First Win Streak of The Season, Forecast Still Gloomy

Through 20 games, Charlotte’s NBA franchise owns the association’s 5th worst record and is fresh off back-to-back wins for the first time this season. The injury bug continues to bite Buzz City’s players, to the point where Gordon Hayward’s wife publicly voiced her concern that the team is not adequately protecting their players.

Last time out Charlotte gave fans a treat in an exciting conquering of a Minnesota Timberwolves team who were winners of five straight. This season is officially starting to get weird…

Still just a quarter of the way into the season, there’s time for momentum to be built and time for improvement on the court. Unfortunately, the tides of NBA waters have not been kind to Charlotte early on and fans are wary of the team trying to be consistently competitive should that come at the expense of a chance to add a supremely talented player near the top of the next NBA draft.

To encapsulate the Hornets’ current situation, a proper “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” seems fitting.

Starting with The Bad:

Two of the Hornets’ next three games are against elite teams in the Boston Celtics and the Milwaukee Bucks. Those games will almost certainly be losses. The other team Charlotte faces in this upcoming stretch is a Washington Wizards squad who has already beaten them twice this season. Plenty of losses are on the horizon for our bee-loved bugs. (TLDR; the team, the team is bad)

…Also, James Bouknight. In a season where practically no Hornets guard has been able to stay healthy, Bouknight has had plenty of opportunity to show that he’s making strides and deserved to be the 11th overall pick in the 2021 draft. As it stands, James is still struggling to find his footing in the NBA.

The Good:

Though Charlotte’s roster is light on star power, some fresh faces have emerged as candidates to help further the cause, both for the rest of this season and beyond. Nick Richards continues to make this team better when he gets court time. Both Dennis Smith Jr. (when healthy) and Théo Maledon were inexpensive additions this offseason who have been pleasant surprises.

Maledon specifically has looked very composed for a young player on a new team and his shooting percentages this season (49% from the field, 39% from deep) are very encouraging, even if the sample size is small.

KAI JONES HAS ARRIVED. In Charlotte’s most recent contest (the win against Minnesota) Kai Jones played by far the most minutes of his career. Having never cleared 10 minutes in an NBA game before, Kai played 28 minutes, posting 9 points, 12 rebounds, and zero turnovers.

Jones also punctuated the most electric moment of the season with an unbeelievable alley-oop dunk. Head coach Steve Clifford deserves some credit here. With the team needing a spark and fans needing something to get excited about, he cleared the runway for Kai to take flight.

The Ugly:

From an organizational perspective, Charlotte just can’t seem to get it right. Having your two best point guards both suffer repeated sprained ankles almost feels like malpractice. LaMelo Ball even said he probably wouldn’t have returned to action when he did if not for DSJ going down with an injury. Add to that Gordon Hayward playing hurt and then being put on the shelf indefinitely after his wife went to Instagram to tell the truth about the severity of his injury. All of these issues combine into a terrible look for the Hornets and their staff.

In addition to the lack of keeping players healthy, Charlotte’s roster has gotten into a heap of legal trouble this year. For the most part, the legal issues were somewhat insignificant and were not detrimental to the team…with the exception of the Miles Bridges situation. That situation has yet to come to its resolution and will be a PR nightmare if Miles resigns with the Hornets.

Oh, let’s not forget that Charlotte was spurned by Kenny Atkinson in the offseason to become the new head coach. How did the Hornets respond? By getting back together with their ex (Steve Clifford). Never get back with your ex folks.

Stats sourced from basketball-reference.com. Thank you for reading.