Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00 You are listening to Inside the Hive on the All Hornets Podcast Network.
00:05 One podcast feed with multiple shows, making sure we cover the Charlotte Hornets from every angle.
00:10 If you like what you hear, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, find us on Spotify, leave us a five star review.
00:16 The All Hornets Podcast is affiliated with the Fans First Sports Podcast Group.
00:20 On today's show, we're going to be touching on Steve Clifford's post-game rant around physicality,
00:26 touching a little bit on Brandon Miller to see how he's stacking up against other rookies,
00:30 and then finally touching base on a little bit of Amari Bailey talk for the Greensboro Swarm.
00:34 Now he's had a few games down in the G League.
00:37 But first place, before we get on with the topics, we had some Spotify rat recently.
00:44 This is the first time we've had a Spotify rat, and we had a little competition to, you know,
00:49 single out some people who could have the All Hornets Podcast at the top of their Spotify rat.
00:54 And it was actually really great to see that there's actually people out there who we are their favorite show to listen to.
01:00 So just a quick shout out to Donovan Holmes Lloyd and Carsten Knudsen.
01:05 I'm sure if we were top on that, you'll be listening now.
01:08 Thanks to you guys. We've sorted you guys out with a T-shirt from the All Hornets Podcast store,
01:14 which you can find the link for that in the detail.
01:17 Both of them have the same T-shirt there from the Quotable collection.
01:19 So if you haven't seen the store before, make sure you check it out.
01:24 But thanks to Carsten, thanks to Donovan, and thanks to all the other listeners.
01:27 I saw some other people on there saying that if they had Spotify that it would be and all that stuff.
01:32 So overall, the podcast has grown tremendously in the last year.
01:36 We just passed 150 episodes total.
01:39 I think we had like just figures up across the board.
01:43 So thank you if you're relatively new, just joined us this season.
01:47 If you've been listening all the way back to the @theHive days, I just want to say me and Chase appreciate it.
01:53 Yeah, we appreciate it very much. Donovan, Carsten, anybody that makes us a part of their commute to work,
01:59 their routine doing chores at home, whatever it may be, all the growth and rise in listenership that we've had
02:06 over the last couple of years is because of you guys. So James and I very much appreciate it.
02:11 Absolutely. And also we are growing on YouTube slowly as well.
02:14 We have over 50 subscribers now, which is pretty good considering all I do is just upload the straight video to YouTube.
02:21 Look, I would love to be able to do more fancy YouTube things with this.
02:25 I'm not a YouTuber. If only we had someone who worked for the Podcast Network who does.
02:30 Oh, wait, we do. But I need to tap into Sam Moore, Sam Dracula, that is.
02:34 But look, thanks, everyone. If you're watching on YouTube, we appreciate you on there as well.
02:39 But Chase, let's get to it here. The Charlotte Hornets, last time we spoke, they've won a game, they've lost a game,
02:47 they beat Brooklyn. Obviously, then they lost to the New York Knicks just in the most typical like Charlotte Hornet fashion.
02:55 They go out and put a season low 91 points against the Knicks and then come out with 129 point effort two nights later,
03:03 which set all like a record, I think, for shooting 50, 40, 100 percent from the free throw line with certain number of threes made.
03:12 Like it was an offensive efficient night of history in the NBA. And they do those two things back to back.
03:20 And I think that just sums up the Charlotte Hornets really well.
03:22 Like you just never know with this team what you ever to expect going into any night.
03:27 There is no identity. It is literally you could have anything. You just never know.
03:34 And with how often that players have fluctuated in and out of the lineup over the last two seasons, too, that just adds to that.
03:40 Like Terry Rozier comes back and I'm not saying anybody really expected him to like have to work back into the lineup for like two weeks
03:47 because he only missed like a little bit under a month. But like he looks like he's just been playing through his entire injury
03:54 and has been developing a rhythm all season long. He stepped into Lamellos point guard shoes with no hesitation at all.
