Buzz City Beat: Charlotte Hornets front office changes, Malik Monk’s inefficiencies
Welcome to Buzz City Beat, a daily roundup of the best articles from around the internet surrounding the Charlotte Hornets.
After falling to the New Orleans Pelicans, the Queen City team now has less than a 1% chance at making the playoffs this season. (FiveThirtyEight.com) In this edition of Buzz City Beat, we look at the Charlotte Hornets making changes to their front office, what went wrong during Malik Monk‘s rookie season and the Greensboro Swarm’s loss to Raptors 905.
Hornets’ front office changes (CharlotteObserver.com)
"The team is promoting Fred Whitfield to president and vice chairman; Pete Guelli to executive vice president and chief operating officer and James Jordan to executive vice president and chief administrative officer. Vice Chairman Curtis Polk, a longtime key adviser to team owner Michael Jordan, has been promoted to managing partner of the team."
These promotions directly affect the business side of things for Charlotte. It won’t change much and means little from a basketball standpoint. I guess one good note is that the team is up to 11,000 season tickets this campaign from 5,000 season tickets in 2010. They more than doubled their amount of season tickets in just eight years and that is a direct result of an improved product on the floor.
An important nugget in this article is that Curtis Polk mentioned that the Hornets’ search for a new general manager should be complete in early April. This means that the team should have a new GM announced and in place before the end of the regular season. That will be important going forward into the draft and free agency.
What happened to Malik Monk? (FanSided.com)
"The only rookie to have scored at least 100 total points on the season less efficiently is Semi Ojeleye, who was selected in the second round of the same draft. Take it a step further, and only a handful of players in the entire league currently have a worse true shooting percentage than Monk."
Malik has arguably been the biggest disappointment of any lottery pick from the 2017 draft class so far. Not only has he not gotten playing time but when he has, the Kentucky product has been wildly inefficient. Monk’s shooting only 32.8% from the field, 30.9% from three and 42.9% in true shooting. While there have been a few flashes of brilliance from the rookie, the numbers speak for themselves and he just hasn’t been good. Inconsistent playing time had to have taken some sort of toll on the prospect’s performances.
While there is still plenty of room for the 20-year old to grow and quite a bit of potential surrounding his game, his first year in the league has left a lot to be desired. He hasn’t been the spark plug role player that Charlotte hoped for and is more of a liability than an asset while on the court. He will need to significantly improve his efficiency and defense heading into his sophomore season if he wants to have a positive impact on the Hornets next year.
Greensboro falls to Raptors 905 (Gleague.NBA.com)
"Raptors 905 (28-17) turned in an impressive performance, earning a 110-92 victory over the Greensboro Swarm. Kennedy Meeks was dominant, recording a game-high 23 points and 15 rebounds, his 10 offensive rebounds set a new Raptors 905 franchise record while the Swarm were led by John Dawson who recorded 17 points in the loss."
Next: Re-picking the last five drafts for Charlotte
After back to back 29+ point games, Cat Barber was rather quiet with only 10 points in this one. Having won two of their last three games, the Swarm looked to be turning things around a bit but were blown out by Jerry Stackhouse‘s G-League side. Greensboro only has five games left in the season and need four wins to match their win total from last year.