Buzz City Beat: Charlotte Hornets fire sale, Marvin Williams receives all-star vote
Welcome to Buzz City Beat, a daily roundup of the best articles from around the internet surrounding the Charlotte Hornets.
The Charlotte Hornets have transferred two-way player, Mangok Mathiang, back to the Greensboro Swarm of the NBA G-League after being called up for one game. (Hornets PR) In this edition of Buzz City Beat, we look at a potential fire sale in Charlotte, Marvin Williams receiving an all-star vote and Frank Kaminsky deleting his Twitter app.
Charlotte Hornets’ fire sale (RealGM.com)
"League sources say the Hornets have explored trades involving Nicolas Batum, Dwight Howard, Marvin Williams and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, but there was little interest from rival teams."
It looks like the Hornets are looking to move their entire starting five, including Kemba Walker who would be used to help facilitate a deal. Charlotte’s salary cap situation is a mess and trading away their best player may be the only way to help fix it. They can’t hold onto all of the massive contracts that are currently on their roster.
The ideal move is to trade Nicolas Batum but coming off of a severe elbow injury while also playing extremely poor this season and being paid close to $25 million a year makes it extremely difficult to find a potential suitor. Marvin, Dwight and MKG have actually played well this campaign and are playing, at the very least, up to their salary numbers. If they complete this fire sale, it would mean hitting the reset button and launching a full-fledged rebuild in Charlotte.
Marvin Williams receives an all-star vote (Twitter/ @HowardBeck)
"So, the players still aren’t taking this All-Star voting thing very seriously. The following got votes from their peers: Tyler Cavanaugh, Marvin Williams, Lance Thomas, Tyler Zeller (4 votes!), Stanley Johnson (3), Anthony Tolliver, Amir Johnson, Semi Ojeleye, Bobby Portis (2)…"
Just like fans and media members, NBA players vote on who they think should make it to the All-Star Game. Apparently, one unnamed player voted for Marvin Williams. While the Hornets’ big man is having a career-year in terms of shooting percentages from the field and from three, he is only averaging 9.7 PPG and 4.7 RPG which is far below an all-star level.
Although it may have been a joke vote, Marvin is arguably the most deserving of these nine players to make it to an all-star team this season. Still, he is nowhere near an all-star caliber player but at least his great shooting is being recognized. Williams’ 45.6% three-point shooting ranks only behind Jayson Tatum for the best mark in the entire league. (NBA.com)
Frank Kaminsky deletes Twitter app (CharlotteObserver.com)
"Charlotte Hornets forward Frank Kaminsky used to be big on Twitter. It fit his eclectic personality and acerbic sense of humor. Then, recently, Kaminsky cut the cord on the popular social-media app. “Twitter had gotten to be one of the most annoying things in my life, so I just deleted it,” Kaminsky said Wednesday morning."
Next: Why the Hornets will be buyers at the trade deadline
Kaminsky expressed his discontent with some of the criticism he’s received on social media this season. Frank follows Nicolas Batum as the second Hornets’ player to share their issues with criticism from fans on Twitter. With how poorly the team has played this season, it’s easy to see why these players would want to tune out the negative comments from different social media platforms as some people can get nasty with their comment. To be fair, some criticism is warranted.