04:01 He looks great, like facilitating the offense has racked up a whole bunch of assists as like a pick and roll ball handler, transition passer and all that stuff.
04:08 So, yeah, I mean, it is a true mystery what you're going to see from this team on a nightly basis.
04:14 But I mean, it hasn't all been good, but at least over the last like couple of weeks or so, like basically since they beat Boston,
04:20 like they have been winning games slightly more often, playing better basketball, at least on one end of the court.
04:26 So it is things are turning up here, even with Lamello out, surprisingly.
04:32 Yeah, but despite the more competitive games, I think it's safe to say that Steve Clifford is still not happy with how this team is performing,
04:42 especially on the defensive end. The last two games, they've given up 128 points to Brooklyn, 123 points to Minnesota,
04:51 who is missing Anthony Edwards in this one, obviously, and Jaden McDaniels, two big misses.
04:58 And this has just been a theme, right? What's the lowest they've held opponents to?
05:03 The lowest they've held them to, oh my gosh, the last time they held opponent to under 112 points was the 15th of November against the Miami Heat.
05:13 That just tells you how bad the Shelter Hornets defensive end. And for some of you might have seen the rant, some of you might have not.
05:20 We don't assume you have. So I've just taken a few quotes from this six, seven minute ramble here,
05:26 where Steve Clifford took no questions in his postgame press conference.
05:31 And I'm going to share a couple of the quotes here and then me and Chase are going to discuss some of our thoughts.
05:35 So a few of the quotes surround the physicality and defence. He said, "We played hard.
05:41 We played with good energy. If you do three things in this league well, I'm talking defensively,
05:46 which our struggle obviously is. If you can defend without fouling, which takes discipline and technique,
05:51 and I would dare to say outside of two or three other teams, nobody works in it more or talks about it more than we do.
05:57 If you run back and defence every time, which takes zero talent, there is nothing that takes less talent in basketball
06:04 than running back on defence." Another quote I want to put in here, which he talked about defensively,
06:10 "We might be last or 29th, something like that, because of those things. And those things to me, you can clean up in one day.
06:17 We've done it enough. We've worked on it enough. And that's what we've got to get to."
06:21 He did then go on to say, "I'm the one who's in charge of that. So I'm not blaming the players.
06:25 I'm just telling you where we're at. The coach is in charge of those areas, the coach, the team leaders.
06:31 That's the way the NBA works. I need help too. But if we get to that, we're going to have a chance to take off here
06:37 and be really good. And if we don't, there's going to be more nights like this where it's fun to watch,
06:42 but people watch us and say, 'Boy, they're doing a good job on offence, but they're going nowhere,'
06:47 just like I do when I watch teams." And the funny quote, I think the best one,
06:53 where it's just talked about a little bit, he said, "Every year, there's one or two teams that are just going to go all in on trying to play offence.
07:00 They're not physical. They don't do all the dirty things. They don't want to do the tough things.
07:04 And they get to either the playoffs or the play-in, and they get their ass kicked because it doesn't work in our league."
07:10 I feel like that might be a little bit of a sub-tweet to the pre-Charlotte Hornet/Clifford era there,
07:17 back-to-back play-in blowout defeats to James Borrego. "CC James Borrego," I think is what he's saying there.
07:23 But, I mean, Chase, we talked about this exact issue on our last podcast, right,
07:29 when we were talking about what this team needs going forward, and we said they need a tough MFer,
07:34 and they need defence and toughness, and it's not a secret, right?
07:39 Everyone knows what this team is missing, what it needs. What did you make of the Steve Clifford rant?
07:44 Yeah, so, I mean, it's a very smooth transition from the end of our last podcast into the beginning of this one,
07:50 because it's literally the exact same topic.
07:52 The Hornets right now just have nobody that is assertive, really, especially defensively.
08:00 Offensively, that's not a problem, as Clifford has noted himself and as we've seen over the last couple weeks.
