Charlotte Hornets: Takeaways from Summer League

Now that the Summer League has ended, it is time for the Charlotte Hornets to look back at the performances of the players that were on this year’s roster. The record was not great as it did end with five losses and no wins but games results are not that crucial in this competition and it is a much better exercise to evaluate players one by one.

The team was composed of young players that needed game time to get used to the Hornets scheme both offensively and defensively. Other teams in the Summer League were full of former NBA or experienced European players that were much more ready to produce and be effective on a basketball court.

The Hornets team was not built to win and was missing some key elements that could have helped to display a more attractive brand of basketball. Charlotte did not have a true point guard that could run organized schemes throughout a full game. Grant Riller was asked to be this type of player but he was never a true point guard during his college career as he was primary used in a combo guard role.

This was one of the reasons why the Hornets led the Summer League in turnovers with an average of 20.6 per game and were a bottom team in terms of scoring with just 82.8 points a night.

Another problem related to the structure of the team was the redundancy in the frontcourt with a large group of players that needed playtime and just a few slots to use. Having to organize rotations with Vernon Carey Jr., Nick Richards, JT Thor, and Kai Jones was not an easy duty for the Hornets coaching staff, and this led to Summer League head coach Dutch Gaitley having to sit one of these players for the entire game to make the others get the right amount of minutes. Carey sat two games and had one outing with just five minutes of play, he was the main player to be penalized with this type of organization.

Those four players were also used in couples and because none of them is a reliable three-point shooter, this hurt the Hornets spacing and overall flow of the game on the offensive side of the floor.

The presence of too many bigs on the team also led to another problem which was Arnoldas Kulboka’s minutes that were mainly at the small forward position. The Lithuanian is not suited to play that role especially because of his lack of quickness and overall offensive ability with the ball in his hands.

A better-built team could have helped the players to play in a much proper way but this probably was not the main aim of the team as they were just trying to get youngsters playing time and getting them used to the Hornets terminology heading into September’s training camp. Let’s now take a closer look at who stood out the most during these five games.