Same old Hornets? Losers of 5 straight, this isn’t a rerun Charlotte wants to watch
The Charlotte Hornets suddenly can’t shoot straight.
Their five-game losing streak, which has considerably dampened the excitement surrounding the team, comes down to a rapid decline in the game’s most fundamental tenet — putting the ball into the basket.
If you were to pick one sound to describe the team’s last 10 days, it would be “clank.” The average Hornets’ possession involves a couple of passes, a somewhat open look from 3-point range and a ball caroming off the rim.
The Hornets enter Wednesday’s difficult home game against Chicago with the following 3-point percentages over the past five games: 23.5, 30.0, 32.6, 27.8 and, on Monday in a 116-101 loss to Toronto, 22.5.
Charlotte is a high-scoring team, still ranked No. 2 in the NBA in scoring and very much built around its flashy offense. But you wouldn’t know that lately.
The Hornets had a horrid 8-point third quarter against Miami on Saturday. Then they went 2 for 18 from 3-point range against Toronto in a 41-point first half Monday, disappointing another home crowd by digging another hole and never finding a ladder.
Bottom line: The Charlotte Hornets look very much like the old Charlotte Hornets again. And that’s not a compliment — not for a team that hasn’t won an NBA playoff series since 2002 and has piled up losing seasons like cordwood for most of the past two decades.
There are other problems, too. Rookie Jame Bouknight’s brief confrontation with coach James Borrego over the weekend certainly wasn’t a good sign (Bouknight developed a wrist issue and wasn’t available to play Monday). Big-man issues have plagued the Hornets ever since Al Jefferson got old, and that’s happening once again. Gordon Hayward took a nasty fall Monday night in the first quarter, spraining his ankle or worse. He didn’t return and may be out for a while. The Hornets’ defense, as always, is off and on.
But it would all look a little better if the Hornets could make some shots again. At times Monday, one Hornet would have an open 3, only to pass it to another player on the perimeter with a slightly less open 3, in a “you-miss-because-I-don’t-want-to” situation. They ended up 9 for 40 from deep.
“I can think of a couple where we probably turned down a few because maybe (a player) missed a couple and that’s just human nature,” Borrego said. “You start to doubt yourself. I don’t want these guys overthinking. That’s what I believe in: Let it fly. Let it fly. That’s your shot. Let it fly. Trust it.”
The Hornets don’t look much like they trust it, though. Charlotte (28-27) has dropped to ninth in the Eastern Conference standings and would be staring at another berth in the NBA play-in tournament if the season ended today. I agree with my colleague Rod Boone that ideally the Hornets would upgrade their center position before Thursday’s trade deadline, but that’s a tricky thing to do without mortgaging too much.
Even if they do pull off a trade, though, the Hornets won’t get any better if newly minted all-star LaMelo Ball is shooting 5-for-19 from the field and committing seven turnovers as he did Monday, or if Kelly Oubre Jr. is going 0 for 8 from 3-point range as he did.
Could everything be slipping away from the Hornets? Absolutely. A Wednesday night loss to Chicago, one of the best in the East, would push the Hornets back to .500.
From there, a losing record is in sight. And the Hornets know what that feels like, having had sub-.500 seasons the past five years in a row. A late-season collapse and a sixth straight season like that and it wouldn’t surprise me to see Borrego out of a job.
It’s not over yet, though. Somewhere inside the Hornets is still that team that scored a franchise-record 158 points in regulation only two weeks ago in a win over Indiana. They’ve still got massive potential. But if it doesn’t surface soon, fans are going to tune out, figuring that there’s no need to watch yet another Charlotte Hornets rerun.
This story was originally published February 8, 2022 at 11:57 AM.