08:05 But defensively, there's nobody that's just going to take up and be like, "We are getting our asses beat right now.
08:11 We haven't gotten a stop in a minute, two minutes, whatever it is.
08:15 It's time for us to lock in and get some stops so we can actually start chipping away at whatever deficit we have
08:21 or pulling away and building a bigger lead than the one that they have in that moment."
08:24 They just don't have somebody like that.
08:26 They have leaders, they have players that can lead by example, and Gordon Hayward, Terry Rozier,
08:32 but they just don't have somebody that does that on the defensive end,
08:36 and that is a very specific skill set or player that can fill that type of role for you,
08:42 but every good team has it.
08:44 It's hard to find, but every single good team has it.
08:48 Several. There's several.
08:50 Right, and that's the reality of the NBA with how talented it is and how few roster spots there are.
08:56 You need to fill them out with the exact right players if you want to be successful on both ends,
09:02 and the Hornets just don't have that right now.
09:04 It's very simple.
09:06 I'm not saying they can't get there because obviously they have tons of athletes and players with positional size
09:11 and just extremely talented guys, but talent doesn't get you very far in this league,
09:16 as we've seen time and time again.
09:18 But you talk about athletes, positional size.
09:22 That is not what this team is.
09:25 You talk about JT Thor. He's the perfect example of this.
09:27 He's long. He's pretty athletic.
09:30 He's got a big wingspan.
09:32 He looks freakishly long out there, but JT Thor is like allergic to contact on either end,
09:38 and this is what it feels like the Charlotte Hornets to fill them.
09:41 You say they don't have those players right now and it's a problem right now.
09:45 I'm going to read you this quote.
09:47 "A lack of physicality, presence, and pride about getting a rebound out there.
09:51 We didn't deserve to win tonight. Very disappointing.
09:54 You can't teach pride and physicality.
09:57 Our guys have to figure that out.
09:59 If they want to win a game, if we want to win a game, they have to get rebound.
10:02 That's the bottom line. It isn't tricky.
10:05 We could do 20 minutes of rebounding drills, but in the end,
10:08 they have to have pride about rebounding the ball."
10:10 Do you know when that quote was from, Chase?
10:13 2020.
10:14 Yeah, I'm going to say it really long time ago.
10:18 We're talking three years ago.
10:20 James Borrego is saying the same shit that Steve Clifford is talking about right now,
10:24 and everyone at the time is going, "Oh, the Hornets just need a center.
10:28 They just need a big, and then it will solve everything."
10:31 Well, you've got 7-2 Mark Williams now who is blocking shots,
10:35 and I can assure you it is not solving everything.
10:38 I think for a long time, Hornets, it's classic.
10:42 You pin your hopes on that thing you don't have without actually looking at what you do have
10:47 and going, "This problem, yes, it can be helped by additions,
10:51 but also this group that we have here, there are built-in systemic issues.
10:57 This Hornets core, how many players on this team would you describe playing
11:01 with good level of physicality?
11:03 How many?
11:06 One, I think.
11:08 One?
11:09 Yeah.
11:10 Who would that be?
11:11 Terry Rozier probably would be my guess.
11:13 Brandon Miller might be getting there, and I think he will be that guy,
11:15 but he just hasn't played enough games to be that type of leader on the court defensively
11:21 as a 20-year-old rookie, number two overall pick.
11:24 That's kind of hard.
11:25 I really think it's just Terry is the only player that really plays with their heart on their sleeve
11:30 or whatever cliche type of thing you want to use.
11:33 Yeah, I'm not even saying play with passion and emotion because I would agree with Terry.
11:38 I'm talking plays in a manner that they are able to physically dominate their opponent, right?
11:44 Oh, yeah.
11:45 With that physical strength, hustle, that side of things, they make guys feel them.
11:52 That's what I'm talking about.
11:53 Oh, yeah.
11:54 There's nobody that does that.
11:55 Terry is unfortunately too small to do that, I think.
