiss joining the Denver Nuggets‘ coaching staff and why adding Dwight Howard was a good move this summer.
Why Charlotte won’t win the Finals (SI.com)
"Dwight Howard hasn’t been a great player and a great influence simultaneously since his lone Finals appearance in 2009. Also, the team’s owner might be better than anyone not named Kemba Walker."
Sports Illustrated gave reasons as to why every NBA team won’t the title this season. While they do have a point with Howard, the team isn’t expecting him to put up numbers like he did in his prime. If Dwight can stay healthy and average a double-double, that should be enough to get Charlotte back into the playoffs.
To be fair, the Hornets’ don’t have a championship roster but they do have some solid pieces to build around. Luckily for them, this isn’t a Finals or bust year. Success for the team would be winning a playoff series and getting out of the first round for the first time since 2002.
Hornets’ assistant coach joins the Denver Nuggets (RealGM.com)
"The Denver Nuggets have hired veteran NBA coach and player Bob Weiss to join Head Coach Michael Malone’s staff as an assistant coach. Weiss, who spent the past four seasons as an assistant coach with the Charlotte Hornets"
Bob Weiss has been an assistant coach with Charlotte since 2013. He has 34 years of coaching experience with eight different franchises. Even though he’s spent most of his career as an assistant, the 75-year old has been a head coach on four sperate occasions.
The Hornets’ have now lost two assistant this year with Patrick Ewing also leaving as the associate head coach to join Georgetown. It will be interesting to see who Steve Clifford hires to fill the void left by Weiss. Luckily, the team still has two of the best on their staff in Stephen Silas and Pat Delany.
Why adding Dwight was a good move this offseason (HoopsHabit.com)
"If Howard can bring his defensive intensity outside the paint, he will be a dual threat for the Hornets. Offensively, he might be the second-best player on the Hornets, and someone that they sorely needed to complement Kemba Walker."
Next: MVP odds for Kemba and Dwight
It’s still unclear how well Howard will fit with Charlotte but the consensus seems to be that reuniting with Steve Clifford will help resurrect his career. In no way should the Dwight acquisition be viewed as a bad one as the team added a double-double machine to their rotation. The chemistry issues are the only real problem as he’s had troubles with just about every team he’s been on.