What should the Hornets be looking for in their next head coach? Here’s a checklist
Those reverberations emanating from Charlotte and bouncing around the NBA over the past few days are a modern day version of Morse code.
Shifting gears last week and dropping the hammer on James Borrego after four seasons at the helm as head coach signals something with the Charlotte Hornets. Except a translator isn’t necessarily needed to decipher the message the move sends to the masses.
The gist of it is this: The franchise is apparently going all-in to reach that next level.
In case anyone forgot, watching “The Last Dance” documentary should have provided a stern reminder that owner Michael Jordan isn’t into losing. And with the Hornets posting only three seasons with a winning record in the past 12 years, flaming out in consecutive play-in tournament appearances and unable to punch a ticket out in the eight-team actual field, he’s apparently dead set on correcting that.
Easily, that makes this the franchise’s most important offseason in years.
Given the extreme magnitude of getting this hire absolutely right, understanding the franchise could very easily be set back and the building blocks that were established erode, there are only two types of acceptable candidates for the Hornets. That’s either someone who played in the NBA and has that level of experience or a seasoned coach who possesses high-level playoff success and a championship-type pedigree.
That’s it. There’s no other alternative after severing ties with Borrego following a 43-win season and incremental improvement over the past three years. Putting the brakes on Borrego’s tenure is a clear indication that Jordan yearns for more and wants another voice at the end of the Hornets’ bench.
But landing the proper person isn’t going to be painless for several reasons.
Currently, Los Angeles and Sacramento are also searching for new head coaches after the respective firings of Frank Vogel and Shelby native Alvin Gentry. So the Hornets may not exactly have their first choice all to themselves.
Cutting Borrego loose 10 months after giving him a contract extension also means Jordan also has to pay Borrego the two years owed to him plus the salary of whomever he tabs as their coaching successor. It’s a pretty safe assumption that if the Hornets go with someone with a knowledgeable background, that person will command a decent salary and will likely have at least three years to try to work their magic for those reasons alone.
But within that span comes the possibility of LaMelo Ball hitting restricted free agency, making it imperative the Hornets also find someone the All-Star point guard can flourish under. A plodding, defensive-oriented scheme doesn’t play to his strengths. So the Hornets mine for a coach who will utilize some of the same uptempo concepts that propelled their offense to be among the best in the league all season.
In lining up all the candidates, there’s going to be a checklist and since the Hornets need to do whatever they can to ensure they do not make a misstep that could cost them in a variety of ways in the coming months and years, a methodical approach is a distinct probability.
That’s why they have to go out of their comfort zone to get their new voice. The last two coaches they tabbed to lead them were assistants, although Borrego did have a 30-game stint as an interim head coach in Orlando. If the Hornets are searching for something different than what Borrego brought, it suggests they won’t seek someone whose strength centers around player development.
But if they are planning on going the assistant coach route again to select their pool of candidates, ideally the search should focus on those who put a mark in most of the vital boxes. Among them should be Milwaukee’s Darvin Ham, ESPN analyst Mark Jackson and Philadelphia’s Sam Cassell.
Ham, some may recall, was in charge as the interim head coach during the Bucks’ two-game stint against the Hornets in January. Although he posted just a 1-3 mark while Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer was out due to health and safety protocols, it’s partially because the Hornets got the best of them in successive games in Charlotte.
Jackson, who coached Charlotte’s own Steph Curry at Golden State for three seasons, is reportedly on the Lakers’ radar. And according to The Sacramento Bee, he’s among the people the Kings will talk to about their vacancy.
Cassell, who has served as the lead assistant on Doc Rivers’ staff in Philadelphia, knows all about the point guard position and was also instrumental in developing Ben Simmons. He helped foster growth in John Wall during his coaching days in Washington prior to joining Rivers’ staff first in Los Angeles.
Going with former players as the ones holding the clipboard and devising game plans is becoming a trend. Just take a peek at the seven coaches hired in 2021. Three of them — Dallas’ Jason Kidd, New Orleans’ Willie Green and Portland’s Chauncey Billups — were players. Kidd and Green brought instant impact, engineering schemes that maximized their rosters and propelled them to playoff berths.
Kidd tapped into the same kind of early success he had in his first two head coaching stops in Brooklyn and Milwaukee and put the Mavericks in the Western Conference semifinals — even despite Luka Dončić missing the first three games of their series with Utah.
Green guided the Zion Williamson-less Pelicans to a pair of play-in tournament victories to springboard New Orleans into the Western Conference quarterfinals, and the Pelicans hung with Phoenix, the team boasting the league’s best record heading into the postseason, before succumbing in six games.
Surely, that has to be the Hornets’ inspiration. That’s the kind of road map they should follow now that they are attempting to vault the franchise out of the development stage. They need a decorated voice who can possibly pop in a video clip of himself on the floor in an NBA game, appealing to the players’ similarly shared experiences.
An unmistakably juicy atmosphere waffled throughout Spectrum Center for most of the season, bringing a different level of excitement to games that has been missing for years. The Hornets are on the cusp of a new era in which their star player’s jersey number is scattered throughout opposing arenas and he’s appearing as a pitchman in national commercials.
They can’t blow this or there may be long-term ramifications, taking years to reverse and regain the trust of a starved fan base desperate for sustained success.
This story was originally published May 1, 2022 at 6:10 AM.
