I’m impressed and very surprised how mature this group of Hornets played. Max kudos to Coach Cliff and DSJ (who’s looking a lot like Marcus Smart with an offensive game added-on.)
Genuinely worried what happens when LaMelo comes back lol. He’s so talented, but just a kid.
Everything looks different from a week ago.
It’s a strange and unexpected competence with this group. I thought it didn’t really come out until Thor came on the court in the 1st half. We were getting roughed up on the boards and he came in and got 4 rebounds in 2 mins on the floor. That seemed to get Nick playing really hard and things seemed to just roll from there. The block party that ensued was a fun throwback.
Clifford is really showing what an experienced coach, who communicates clearly what each players’ role is, can do for a team. I’m happy for him.
DSJ looks like he needs a multi year contract, quickly! He’s ideal to back up, and play alongside, LaMelo.
I can only assume that Richards is in the last year of his contract. Hornets law dictates he ‘breaks out’ in his last year, gets paid, then regresses!
Agreed. During preseason I thought JT should look to have much more impact on defense; especially as big and athletic as he is. Then the first two games it looked like he hadn’t made the rotation anyway.
So not sure what coach will do now. His presence in this game seemed huge.
PJ played just 21 minutes. Foul trouble I guess. But mixing in McD and Thor helped move the game in the Hornets favor.
You’re right that with their early season play, Richards and DSJ have joined the “what do we do with these guys this off-season” conversation. Between them, PJ and McDaniels we’ll have some tough decisions to make since we obviously can’t keep them all. I like all these guys but the indigestion sets in when you think of having to pay them real money long term. It’s still way early of course, but if he continues this level of play, Richards would obviously the priority.
Ok….I’m back in guys!
I’ve been on here preaching how stupid JB was for leaving Richards on bench second half of last season since I noticed good improvement in his game before December, first half of season. He’s got all the tools we’ve needed on defense and offense if we show him confidence and feed him. Eventually, he will start knocking down 10-15 footers if he keeps getting consistent minutes. Cause he has great mechanics on his FT’s. So glad coach figured this out early! This dude is dominating people so far and should be our starting center. Plumlee should not get as many minutes at Richards, that’s obvious. Bouknight will keep progressing too cause he has some special skills that others can’t match with his quickness and hops. He seems to show good effort on Defense so keep him in rotation so he can develop sooner than later, please
Gonna be tough on coach to split up minutes with this deep of team but it’s a good problem to have!
I think this point is key. Cliff will recognize his effort on D and that will buy Bouknight time to, hopefully, find his shot. That communication of non-negotiables and recognition of them being met is part of why players tend to play for Cliff.
Bouknight is no where close as even DSJ . His defense is really bad . He leads the team in _ this
season. He all so leads the team in bad shooting % so far. What part of his game is better than any guard on the team. Exactly what has he done to get some of you guys hype.
I’m not much of a fan of him so far but it’s easy to see the good with him making posive strides.
For me, it’s the talent and ability. He can get where he wants on the court with relative ease and he has the lateral quickness to be an exceptional defender. He’s also rebounding well and attempting to make plays for others. Lastly, as Cliff said before, he’s produced before. It’s not like he’s never had success on a basketball court. His main issue is learning to make reads at the NBA level and making quicker decisions. That’ll come with time and experience. Even Ball, who played pro ball before the NBA, had a scoreless debut. Some people were calling him a bust after 1 game!
Time will tell . He has a perfect chance to show what he can do. A perfect chance to earn playing time . Ball, Terry, Cody all out creates tons of playing time for him. He will have to do something with it . To carve out regular rotation play. If he don’t he will go back to DNPCDS.
Bouk has shown flashes of offensive ability. Not so much this season yet but I feel like he demonstrated it last year. The lack of maturity and discipline has been concerning for sure though. Whether he’ll ever get control of that enough to take advantage of his talent I don’t know. I hope he does. But to me there’s definitely enough basketball skill there for me to be excited if he’s ever able to put it all together.
I agree with you, but that’s the difference between us fans and a coach.
Cliff has been working with Bouknight and will have told him where he has to improve on D … positioning, rotations and effort. As long as Cliff sees him do what he’s been told to he’ll give him minutes to find his groove.
You and I, we don’t like him. He’s clearly immature, troubled (to say the least) and has blamed others for his lack of success to this point. No accountability and, seemingly, little effort.
Finally, he was a lottery pick who has undoubted, sadly untapped, potential and it’s the coaches job to help him develop and realise this. I’m fine with him getting minutes if Cliff is, even though I’d personally have McGowens in his place, because making that change so would all but finish Bouknight’s chances of contributing to the Hornets.
I also would like to add that Cliff before the last game actually said he expected Bouk to play pretty well. He must be seeing something we aren’t because he’s been calling it right every time with each of the players (especially Nick).
Starting to seem to be the case for sure.
Cliff certainly knows the game and often has a way of getting the most out of his players. And it sounds like the time between his last tenure here in Charlotte and now, he’s integrated new information about working with players. I know he was a consultant of some sort with the Nets and spoke highly of KD’s motivation and Cliff himself learning ways to communicate, motivate, and educate players.
Can’t remember what podcast it was from over the summer, but it was a lengthy podcast interview with Cliff. And I remember being fairly impressed and a little reassured after listening to it. And the three games so far have certainly reflected a lot of the good things I heard Cliff discuss in that podcast interview.
I listened to it too. Think it might have been posted on here?
Regardless, I am consistently impressed by what I hear from Cliff and believe he’s sincere, which is a rare thing nowadays.