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00:00 Chase, 10 games.
00:03 It's been 10 games.
00:03 So we last spoke, we predicted last time we spoke,
00:07 how many games will they win?
00:09 I said two, I think you said three or four,
00:11 I can't, we couldn't quite remember what you said.
00:13 We were both wrong.
00:15 They have not won a single game.
00:16 And you can see on the stream right here,
00:17 we have one L for every loss.
00:19 And you know what?
00:20 I've taken the big leap of faith,
00:22 'cause we're recording this on New Year's Day,
00:24 to assume that the Charlotte
00:25 are probably gonna lose to Denver tonight on the road.
00:29 They are gonna be missing Tero Zier on top of Mark Williams
00:33 and on top of Gordon Hayward and on top of LeBron Ball.
00:35 That's actually four fifths of your starting unit,
00:37 it sounds like.
00:38 They are also playing Denver,
00:41 who've lost two games at home all season.
00:43 And they're gonna be playing Altitude
00:46 on the fifth or sixth game of this road trip.
00:48 I don't think it's a stretch to add on the 11th L,
00:51 maybe 24 hours early.
00:52 And look, hey, if I'm wrong,
00:54 I will gladly take the L and the embarrassment
00:58 of having a preemptive video here.
01:00 And I will gladly take the stick from everybody,
01:03 but I think it's unlikely.
01:05 - Yeah, I think I'm with you on that one, James.
01:08 It does not seem likely that, you know,
01:10 after going one and 12 in December,
01:13 which matched the Detroit Pistons,
01:16 despite the fact that they set an NBA record
01:18 for consecutive losses with 28,
01:21 they still emerged from the month of December
01:23 with the same record as the Charlotte Hornets,
01:26 which is just probably the most depressing way
01:29 to frame this.
01:30 And arguably, that sentence itself
01:32 might be the most depressing thing
01:34 that you could say about the Hornets
01:35 in the last like five years.
01:37 So that was just an extremely tough month
01:40 that we went through.
01:41 And I cannot imagine that despite that tough month
01:44 and how everyone is probably just urging
01:46 to get this over with and just get a win
01:48 in the column here,
01:50 I don't think that's gonna happen
01:51 against the defending champs as we ring in the new year.
01:54 - No, I don't think so.
01:55 And I will say, if you're listening to this podcast now,
01:57 and if you've been with us all season,
01:59 and to be honest, the whole last calendar year,
02:01 it has been, the title of the YouTube video
02:04 is "2023, the worst year in Hornets history."
02:07 It very, apart from maybe moving up in the draft lottery,
02:10 that is the only good thing that I can tell you
02:11 that maybe happened in this year.
02:13 That is it.
02:14 So absolutely, it's been terrible.
02:18 And just thank you for sticking with us
02:20 because we know it's hard to like listen to these podcasts.
02:23 If you listen to any of the podcasts over the break,
02:25 with Matt Sponauer, with Rich Randall from BuzzBeat,
02:28 hopefully you enjoyed those.
02:30 I know we've got some really good listening numbers
02:32 on both of those.
02:33 So we appreciate your support.
02:35 I just wanna say, we are not taking it for granted.
02:37 As hard as it is for you to listen,
02:38 it is just as hard for us to watch
02:40 and then have to prep for hours for a podcast,
02:43 then record it, then edit it all,
02:45 to talk about, like you say, one win in the last four weeks.
02:50 It's been a tough stretch.
02:52 We appreciate it.
02:52 But I do wanna say,
02:55 I know they're on a 10 game losing streak,
02:58 but I actually think there are some grass, green shoots.
03:03 - There we go.
03:04 Give me the bright side to the one in 12 December, James.
03:07 'Cause I'm actually with you
03:09 'cause I think I know what you're gonna say.
03:11 - Well, I think there's some mitigating factors firstly.
03:13 We've played eight playoff teams,
03:14 eight out of 10 games,
03:15 and we get to play off teams
03:16 with the 10 game losing streak.
03:17 Like teams that even if the Hornets were healthy,
03:19 they'd probably be, the other team would be the favorites.
03:23 They've missed between two and four starters
03:25 for every single game.
03:27 And they played seven out of 10 on the road.
