How the Hornets can learn from the mistakes of the past
By Quinn Everts
3. Don’t Clutter Your Cap Space
The Hornets signed Cody Martin to a four-year, $31 million dollar contract at the onset of free agency last month. This particular signing is fine–and likely good– because Cody Martin has proven himself to be a productive role player, and probably the Hornets best individual defender at this juncture.
Let’s hop in our time machine again and examine the payroll of the 2016/17 Hornets. No, it doesn’t sound fun to me either, but I promise there’s a point here. Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Miles Plumlee, and Marvin Williams accounted for over $37 million dollars’ worth of salary. While all of them had productive stretches of their careers and helped the Hornets in a variety of ways, once combined, their contracts become a little tougher to swallow.
In other words, while the Cody Martin deal should realistically help the Hornets, handing out long-term contracts for role players can be a dangerous game that severely restricts future moves. The Hornets must be weary of bogging down their cap sheet with non-stars like they did during the Kemba era.