Charlotte Hornets: How the offseason altered Charlotte’s timeline

The Charlotte Hornets entered this offseason looking to improve an already competitive roster by building around their newest star LaMelo Ball. With the team missing the playoffs just at the Play-In tournament, the fans were expecting some moves that could have allowed the roster to take the next step forward and the timeline looked closer to the present than expected.

When looking at the moves made by the front office during this summer, many may think that this Hornets team took a step back in their timeline because the additions were not as appealing plus they lost important players from the previous season. This new timeline appears to be trending towards the future with raw and young talent joining and not many big names being added to the roster.

Not signing an important free agent allows the Hornets to maintain their financial flexibility while the search for another big talent keeps on with patience. Also, this was good timing to follow this route because this year’s free agency was labeled as one of the weakest in the upcoming classes.

The reasoning behind this modus operandi (method of doing something) is that last year’s team was not the one that could have brought to you a championship run. That core of players needed an injection of pure talent to help Ball during the future. As you can easily see in today’s NBA, the teams that are pushing for a championship run are composed of multiple great players and do not rely on just one talent to carry the team during the playoffs.

For the Hornets, the best way to address this type of need is via the NBA draft and this is the way they organized their strategy. Charlotte decided to take heavy risks when selecting players this year. Every one of the four rookies is going to need a lot of time before they are really able to contribute at the NBA level for this Hornets team.

The challenge now is real for the whole coaching staff as they need to chase as many wins as possible, maintaining that the team is competitive while developing the young players that are on the roster right now. Organizing playing time will be very hard because of this and using the G-League affiliate will be needed especially for players like Kai Jones, JT Thor, and Vernon Carey Jr.

Was it the right move?

A lot of variables come into play now as acquiring new young players could be really risky and therefore the outcome is not certain. The Hornets have one big certainty: the span of time in which Ball will be a Charlotte Hornet, around eight years. He is the star of this team and the one who dictates the timeline, that is the main reason why it is pretty easy to understand that the Hornets still have a lot of time left on their winning clock.

Time will tell if this little pause for the Hornets was the right one, but another team is using the same strategy in the league right now. During this free agency, the Memphis Grizzlies made some really strange moves at a first sight. After getting beaten in the first round by the Utah Jazz they decided to add some young talent to a team already built around two young stars, Ja Morant and Jaren Jackson Jr. Their front office decided to add Ziarie Williams with the 10th overall pick in the draft and they traded for Jarrett Culver from the Minnesota Timberwolves, the former sixth overall pick who’s yet to get rolling in the NBA.

These moves cost the Grizzlies some short-term good players like Jonas Valanciunas or Patrick Beverley, who could have helped them to keep pushing to short-term playoff goals. However, if the ultimate goal is to reach the championship those players wouldn’t have helped that much. Will Williams and Culver contribute that way? Time will tell and no one knows at the moment. I found some clear similarities between the Hornets and Grizzlies strategies, even if the latter is further ahead in the plan. Charlotte is not alone in thinking this way.

In addition to this whole discourse, we got to take into account that a lot of the teams in the Eastern Conference made moves to get better and be more competitive for the next season. Around the Hornets tier, teams like the Knicks, Bulls, and Wizards made a big step forward, taking a more relaxed approach looks even better when considering the whole picture.

Let’s not run high with expectation after a good season like last year. Building a competitive team that has success year after year is not as easy as it seems and sometimes takes more time than we previously expected. It is now up to the organization to capitalize on the talent that arrived via draft or free agency while continuing to improve the already existent core of special players that we saw in action last season.