Charlotte Hornets: Five Reasons for Fans to be Optimistic
By River Rhodes
There’s Still Hope for Malik Monk
Malik Monk, one of Charlotte’s other young players, has certainly had more ups and downs than Washington. The electric shooting guard, also out of Kentucky, fell to the Hornets at pick 11 in the 2017 draft. Monk was originally projected to be drafted as early as the sixth pic, so many fans were ecstatic to sign the rookie.
Unfortunately, Charlotte does not exactly have a track record for developing rookies. Monk only logged 14 minutes a game in his rookie season and only 17 as a sophomore. In those limited minutes, Monk put up less than 10 points a game, on an unimpressive sub-40% field goal percentage.
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This season, second-year head coach James Borrego finally bumped Monk’s minutes to just over 20 a game. Monk’s field goal percentage also finally cracked 40%. Despite this, Monk shot an abysmal 28% from behind the three-point line.
This leaves little hope for Monk to become the lights-out spark plug he was projected to be. Even worse, in February, Monk was indefinitely suspended for violating the league’s anti-drug policy. Needless to say, there are a lot of reasons to be out on Monk right now. If the guard goes the way of others in his situation like OJ Mayo’s, he could even be out of the league for good.
For various reasons, Monk deserves to be this list, and fans shouldn’t write off the player for good. Monk has made unexpected strides on the defensive end, as he has arguably been the best defender from Charlotte’s young core. Monk has already shown to be at least an above-average perimeter defender, and with his athleticism, the sky is the limit.
Monk also shot 40% on threes and 82% on free throws at Kentucky during his college career, generally considered a better metric of NBA performance. Monk is much more likely to develop or regain his shot than other players who never shot at that level of accuracy.
In the month of February, before his suspension, Monk was playing the best basketball of his career, averaging 17 points a game and shooting 46% and 39% from the field and behind the arc, respectively. Could it be that Monk’s low minutes and usage have hindered him this much?
It is not unheard of for a player to need game time to get into a rhythm. When he sees over 30 minutes, Monk’s game average jumps over 20 points per game. Time will tell if Monk has the ceiling to command that amount of playing time over other players.