I think our team has underperformed in my opinion and I do think a lot of that had to do with coaching decisions. I’d like to see what the team we have could do with a true center, and then start moving guys. I definitely don’t have a problem with letting Hayward go, but only if we get a get player in return. This isn’t a Batum situation for me. I think we would lose our go to scorer if we let Terry go… who else on this team, minus Hayward, Lamelo can really create his own shots like Terry can. I’d honestly rather us trust Terry more to be the guy we go to when we need a bucket, but so many times, we didn’t. Which is why Terry was so good when most of the guys were out. Maybe this means we have too many scorers on the team…. But I think it means, we didn’t I use what we had the way we should have.
But if Terry gets us a stud in return, I’m fine with a trade… but I don’t think it’s a time to blow this up yet. This team has a lot of talent… but I do see where everyone is coming from.
I just can’t wrap my head around how some people want to keep Hayward to win. He is not a difference maker. He had a PER of 15.11 last season, for reference Kelly had 15.01 and Plums had 14.72. He is 145th in the NBA where his salary is 32nd. He is making more than Ingram, Murray, Mitchell, Tatum, Lowry, Brown, DeRozan so on. He clearly is not on the same level.
I will be the first to agree Hayward isn’t a star any more . Injury’s have set him way back. But putting him in a smaller role and time restrictions should help. Is he worth 30 million this year We all would say no . But he is way to good to give up any assets at all to move him. Like i have said be for His timeline is perfect, Washington has a good time line all so with Batum’s money falling off. So our problems are a good center who we need to address this summer. We have the draft, Trade expiring’s along with a pick, And a very limited free agent number. Once we sign a big . Next our att should go to a 3 and D wing again draft, or trade . We I think will be very close the number to sign Miles and Martin to make this all work.
[quote=“meloFan, post:263, topic:1449, full:true”]
I just can’t wrap my head around how some people want to keep Hayward to win. He is not a difference maker. He had a PER of 15.11 last season[/quote]
PER, as a basic measurement is OK, but never look at that as the only way to measure a player. But starting there, yes, overall he was OK, not great. Looking at monthly splits he seems to have been playing really well overall in October & January. He went into COVID protocols in late Jan and was never really the same after that, but for the month he had a +/- of +7.2. Miles, Terry, & LaMelo were all better in March, but GH’s Jan was the 4th best monthly number on the team overall, and the best pre-March number out of anyone.
The non-numbers thing that I like about GH is that he just plays smart–and doing so encourages the rest of the team to do the same. It’s similar to how LaMelo’s passing seems to encourage everyone else to pass more too.
Is he worth his contract at this point? Probably not. But can he help the team win? Absolutely, he can when healthy. Can he stay healthy next year? I’m betting not, but reducing his minutes would probably help.
Idk man. It is ridiculous to give top salary to your 4th best player. With a decent-to-good center he will be 5th best. At that point you can replace him with someone else at half the salary.
This might be idiotic but what if the hornets traded Terry + oubre + #15 + future first + 2nd for Paul George?
Still let’s Hayward come off the books per dav. Gets a real alpha and defensive wing.
Gives lac replacement player in Terry plus draft capital which they need from acquiring Paul George and alleviates cap pressure with oubre’s partial guarantee and Terry’s cheaper salary.
Sorry I don’t know what Paul’s position and age is. But at first look it it sounds good. We not eating into luxury adding a quality player, We maintain some long term flexibility to make key signings such as Miles… I like it.
If we make that move we need to acquire Atton . Some kind of way. Paul is saying we ready to win right now. Guess we would have to plug in Washington Plumlee. Richards Bouknight 13th and two future first
We would look like Melo , Martin. Miles .George, Atton . The Atton talk is not at all reality but dream land
Opinions really all over the place on several different topics. I think this is a reflection of the magnitude of this off season as it relates to the future direction of the team. The front office has a ton to try to figure out. And not having played the rookies last seasons adds another layer of unknown to it.
-Was this team’s failure coaching?
-Is this roster good enough to compete?
-If so, implications for salary cap?
-Will the core be good enough for Melo to re-sign?
-Will Melo re-sign anyways?
-Do we trade anyone? If so, is it Terry, Oubre, Plumdog, Hayward?
-Do we start the rebuild? If so, is it a soft rebuild? Full rebuild? Retool?
I’m of the opinion that this roster is not enough as it is to truly compete. And I’m torn because I’m a big fan of Terry and I’ve always been higher on the value of Hayward than others (…when he’s on the floor). The truth is that this roster needs a soft rebuild. Locking up 80million+ in cap space for the next two years with Bridges, Rozier, and Hayward isn’t going to move the needle.
-Still need a big man
-Still need a more rugged perimeter defender. Doesn’t have to be a strictly 3andD guy, but a 6’1 Rozier is not a good combo defensively with Melo. He’s just not. He’s more of a 6th man combo guard scorer extraordinaire. Look at what the Suns and Celtics do with their size and defense.
-Need more disciplined coaching for a young team. Atkinson may be the step forward in addressing this.
-The first two bullet points, I don’t know how you address these while retaining Terry, Bridges, Hayward.
It would be bad if that was the intent. E.g. if they signed him at top pay to be the 4th best. But I see little fault with him falling to that state. That fall seems to be what happens to a lot of contracts.
