Grading the non-players involved in the Hornets' season so far

The front office, Grade C+

It’s hard to grade the front office without knowing exactly how much of a role Mitch Kupchak and company played in the deadline moves and other roster decisions. It sounds like it was mostly ownership, but I’ll at least give Mitch some benefit of the doubt.

It’s fair to wonder if he was held back by past ownership, and simply following orders rather than building the team the way he actually envisioned it. So I gave Mitch and crew a generous C+, as I’m sure they played at least some part in the moves that have been made.

They also deserve high marks for any role they played in deciding to draft Brandon Miller over Scoot Henderson, which looks like it could be a franchise-altering move, in a positive way. For that matter, even Nick Smith Jr. looks like he could be a steal at 27th overall.

The draft was a huge positive, as was the trade deadline, so things are moving in the right direction. But the fact that it appears the ownership group mostly spurred these decisions, and they’ve already pushed Kupchak out of the big decision-making chair leads me to believe that he wasn’t exactly the one calling the shots.