Terry Rozier is in a slump. The Charlotte Hornets need him to be ‘scary’ again soon
Nearly two months ago, on Halloween to be precise, Terry Rozier was at the interview podium when an inquiry got tossed his way.
Wondering if the Charlotte Hornets guard was dressed in a costume and somehow keeping in concert with the day’s theme, curious minds wanted to know if Rozier’s attire was part of a grand look as if he were a superhero. Rozier fired off a response that aptly elicited laughter.
“Me,” Rozier cracked, dropping in an expletive to begin the sentence. “Scary Terry.”
Throughout the weeks since, sightings of Rozier’s alter ego have proven rare. Sporadically, they trickle in. The latest glimpse of him potentially breaking out of his funk came in the Hornets’ 112-102 loss to Utah at Vivint Arena on Monday night.
Following yet another glacial start by the Hornets (more on that later) and a rough opening half in which he made just 1 of 6 attempts, misfiring on his initial three, Rozier discovered his shooting stroke. Going 5-for-11 from the floor in the final quarter and posting 14 points, he nearly helped the Hornets (16-17) steal a game they trailed by as many as 22 points in before grabbing a brief one-point edge late in the fourth quarter.
“I never lost my confidence,” Rozier said. “I just started making shots. I’m human. Make shots, miss shots. It happens. I think I’m in a little bit of a slump right now, but my teammates and my coaches do a good job of still believing in me. And I know I’m going to turn it around. We’ve seen this before.”
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Rozier has had stretches where he’s off prior to snapping back like a stretched rubber band. His consistency led to the Hornets inking him to that huge four-year, $97-million extension in the offseason, tying him to the organization for the foreseeable future.
The problem he’s run into this season is he can’t get enough of a continuous span going before something yanks him out of the lineup. And it all stems from one freakish unlucky misstep just prior to the season opener.
That’s when he stepped on a teammate’s foot in their first practice after their Oct. 14 preseason finale, an injury that put him on the shelf for the season opener. He played in their second game, proclaiming himself good to go in time to be on the court in his hometown of Cleveland among family and friends. Still, he wasn’t right and it didn’t help matters when he tweaked it. That caused him to miss the next four games so he could heal, and once he returned he only cracked the 20-point plateau four times in 13 games. He posted single digits twice during that stretch.
Around Thanksgiving, he began to slowly heat up and appeared to be snapping out of his funk. Just as that happened, he was placed in health and safety protocols Dec. 4, forcing him to miss four games despite feeling relatively asymptomatic.
In the week since he’s been back, and the four games leading into their date with Utah, he hadn’t completely knocked off the rust. He averaged 9.5 points, making 34% of his shots, and scored single digits in two of those games.
Ever prideful, he wouldn’t change a thing.
“It’s been lovely,” Rozier said. “You’ve got to love it all. You’ve got to love the good things, you’ve got to love the bad things. It’s part of it. I know how I work. I know I will turn things around. As long as my coaches and my teammates keep believing in me that’s all that matters. I don’t care about what else anybody has got to say. But I know I’m going to turn things around as long as my teammates got me.”
They do. Rozier is beloved by them all. He’s a leader and big brother wrapped up into one. The staff still draws up the same plays that he flourished in last season. The execution has been sporadic.
“We just want him to be assertive,” Hornets coach James Borrego said. “He comes out there, he’s a weapon for us. We need the same mentality he played with tonight. We trust him. We believe in him. It’s turning for Terry. Terry’s had an up and down year. The injury, he had a setback with it. He’s got the COVID issue. He’s had a rough start here as far as the circumstances with the injury and virus. But Terry is going to be fine. He’s a professional. He’s confident. The shot’s going to come around, so he knows we believe in him.”
Looking closely at Rozier when he’s on the floor, he’s not attacking with the same vigor and conviction. He appears to be passive far more often than normal, perhaps a direct result of his off shooting or him still trying to find his scoring moments on a team loaded with five players who’ve poured in 30 or more points for the Hornets this season.
“To be honest, I feel like I’m really too much in between when I really need to just play my game,” Rozier said. “Like if I’m coming up the court and smiling, having fun with it, that’s when I’m at my best. But like I said, my teammates and my coaches never (have) doubt in me. So it’s going to happen. It’s going to happen. And I need to stop being in between and just go out there and hoop like I’m at the park.”
Which means possibly seeing “Scary Terry” mode activated earlier. His first-quarter production hasn’t been overly consistent and neither has anyone else’s. The Hornets have to correct the issue and maybe Rozier getting warmed up sooner would assist in alleviating their woes.
“That could be a part of it,” Rozier said. “But you can look at a lot of areas. But what we’ve definitely got to do is turn it around. Whatever we do, we’ve got to figure it out. Whether it’s missing, making shots, getting back on defense, we’ve just got to figure it out. We’ve got to let our playmakers be our playmakers and we are going to be fine.”
