A Hornets Carol: Ghosts of past, present and future

The ghost of Hornets basketball past dates back to their early years within the NBA…inaccurate free agent evaluation

The Hornets have quite a history of overpaying and underpaying for players within the free agency. Now, this may seem redundant, but it’s quite true for Swarm City.

In the 1990s the owner, George Shinn, was an extremely cheap General Manager. Shinn was notorious for drafting a talented player and the second he’d start to perform on a high-level, the franchise would either let them go or trade them, rather than pay them. This problem created a cycle of gaining assets and those assets developing talent and then flipping it to save a quick buck. Essentially, the franchise was never focused on building any talented roster but more to make as much money while spending as little as possible. These moves left so many players of this generation with a bad taste in their mouth towards Charlotte and it took years and actually move away from this image.

Now the reason I say, inaccurately evaluation is because for the past decade or so, the franchise has been known for the exact opposite. The Hornets have been known to overpay for players in haste, just to find a way to be relevant. Regardless of how you feel about the Gordon Hayward signing, he is still the most talented player on the roster, who can still compete. But there have been some awful signings in the last few years. The organization finally was able to rid themselves of Nicolas Batum, who was amazing in Portland before coming to the Hornets and never panning out. Marvin Williams is another player that just cost too much money for not enough result.

As fans relish on this ghost of their past, it’s important to remember that it seems as if the team is out of inaccurate evaluations. Say what you want about the Gordon Hayward singing, but he was definitely the biggest name we had a legitimate chance to snag in the foreseeable future.