11:57 Yeah, exactly.
11:58 I've got Nick Richards, all right?
12:00 He has flaws.
12:01 He gets a lot of offensive rebounds, like fouls and moving screens, but Nick is thick, strong.
12:08 He's a pain.
12:09 He gets fouled, I think, more than anyone in the NBA.
12:12 He had the highest foul rate in the NBA last year.
12:14 I had Nick Richards.
12:16 Cody Martin, when he plays, I think can bring that at times, but he's almost a forgotten guy.
12:22 I think Miles Bridges could do it, probably more on the offensive end, like bullies people more than defensively.
12:30 But you're talking about one or two players, and even then, two of those guys are like backups who are probably never playing more than 20 minutes a night.
12:36 So your core of LaMelo Ball, Brandon Miller, Mark Williams, physicality, strength, aggression, being that aggressive,
12:47 they are things that you would describe all those guys like pretty low down.
12:52 And I just don't know, Chase, how the Charlotte Hornets solved this with their current core.
12:57 I don't see how there is any way, unless you rip everything down, which I don't think they're going to do,
13:02 and I don't think they should do because there's other teams out there with skill-based players like that,
13:07 but they need to build extremely carefully around these players.
13:12 And so far, I feel like they've just been drafting talent, talent, talent, talent, without looking at how it fits together.
13:18 And that's how we've now gotten an issue where there is a massive glaring hole of weakness running right through the center of this team.
13:26 And in the moment, when they drafted those players for talent, like when everybody remembers the Mitch quote when James Booknight was picked,
13:34 "Our phone was ringing off the hook. We've never gotten this many trade offers for an 11th overall pick."
13:39 That's all fine and good, but if you're not going to give these players a very plausible path to minutes to work out these types of flaws or issues that they may have coming into it,
13:49 they're never going to go away.
13:51 So what happens when a player plays extremely sparingly in his first two years or only plays in the G League,
13:56 which doesn't necessarily emphasize the "little things" that you'd want to see from somebody defensively that the Hornets don't do?
14:04 They come in and they just can't do those things. They have to rely on their talent, because that's what they had done.
14:10 And until then, they haven't been able to develop anything or gain any sort of rhythm to be able to do other things.
14:15 It doesn't necessarily surprise me now, looking back on it, that so many of these players, like you said, are just end-of-bench guys,
14:23 not anybody that really projects to be playing heavy minutes.
14:26 And that's where you need that type of skill set that's going to be like a locked-down physical defender with toughness and smarts and instincts,
14:34 is among your best players, not like your accentuating role players that are like the 7th, 8th, 9th guys in your rotation.
14:41 I mean, do you think physicality, playing with physicality, and I guess this is harder, right?
14:47 This isn't just talking about strength. This isn't just what you can lift in the weight room.
14:51 This is something like it's much more nuanced and complex than that. It's like as soon as you hit a body, when you run through a screen,
14:59 when you set a screen, when you're boxing out, like when you're driving to the late, it's every aspect of like, can you move people?
15:05 Can you be moved? Because at the minute, what the Charlotte Hornets try and do, they know they're getting bullied.
15:11 They know they get viewed as pushovers. So they try and like fight back.
15:16 But by doing that, because they just don't have the ability to do it within the rules, they just end up mounting on fouls.
15:23 And that's what happens, right? People like, you know, oh, I know I've given up three offensive rebounds.
15:27 I need to grab this guy so I don't give up a fourth. And then you pick up a foul.
15:32 And there's several people, Mark Williams, P.J. Washington, definitely are guilty of, they're trying to do the right thing by like being more physical back.
15:41 But they just don't have it within their intuition, skill set to be able to do it in a way that is legal and isn't going to get called.
15:50 And I just don't know. Can you teach physicality, Chase? Is this something you think you can really develop as a draft prospect?
