Buzz City Beat: Where the Charlotte Hornets stand post-All-Star Break, Dwight Howard gets dominated in pick-up game
Buzz City Beat is Swarm and Sting’s one stop for the latest news and stories from around the web about the Charlotte Hornets.
After being involved in a single-car accident, Malik Monk was dealing with some upper-body soreness (Twitter/ @Rick_Bonnell) but he looks healthy as he knocked down 100 three’s after practice. In this edition of Buzz City Beat, we look at where the Charlotte Hornets stand after the All-Star Break, Dwight Howard getting dominated in a college pick-up game and five possible GM replacements for Rich Cho.
Where Charlotte stands post-All-Star Break (USAToday.com)
"Charlotte Hornets, C: Their expensive players haven’t performed all that well and their modestly priced ones have. At least they held onto Kemba Walker through the trade deadline."
This is spot on as players like Nicolas Batum, Cody Zeller and to an extent, Marvin Williams and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist just haven’t been good enough this season while Jeremy Lamb and Treveon Graham have outperformed their bargain contracts. Even Frank Kaminsky, who is still on his rookie deal, is one of the Hornets’ top performers on a cheap contract. Kemba and Dwight are the only two players that have stood out this season.
Typical of Charlotte to get the most average grade possible. They sit in a bad spot heading into the second half of the season as there is little hope that they will make the playoffs with only a 12% chance of making the postseason but also little hope that they will be bad enough to fall into a top-10 pick. Once again, this team is stuck in mediocrity. Luckily, they have an all-star in Walker that keeps them somewhat relevant.
Dwight Howard gets dominated in college pick-up game (TMZ.com)
"If we told you we had video of Dwight Howard playing pick-up basketball with random gym dudes… you’d probably expect to see DH destroying them, dunking repeatedly on their normal heads. You’d be wrong … because we actually have video of Howard hooping with some random gym dudes and the dude who got kinda dominated was Dwight."
Well dominated may be a bit of a stretch but in the short video, a player on the opposing team easily steals the ball away from Howard then proceeds to throw down a reverse dunk on the fast break with Dwight left in his dust. Although it looks like the intensity wasn’t all that high, the Hornets’ big man still got ripped far too easily. Still, I’m sure if he wanted to, D12 could’ve dominated everyone on that court.
Pretty cool of Howard to play in some pick-up games at San Diego State during the All-Star Break. It must’ve been an amazing experience for those kids who got to play with Dwight and especially for the one that picked his pocket. TMZ also reports that Dwight Howard “horribly bricked a three” which shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.
5 possible GM candidates for the Hornets (CharlotteObserver.com)
"1. Mitch Kupchak, former Los Angeles Lakers GM, 2. Jeff Bower, Detroit Pistons general manager, 3. Danny Ferry, New Orleans Pelicans advisor, 4. David Griffin, former Cavaliers general manager, and 5. Gersson Rosas, Houston Rockets executive."
Next: Hornets fire Rich Cho, Plan to pursue Mitch Kupchak
Kupchak is obviously the front-runner but we’ve also heard rumblings from Woj that Rosas is another option that Charlotte may consider. Bower, Ferry and Griffin are merely possible candidates but the one that probably makes the most sense of those three is Ferry. He recently built the Atlanta Hawks (similar smaller-market team) into a consistent playoff contender in the East. Whoever is picked, the end product seems to be for Buzz Peterson to eventually take over.