Historical Hornets/Bobcats

I mean, LJ was a 20/10 guy in his season 2, right before the big injury. We’ll never really know. Zo is Hall of Fame, right? Could a healthy LJ reach Charles Barkley level by age 25-26? Dunno.

I always felt LJ was a defensive liability, but, if LJ stays healthy, who knows what kind of pieces we attract to complement him? Could’ve been really nice.

Honestly, I think Kendall Gill should be mentioned. That guy had incredible potential. But it seems he had some personal demons stopping him. I remember depression was an issue.

The thing about LJ and Zo was that they were so good IMMEDIATELY. It was like, YES, these draft picks are studs!

But to Chef’s point, the league was just stacked at that point. Even without MJ for a year and a half.

Was more talking 99 season, by that time it probably would’ve been too late anyways.

Kendall gill, nba jam legend

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I hear ya. Interestingly, the older, inferior LJ helped the Knicks to the finals in '99, even though they were barely above .500 during the shortened season. Ewing, Sprewell, and Allan Houston were on that team but I wanna think some of them were out due to injuries?

Edit: I guess Ewing was the big injury in those finals.

Its hard to put into context how big the LJ/Zo/Muggsy Hornets team was. They weren’t an established team yet, but they were the upcoming rock stars on the verge of superstardom, just oozing so much potential.

The best comparisons I can think of, no exaggeration, are the Thunder with baby KD, Westbrook, and Harden, before they started going far in the playoffs, or the Warriors under Mark Jackson right before Curry/Klay/Draymond took off after they fired him. You could sense the future lethality of these clubs, like an adolescent lion who would eventually take over the pride.

The only reason you don’t hear about that Hornet team with those clubs was because they weren’t allowed to grow, to gain experience, trust, add some impactful free agents. They ended the Celtics reign, and were coming for the Knicks (except the Bulls - nobody could beat Jordan). The Magic with Shaq and Penny on the other hand, were allowed to grow and made it to the Finals, before Hollywood took Shaq away.

Culturally, it may even be harder to explain. LJ was truly the next anointed superstar. I don’t know who to compare him too, he was very brash and exuberant, but not in the asshole kind of way. Its hard to say Lebron and Kobe level (in terms of off the court star power), because they continued on to superstardom, while LJ’s back injury took away his brute strength and athleticism. (Think 6’7, 250 pounds of pure muscle being able to jump over your head and quick enough to drive right past you). He averaged 22 points, 11 rebounds, and over 4 assists in just his second year, was in the dunk contest, was an early originator of the point forward - had his own play (called “Dallas”) at the end of every quarter/game, where the team cleared out and let him take his man off the dribble and get an almost guaranteed bucket.

His jersey became the top selling jersey for I don’t know how many years, Starter Jackets (ask any 90s kid, one of the top cultural items and must haves) in Hornet colors were selling out even out in California, New York, the Midwest. Larry Bird and Magic Johnson were shooting commercials with him since he would be taking over the Converse mantle from them. Michael Jordan chose him to star in Space Jam. Had his own shoes. A catchy nickname. A signature gold tooth smile. Imagine any Hornet the last 20 years having this national impact.

They even made a huge ass mural of them downtown.

Its one of those instances where you had to really be there to understand. Its why to this day, I will say that this was may favorite player to watch, ever. That damn herniated disc he suffered after his second year robbed us of our generation’s Charles Barkley/Karl Malone.

He was physically gifted enough to come back and still have a full, pretty successful career - which ironically may be what hurts his legacy most, since most people only recall his later Knicks career as an average, physically limited player, and can’t even fathom how much potential this guy had. (Same with Penny and Grant Hill, they were guaranteed hall of famers without injuries)

Take a look at this mixtape, and just think about if he was an upcoming prospect and imagine how much of a beast he would be on this team. PJ ain’t doing this.

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I miss the mural. I think I miss the sense of Charlotte and sports in Charlotte of that era.

It’s unfortunate that Gill, LJ, and Zo couldn’t get along. I have an old VHS tape where Harold Johnson reported the Hornets nearly packaged Gill for Danny Manning in early '93. At the time, Manning was a 6’10" combo forward dropping 20+ a night in his prime. That could have been really interesting, because the team lacked height along the front line(but definitely not muscle/athleticism).

Happy to say I was in the stands for that 3-pointer LJ dropped against Golden State in the highlight video. Nov, 1992. Mullin had 47 but the young Hornets won in OT. On their way to the first winning season.

I’m a broken record here, but obviously it was just so different before the internet. It was everything to see your city mentioned on SportsCenter. You couldn’t just look up extensive highlights anytime you wanted, so watching the game in real time was important.

Television made these guys serious heroes to us young ballers.

I camped out overnight in/around parking lots for 3 straight years just to get some single game tickets, smh.

Once there were about 20 of us waiting in line ALL NIGHT with blankets at University Place just to get some Hornets tickets at a record store, roughly where Ciro’s Italian was for a few decades.

Maybe they should recreate the same mural somewhere. It’s tremendous history now.

Sports were just better then. Not necessarily performance wise but life wise

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Because of the general disengagement of Bob Johnson and the city with the Bobcats, and the general malaise settling over the franchise because of this exceedingly prolonged mediocrity, its even harder to explain what the 80s-90s was like.

I guess if you live in Charlotte, its like in 2015 when the Panthers made their Super Bowl run. There was an electricity, an excitement in the air all season long. It wasn’t just that we led the league in attendance every year for like a decade. It was deafening with 24,000 fans every night, with teams afraid to come into the Hive. When you look at the Thunder or Warriors crowds on their championship runs, that was us.

And us long time Charlotteans know if we can become a consistent winner, it would be like that again.

This could work.

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Funny story about the mural - they actually changed it before it was taken down permanently if I remember correctly.

Think after Zo was traded they redid it once or twice before just letting it go all together. That was a big deal when they traded Zo.

That’s a great mural, QC!

Does this video capture the whole Alonzo LJ thing well?

Touched on the mural too

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You guys have any thoughts on players today who remind you of the 90s game?

Domantas Sabonis and Julius Randle come to mind. A lot of power to their games. As a fellow lefty, I enjoy their highlights.

GWmvp I will definitely watch that video. I seem to remember having one or two very minor issues with it when it first came out. Thank you for your interest, sir!

Interestingly enough, LJ and Kendall Gill got into a scuffle after Gill was traded, when he was with the Sonics. A few years later, Gill returned to Charlotte and they said he was a complete professional the second time around, instead of the malcontent of '92-93.

Random question but was there much of a push to draft Alonzo in the expansion draft by Bobcats fans in 04?

Any other interesting expansion tidbits?

I wasn’t participating in much conversation on line then, but I don’t remember much talk about him. I just remember people thinking about under utilized young talent, which Gerald Wallace became the best example of.

Also was the choice to hire Bernie Bickerstaff as both coach/gm popular? It seems like their were some much better options available