Charlotte Hornets: Malik Monk having best stretch of his young career

The Charlotte Hornets have gotten some great production from Malik Monk over the past four games. It could be Monk’s best stretch in his career thus far.

It’s been a tough season for Charlotte Hornets guard Malik Monk. Despite being hampered by inconsistencies throughout the year, the second year pro from Kentucky has caught fire at the right time for Buzz City.

Over the last four games, Monk has been a savior for the Hornets off of the bench. He’s scored in double-digits in each of those four games, averaging 17.0 points, 2.5 rebounds and 2.0 assists during that stretch.

In case you were wondering what his percentages look like, he’s shooting 46 percent from the field and 43 percent from three-point land.

During that four-game stretch, the Hornets have a record of 3-1. The wins have certainly not been easy, though. The team has had to come back from a deficit in those three victories.

Monk, though, has been a big reason why the Charlotte Hornets continue to fight and stay in games. The energy and scoring ability he brings off the bench is contagious and really changes the game.

I mentioned earlier that Monk has been inconsistent throughout the year. Both his role, and his play have been inconsistent, but he’s trending upward and is becoming a huge piece to this Charlotte Hornets team.

With the strong play of Monk, starting shooting guard Jeremy Lamb has seen his playing time drop. Lamb is averaging just 22.5 minutes over the past four games, which is six minutes lower than his season average of 28.5 minutes per game.

Meanwhile, Monk is averaging 23.5 minutes over the last four games. He’s outplayed Lamb during his recent tear and could see even more minutes as we get closer towards the All-Star break, especially if the team decides to trade Lamb before the trade deadline.

Monk did have a really good stretch of games as a rookie last season, when he was finally given some playing time while the team was out of playoff contention. During the final six games of the 2017-18 season, Monk averaged 19.9 points and 3.8 assists.

I personally believe that his current stretch of games is more impressive then the stretch of games he had last season, though. These games mean something, as the team is fighting for playoff positioning, while last season, he was playing freely down the stretch.

Although, getting those minutes late into last season had to be a confidence boost for Monk. Prior to then, he was picking up quite a lot of DNP-CD’s and wasn’t an important part of the rotation like he is now.

Before he entered the NBA two years ago, I believed Monk had potential to be star on the offensive end of the court. He’s working his butt off to improve in other areas, and you can see it start to pay off.

Is this recent outburst from Monk a sign of big things to come? Maybe. The future is bright for Malik Monk, that’s for sure.

Special shout-out to our contributor here at Swarm and Sting, Brendan Boylan, who wrote about Monk potentially being the cure to the Charlotte Hornets funk just two weeks ago. Monk has been awesome since then, and with the Hornets recent success, maybe he was the cure the team needed.