Would trading for Andre Drummond make sense for the Charlotte Hornets in a rebuild?
The Charlotte Hornets are traders. It’s their preferred roster tool and their most successful one.
The website Heavy.com reported last week that the Hornets have interest in Detroit Pistons veteran center Andre Drummond. Would acquiring Drummond in his eighth NBA season make sense for a rebuilding team?
That leads Hornets fans’ questions for this week’s mailbag:
If the Drummond rumors are justified, would you make such a trade in the Hornets’ current state?
The Hornets have a rebounding problem, which would be the reason to acquire Drummond, who averages an NBA-best 16.7 boards per game. However, what would be the trade-offs?
Drummond has already played more than 17,000 NBA minutes. That doesn’t sound like a core piece in a rebuild. He’s an old-school center who has made even fewer career 3-pointers than the Hornets’ Cody Zeller. Drummond appears to be the opposite of what Hornets coach James Borrego has done in playing forwards Marvin Williams and P.J. Washington as centers with the perimeter skills to pull opposing big men out of the lane.
Drummond makes $27 million this season and has a player option for $28.7 million in the 2020-21 season. If the Hornets acquired him, they’d be at risk of having him for just the remainder of this season.
The Pistons’ asking price in a trade would have to be pretty low to justify the Hornets doing anything like this. Hornets general manager Mitch Kupchak should be reluctant to give up draft picks or young players in a trade for a veteran.
Why is Nic Batum playing 30 minutes a night and sucking playing time away from Dwayne Bacon and Cody Martin?
Because while Batum is overpaid at $25.5 million this season, he is still this team’s most positionally versatile player, and valuable as a defender and ball-mover.
Borrego said in September that contracts and salaries wouldn’t decide playing time, and that in close calls he’d lean toward playing young guys. He never said veterans wouldn’t play. Batum is useful off the bench, just like Williams and Bismack Biyombo are in the second unit.
How did Bacon go from starting to not even playing?
He was really inefficient, offensively, as a starter the first 10 games of the season. Bacon led the Hornets in shots from two-point range (eight per game). He didn’t shoot well from there (38 percent) and he didn’t get to the foul line (a free throw for every 11 minutes played).
Borrego needed to back off his minutes and Bacon’s sore right knee meant it was time for a reset. I think he’ll work his way back into steady minutes, but probably as a reserve.
Is there any talk of turning Terry Rozier into a sixth man?
Not that I’ve heard, but it wouldn’t surprise me if that eventually happens over the three seasons on Rozier’s contract. Whether Rozier starts wouldn’t particularly change his role: A combo guard who plays as much off the ball as the Hornets’ point guard.
The Hornets’ best backcourt right now is Devonte Graham and Rozier. There are compromises in that, particularly a lack of size. But Rozier’s defense and his comfort playing shooting guard make this viable. Eventually, the right draft pick or trade could make Rozier better suited for the second unit. Not right now.
Is it logical for Hornets fans to hope for the team to show flashes of being competitive while still losing most games to better the chances of a top draft pick?
That’s a reasonable fan approach to this rebuild. But I’d add the following:
Three starters — Graham, Miles Bridges and P.J. Washington — are either second-year players or a rookie. Malik Monk is getting steady minutes off the bench and improving. That’s a large investment of playing time in the future.
If those young guys’ improvement organically results in a few extra victories this season, I wouldn’t worry about that lowering the Hornets’ draft-lottery odds. The draft lottery, particularly after the NBA flattened the odds, isn’t worth becoming a fan preoccupation.
What are the chances the Hornets finish this season with a better winning percentage than the Carolina Panthers?
I would think at most a 20-percent chance: The worst record the Panthers could have is 5-11. That’s winning 31 percent of their games. The Hornets would have to finish 26-56 or better to top that. Twenty-six wins is at the high end of what I’d project the Hornets to achieve this season, and I doubt the Panthers lose all five of their remaining games.
This story was originally published November 26, 2019 at 8:38 AM.