I’m always surprised by the vastly different viewpoints people have. Our individual lenses lead us to see very different things when we watch Hornets basketball. So instead of arguing my viewpoint, I want to understand some other folks. I’m not disparaging, I just really want to understand. Because I’m having a hard time seeing what others are seeing.
Are there folks here that think this current roster is good enough to compete? If so, at what level? What reasons did this team underperform for the past two years? And what do you think has to be done to address the underperformance?
Also, because you think this roster is good enough as is to compete, I’m assuming that you would move forward with re-signed Bridges for the Bridges/Terry/Hayward core that will cost 80+million dollars of our cap for the next two seasons. And if you have ideas about how this roster can improve performance, how do you do that given that 80+million dollars in cap space will be already occupied?
My response to the open question would be that as is, we’re a 7-10 team that is good enough to play in as a playoff team but not good enough to win a series.
But to me, that doesn’t mean tear it down or have a fire sale to clear cap space. I’m not exactly sure what a “soft rebuild” looks like. I guess that could mean different things to different people, but if it means making a few tweaks while still remaining competitive, I’m all for that. Because I truly think we’re just 1 or 2 moves away from being able to take that next step.
But I do think it should mean holding on to our young talent (i.e. re-signing Miles)
I also think it means extracting value for the talent we have. Terry, Hayward, PJ, Oubre are all nice chips. I’m fine with moving any of them, as long as there’s value in return.
Obviously we aren’t good enough to compete with the top 4 teams in the east right now. But I don’t see how not re-signing Miles or dropping Terry of GH in a straight salary dump get us there either.
I would still argue that Hayward is still our best overall player when he is on the floor. Maybe not the most exciting but he’s overall the best. Not worth the money we are giving him bc he can’t stay on the court… so I understand that.
I will try one more time. First we not in a rebuild at all .We in a build through the draft .Miles was the first Martin Melo and so on. to continue to get better we address our needs at center and like you said a player we can use as a defender. i am sure we try to address those needs per draft or trading one or both picks added to a expiring contract if needed. The main reason we didn’t compete as well as we should was a lack of a good center witch i am sure management will address in this off season. We have enough money to stay under the luxury and sign Bridges and Martin this year .And sign our draft picks. We can sign a player like a WCJ or a Homes type. using a trade of our free agent expiring’s. Using our free agents and picks we could add a 21 million dollar player. The Next season Batum comes off 8 million next season . Washington’s contract is up that season so we can trade or resign him up to 17 million a year. Now we down to Hayward the next year his 30 million come’s off . T hat should be enough to sign Melo. I expect this year we should be about a 5th or 6th seed addressing those two needs . The next season playing together and getting older together we should be a top 4 seed. Hayward will be great helping this young locker room get better as a good mentor.
Now you explain to us exactly how you going to get us a championship,Detail;s would be nice I want us to get to to finals too.
You guys sure type a lot. I guess that’s what these boards are for!
Anyway, who the hell knows what’s up with these guys. They were grossly inconsistent last season. At times they showed great promise and other times they play like adolescents. Are they flawed or just young? Is it coaching? That’s certainly a factor, but who knows how big of one.
Do these guys even talk or listen to Hayward much? Not seeing it.
I haven’t seen maturity or a will to win from this group. We need to see who can rise up. So far no one has. That’s the new coaches challenge IMO. Good luck to him.
I don’t know what I want…. I just want to win. But I don’t think Miles is a max player either. He’s not smooth enough to me, if that makes sense. Everything just looks kind of hard for him… but he gets it done.
Yeah I realize they all had varying degrees of success which is why I also threw in Fox as the closest example I could think of to a similar mediocre organization.
I would also say that the reason (in most cases) those teams were threatening the finals or conference finals was due to the greatness of those players, not that they had such a great team around them. Say what you will about our roster but If you put year three Lebron, KD, Carmelo, AD on this team in place of Lamelo, it’s a playoff team that could win a round or two. If we can’t do it with Melo then that speaks a little to the fact that he’s just not that level of star player. I’m just legit trying to think what is the example of this. I’m not saying it’s crazy to think he might be the first to go this route but I don’t see it.
I certainly don’t think this roster is good enough to compete for the finals but I don’t expect it to be right now and I don’t see why anyone would expect it to be. Compete for a playoff spot? Well they demonstrated that already. They’ve improved by 10 wins year over year for the past two years so I wouldn’t say they’ve underperformed at all the past two years (unless you’re focusing strictly on the playin game results). IMO they were ahead of schedule. We’re not the Warriors adding a healthy Steph and Klay to the mix to go from worst to first. This was always going to be a process and everything couldn’t be addressed in one year.
The next step to “continue to improve the performance” is clearly getting better at the center position. Be it through the draft, trade, growth of existing players or free agency and hopefully a combination of those. I’d love to add your guy Bamba (or my dream would be Ayton).
As far as resigning Bridges, I don’t like the idea of paying him max money and I’m hoping to get a discount but I think he has to be a priority to resign and there’s just no way around that. I’m in the camp that values Terry and Hayward but absolutely have no problem moving them to improve our cap situation and if we can get some value and find pieces that fit better. I’m just not willing to sacrifice too much along the lines of draft capital just to dump their salary. I don’t see how that helps us.
For sure the roster isn’t there yet and this is an important offseason with a lot of tough decisions that have to be made for us to continue our progression toward competing.