03:29 I mean, you tell any NBA team,
03:32 I don't care who, like any NBA,
03:34 you take the Denver Nuggets
03:35 and you take between two or four of their starters,
03:37 including their best player,
03:39 and you send them on the road against playoff teams,
03:42 they're gonna be picking up a hell of a lot of Ls.
03:44 Now, yeah, they'll probably win one or two.
03:45 And Charlotte have let a few games go.
03:48 And there's been a couple of games like the Indiana game,
03:50 the Philly game, where it was just got embarrassing.
03:53 I completely understand that.
03:55 But there has been some mitigating factors.
03:57 And I think there's been some, you know,
04:00 little bit of emergencies.
04:01 Nick Smith Jr. Okay.
04:02 Has earned a spot now in the rotation.
04:04 Has had some moments.
04:05 Brandon Miller had some time.
04:07 Terry Zier had that 42 point game.
04:09 Cody Martin returned,
04:10 which we're gonna get onto that in a little bit
04:12 in more detail.
04:13 There has been some slow improvement
04:16 and some defensive improvement
04:18 in a couple of games as well.
04:19 I think it held two teams under 110 points,
04:21 something they hadn't done up to this point this year.
04:23 So look, it's not been great,
04:26 but I do think like,
04:29 if they just picked up one or two wins here or there,
04:31 I actually think some of their stretches earlier
04:32 in the season when they were healthier,
04:34 and like the first 10 games I actually find
04:36 was like more distressing in some ways
04:38 than the last 10 games,
04:39 just because of the expectations
04:41 of what the Hornets have out there versus the performance.
04:46 - Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking.
04:48 Like you can put it into the perspective of,
04:51 oh yeah, the Hornets and Pistons both went one and 12.
04:54 They were both just as bad in the same month.
04:56 That's horrible, which it obviously is.
04:58 But the context behind that is that, you know,
05:01 teams like Detroit or any of the other bad teams
05:03 in the league, really,
05:04 like Washington or Portland or San Antonio,
05:07 they're all mostly healthy,
05:09 especially at the top of the roster.
05:11 The Hornets are just the exact opposite.
05:13 I believe they're top three in the league
05:15 in like total games lost due to injury this year.
05:19 Like with most of those being to Lamello Ball,
05:23 Terry Rozier, Cody Martin,
05:25 like Brandon Miller has missed a bunch of games.
05:27 Mark Williams has now been out with a back injury
05:29 on and off for what seems like almost a month now.
05:32 Like Nick Richards missed a week and a half
05:34 or two weeks with concussions.
05:35 Like every single major rotation player
05:38 has missed some time with injury.
05:41 And most of the other bad teams can't say that
05:44 about at least to the degree that the Hornets can.
05:46 So you can always convince yourself like,
05:49 okay, once this team gets healthy
05:51 and get some sort of rhythm under their legs here,
05:55 obviously they're not going to be good.
05:56 'Cause if you were,
05:57 you wouldn't go on 10 game losing streaks at all.
05:59 - Exactly.
06:00 - But they will be better.
06:01 Which is at least a positive.
06:03 - They're not seven and 23, they're 11 and 19, you know?
06:07 And I think that's the difference
06:09 that we're talking about here.
06:11 And like the people who listened to our last episode,
06:13 Richie, you know, we did our blame pie chart
06:15 and I think I had luck down to 2.5%.
06:18 We obviously prerecorded that before the Christmas period.
06:20 If I did that again now,
06:22 I would increase that luck percentage
06:23 because the injuries have actually got worse since then.
06:27 And you know, there's been even more stuff
06:29 that's happened in the last 10 games.
06:31 So I would increase that a little bit.
06:33 I think the Hornets are getting unluckier
06:35 with some of their injuries.
06:36 I mean, if it's not a calf strain, an illness,
06:39 whatever it is, visa issues, getting into Canada.
06:42 I mean, like what is next on this list on the injury report?
06:46 I'm interested to see.
06:47 Another little bit of luck, just to mention as well,
06:51 that over the season, so in fact, the month of December,
06:55 the Hornets were 26th in the league
06:57 in opponent wide open three-point percentage.