15:56 Because I'm just I'm just not sold. I think if you grow up and you struggle with physicality before you get into the NBA,
16:03 I just don't know how you're ever going to excel in that area when you get into the league with the biggest, strongest guys,
16:09 basically in the NBA, like in the world, in that peak age.
16:13 Yeah, no, I completely agree. I would not think or at least myself define that as something that you can like really improve on.
16:21 It's different when you're somebody that's like like Wemby or Chet Holmgren, that's just like really skinny, but big and plays aggressively and is like tough around the basket and seeks contact and whatever.
16:31 But like if you're just someone that's skinny and doesn't do those things, then you're even if no matter how strong you get, you can fill out your frame and be as you know, have as broad of shoulders or strong through your core as you would like.
16:43 Like that physicality, like going straight up on a contest and not reaching at all and trying to foul or poke the ball away, just straight up and taking whatever result lives with it.
16:54 Giving that contact that the offensive player is trying to initiate with you like that is something that is just like it's like an innate instinctual reaction.
17:02 Like I don't think that that's something you can teach in teach into a player like maybe it could it can come out when someone like I said, is like thinner when they're younger and then gets stronger and improves on that type of thing.
17:14 It gets to show it more just because they're more physically capable.
17:16 But yeah, somebody that doesn't show it at all at a lower level, it's very tough for me to think that they're going to do it at the highest level in the world against some of the best athletes that planet earth has to offer.
17:26 I know what people will be saying, right?
17:30 Okay, then in free agency, we need to go out and sign a guy, right?
17:34 PJ Tucker, let's just call it a type of PJ Tucker or the trade deadline.
17:38 We need to get a guy in here, the Udonis has some type who can preach toughness, be a culture setter for the team, show guys how to do it, go out there, be a protector, all that stuff.
17:48 I agree they probably do need to do that.
17:51 They need to find some way to add it to the roster because it's not currently on here.
17:55 But equally, that only like one of five guys on the team, that one person cannot make up for everywhere else.
18:04 It's not as simple as that. You look like Boston, you look at the Clippers, you look at Philadelphia, they've got multiple guys who all exhibit that.
18:12 And that's why coaches love it when your best player is also your toughest player, your Jimmy Butler type, because that really does set in amongst the team.
18:22 And then it's easier to build around. You're not having to cater around your star guy.
18:26 Like we saw James Harden in Houston for years had to like Clint Capel around him, PJ Tucker around him, Trevor Aries around him.
18:34 They had to surround him with those kind of guys because he just didn't have that level of physicality.
18:40 So, yes, the Hornets need to go out and add that player, but that is not solving the whole issue here.
18:46 And LeMellor Ball and Brandon Miller are going to be on this team for the next five years going forward.
18:51 They are both not like contact adverse players. Brandon Miller less so than LeMellor Ball, but they are never going to be guys who physically dominate another player.
19:03 So the Charlotte Hornets have to find a way. They really do. Mark Williams has to evolve in that way and strength will be part of it, especially for Mark.
19:12 But it's a much more complex thing than that, and it needs to be instilled across the roster.
19:18 And this is what Steve Clifford is like good at coaching, right?
19:23 He's struggling with it. I don't know, like Emo Doaker is probably a good example of a guy who's managed to do it in Boston and in Houston.
19:31 Like there seems to be a notable shift in like the team in terms of how they approach the game.
19:38 But that just has to be goal number one here, because like all the other stuff, how many threes you hit, all that, it basically doesn't matter.
19:44 And Steve Clifford said as much. If you can't just do the hard things, the little stuff, rebounding, transition, defense, all that stuff,
19:52 then all the fancy stuff, you'll have great nights like we had in Brooklyn, but it will not be consistent winning.
19:59 So I don't know what the answer is here, Chase. This is a systemic issue. I don't have a solution.
20:05 It's not just trade for player X or Y. It is way more complex than that.
20:10 And I think whoever takes over this front office, they're going to have a job on the hand to try and navigate this.
20:15 [BLANK_AUDIO]