41 facts about the Charlotte Hornets after 41 games

Now that the Charlotte Hornets have officially hit the midway point in their season, here’s a closer look at the team.

The Charlotte Hornets are now 41 games into the 2017-2018 season, aka halfway. To celebrate that (kinda), I’m giving you 41 facts about the team this season. Some may be interesting, some may not be interesting, some may be pointless. Regardless, here they are:

1. IF Kemba Walker and Dwight Howard each make the All-Star game, this will be just the second time in franchise history they’ve had two people make it in the same season. The first was in 1994-1995 with Alonzo Mourning and Larry Johnson.

2. Steve Clifford will tie Allan Bristow for the most seasons in a row as the Charlotte Hornets head coach (5) if he makes it to the end of the season

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3. The Hornets are 16-25 at the midway point of the season. The last time their record was worse than this after 41 games were in the 2012-2013 season when they were 10-31.

4. The franchise record for rebounds per game is 11.4 from Anthony Mason in ‘96-’97. Dwight Howard is on pace to demolish that record and is averaging 12.3 RPG currently.

5. Once again the Hornets are among the top of the league in taking care of the ball. They rank 3rd in the NBA in TOPG with 13.1, behind Dallas and Minnesota.

6. Sadly, they also rank at the bottom of the league in forcing turnovers. They rank 29th in the NBA with just 13.7 turnovers forced per game (and 30th in steals).

7. Not forcing turnovers means not very many easy buckets out on the break. Partly due to that, the team ranks dead last in 2-point field goal percentage.

8. Marvin Williams is having a career year from beyond the arc. He’s shooting at a 43.2% clip, his previous career high was 40.2% two seasons ago.

9. Despite Marvin’s great season from 3, he doesn’t post the highest 3p% on the team. Treveon Graham just barely is beating him out at a 43.8% rate.

10. Cody Zeller and Julyan Stone technically are higher than both (Cody is 100% from 3 and Stone is 50%), but neither has had enough of a sample size for me to consider either of them as the team leader.

11. Michael Carter-Williams salary is approximately twice as high as Treveon Graham’s salary. However, Treveon’s WS/48 minutes is a little over 254% (0.89) higher than MCW’s (0.35).

12. In large part due to Dwight Howard, the Hornets are second in the league in Defensive Rebounding % at 81%.

13. Michael Kidd-Gilchrist’s shooting struggles have been no secret, but this season he leads the team in FG% in 10-16 feet range at 52.9%. He’s turning into a solid mid-range shooter.

14. The Charlotte Hornets are only one game ahead of the Brooklyn Nets in the East standings.

15. Kemba Walker is the only Hornets player to have made a shot beyond half court this season, and he’s made just one.

16. All five of the Hornets road wins have come against the Western Conference.

17. Charlotte’s schedule is only second to the Sixers in terms of difficulty thus far but is the weakest from here on out.

18. Either Kemba or Dwight leads the team in all five major statistical categories (PPG, RPG, APG, SPG, and BPG).

19. While wearing their teal pinstriped throwbacks, the Hornets are 1-3 this season.

20. Jeremy Lamb is averaging a career-high 14.1 PPG. His previous high was 9.7 last year and he deserves to be in the conversation for 6th man of the year. This is actually a fact, not an opinion.

21. This season would mark the first time the Hornets missed the playoffs in consecutive seasons since the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 seasons.

22. Even though the team as a whole hasn’t played well, they’ve been somewhat unlucky. Their expected W/L is 19-22, but they just can’t seem to win any close games as we all know.

23. Last season the Hornets were 0-5 on the second half of back-to-backs where they move time zones between games. This season they are actually 3-0 in such games.

24. The addition of Malik Monk means there are now two universities that have multiple players on the Hornets. Kentucky and UConn each have two.

25. The most common birth month on the team is October with four players having been born in the month (MCW, Mathiang, Zeller, and Graham).

26. While they have the most free throw attempts so far this season, they have just the fourth most makes. This puts them at just 27th in free throw %. Maybe Dwight has contributed to that, maybe he hasn’t.

27. Johnny O’Bryant has the second highest shot/minutes played ratio. I think I made that stat category up, but I also don’t think the stat itself surprises anyone. His ratio is .48 shots for every minute played and Kemba’s is .49.

28. Dwight is on pace to average his most points per game since the ‘14-’15 season.

29. He also is on pace to play all 82 games, something he hasn’t done since the 2009-2010 season.

30. Over the last 15 games of the season for the Hornets, 10 of them are on the road. That’s probably not a good thing for a team that is 5-13 on the road.

31. The Hornets have lost to the Cavs twice this season, making them 1-31 in their last 32 games against LeBron. The lone win came on February 3rd in 2016. The weirdest thing about that? Kemba didn’t even play in that game.

32. On the bright (kinda) side, the team ended their seven-game losing streak to the Golden State Warriors on December 29th.

33. Last season 34.6% of Dwight’s field goals came from dunks, this season it’s just 23.2%.

34. The Hornets are giving up 105.6 PPG. This is the 7th highest in franchise history and its highest since the 1993-1994 season.

35. If Kemba averages 20.8 PPG over the last 41 games, he will pass Dell Curry for the most points in Hornets history (9839). He’s currently averaging 21.8 PPG.

36. Out of players that have played at least 15 MPG, and have played in at least 30 games, Michael Carter-Williams has the 4th lowest FG% ever in the Modern Era (29.8%).

37. Marco Belinelli‘s and Miles Plumlee’s combined stats for the season are 16.8 PPG and 5.8 RPG. Dwight Howard’s are 15.3 PPG and 12.3 RPG. I say this because that’s who we traded to get D12 in the offseason. I’d say we won that trade not only from the stats, but because we also aren’t paying Miles Plumlee $12.5 million per year.

38. All four of Julyan Stone’s field goal attempts this season have been from behind the arc.

39. Nic Batum’s $22.4 million is the highest yearly salary of his career, but his 10.4 PPG is the 4th lowest of his 10-year career.

40. Four of Kemba’s five highest scoring outputs of the season have come in losses, including his two 40+ point games against Chicago and Dallas.

41. Kemba is 41 3 pointers away from tying Dell Curry for most 3’s in Charlotte Hornets history. He averages 2.5 3PG so he is on pace to pull off the feat in about 16 or 17 games.

Next: When was Charlotte's best chance to win an NBA Title?

I hope you all enjoyed these facts about the team. A few facts were positive while a few were depressing, but it’s been a fairly depressing season so that’s fitting.

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