07:00 So opponents shot 43.3%,
07:02 which essentially means that there were 26 teams
07:06 that shot worse on wide open threes than that,
07:10 which basically means that the Hornets got pretty unlucky
07:12 with opponent shot quality.
07:14 Now you could argue that,
07:16 oh, well, are they leaving really good shooters open?
07:18 And that's why, well, there's all this math
07:21 that basically they figure out
07:22 that the shooters average percentage,
07:25 and they're around 26 as well,
07:26 even with all that taken into account.
07:28 So other teams have been shooting well
07:30 on top of everything, which is, you know,
07:33 this is how you end up with a 10 game losing streak.
07:35 Longest streak since 2014, '15.
07:37 You have to have these compounding things,
07:39 injuries, people playing poorly,
07:41 other teams playing well, on the road,
07:43 you know, all these things that put together.
07:46 So yeah, it's been brutal, but like you said,
07:49 I think that has been, you know,
07:50 the first half of the Denver, LA games,
07:53 Toronto game, the Clippers game,
07:55 like they've actually played well when on demand
07:57 and even been up in some of these games.
07:59 And you thought, wow, considering who's out there,
08:01 these guys are playing well.
08:02 They've just never been able to really
08:04 kind of extend any leads
08:06 and sustain any period of good play.
08:09 But I have been encouraged with some of what I've seen.
08:13 And I'm not just saying that to try and show a pinch on it.
08:16 I'm just being completely honest.
08:17 There's been times, spots, moments here and there
08:20 where they've played hard
08:23 and they've played some good basketball.
08:24 That first half of the Denver game,
08:25 I thought was the best I've seen
08:27 the Major League Sharks play all season.
08:28 - Yep, I completely agree.
08:29 I was just going to say,
08:30 the first half of that Denver game,
08:32 they went up, I think, we're up by like six.
08:34 That halftime, that game was in Charlotte.
08:38 Obviously they follow it up with a,
08:40 I think they came out,
08:40 they were outscored 30 to nine in the third quarter.
08:43 - Yeah, 25 to one at one point, I think it was.
08:46 - Yeah, to start the third quarter.
08:48 So they completely handed the game to the Nuggets
08:50 to start the second half.
08:51 But I mean, if you want to isolate it,
08:53 like that first half,
08:55 if you can get some sort of repetition from that,
08:57 like going forward from the players
08:59 that were on the court at the time
09:01 and then adding Lamello
09:02 whoever was missing in that game to the fold,
09:04 like there are positives to be taken from this.
09:07 And if you want to look at it from another lens also,
09:10 which is probably getting old
09:12 after four of the last five years
09:15 looking at basketball through this lens,
09:18 this does guarantee another high draft pick
09:20 and all but assures that the team sells at the deadline.
09:24 There's probably no salvaging this season
09:26 if this win streak lasts much longer.
09:29 And if the team doesn't respond with a win streak
09:31 that's of about a handful or six games.
09:35 - Oh, the season's not being salvaged.
09:36 - There is just no. - The season's gone.
09:38 - Yeah, there's like a 1% chance
09:40 that they do anything that brings them close to it,
09:42 even a 10 seed right now.
09:44 So if you want to look at it like that,
09:46 the doom and gloom perspective,
09:48 like Hornets are probably going to get another top eight,
09:52 seven, maybe top five draft pick.
09:54 And there's a strong chance
09:55 that the team sells off some assets at the deadline.
09:58 So at least we got that.
10:00 - The first overall pick in this year's draft
10:03 might be a bad contract.
10:04 That might not be hyperbole.
10:07 - No, actually that's a very good point.
10:09 With the amount of development
10:10 that that player's probably going to have to undertake
10:13 on their rookie contract,
10:14 making like basically mid-level exception money,
10:16 that's actually a very good way to look at it.
10:18 - This draft is horrendous.
10:19 - Yeah, the top has very, very little star quality.
10:22 - Oh, it is.
10:23 You don't want to get the first pick.
10:26 'Cause the guy picking going one
10:27 is the same as the guy going five
10:29 and you have to pay them so much more money.
10:32 But we'll get onto all that a long time.
10:34 But despite the season being lost,
10:37 you should keep listening
10:38 because there are still things
10:40 that we have to take out of this, right?
10:43 These are important things
10:44 and nothing is more important than Cody Martin.