How the Hornets can learn from the mistakes of the past
By Quinn Everts
5. Draft With Purpose
Drafting the “safe” player is fine– PJ Washington, James Bouknight, and Mark Williams all fall somewhere in that classification. There is nothing wrong with picking a player you are confident will be a useful piece for a long time.
However, if this team plans to consistently draft conservatively, it must also be willing to trade those players once they establish their value in the league. The Hornets are stockpiling good NBA players through the draft and will inevitably have to make decisions on which players they envision in their long-term plans.
The “developmental” stage of Hornets basketball should be over and done with. So, while drafting anyone with a floor of “solid role player” and a ceiling of “extra solid role player” was sufficient enough to this point– seeing as the Hornets were devoid of talent across the board just a few years ago– moving forward, the franchise must be extremely systematic about how it uses, or doesn’t use, draft picks. And frankly, trading Jalen Duren on draft night does not instill confidence that the Hornets are drafting with purpose.
What’s next for the Charlotte Hornets?
The Hornets have made some savvy decisions over the past few seasons, moves that point towards the franchise having a real plan for this rebuild that began three years ago. But they’ve also shown susceptibility to fall in some of the same traps that stifled them from achieving any lasting success during the 2010s.
There is no “right” way to conduct a rebuild, and no front office is perfect. But Michael Jordan and the Hornets have seen firsthand what doesn’t work when trying to build a competitive team. Thus, avoiding the same team-building traps this time around, as Charlotte looks to achieve more than simply being an average basketball team, is essential to staying out of the dreaded NBA Purgatory.