2015-16 NBA Preview: Charlotte Hornets

CHARLOTTE HORNETS

Charlotte has had little success in franchise history, which lends a reason to some of their rushed “win-now” moves. The problem is that without patience you’ll build a team that peaks at mediocre. Al Jefferson, for instance, isn’t the type of blockbuster summer move that vaults a team into contender status, and if he’s a team’s primary scorer there’s a low ceiling on that team’s offense. Charlotte made a similar move, trading young talent for Nicolas Batum, who has one season remaining in his current contract and could very well escape in a year. Nevertheless, the team has amassed enough young talent for a rebirth, and when healthy they could find themselves in the upper-middle class of the eastern conference.

2015 in review:

A year after a surprising 2013/14 season, Charlotte regressed, dropping to 33 wins and missing the playoffs by a fair distance. They had a nightmare scenario with their summer moves, as Lance Stephenson had one of the worst shooting seasons ever and clashed so much with the team he was practically unusable. The team was above average on defense, but they needed to be elite – their offense in the Al Jefferson era has been dreadful for a team chasing the playoffs. They were first in defensive rebounding[3. They were actually first in NBA history in defensive rebound rate, which is aided by the downward trend in offensive rebounds year to year but still impressive.] and turnover rate, both Big Al influences, but they were weak in most other categories besides some aspects of shot defense. They were victims of expectations too, as Charlotte over-achieved in 2014 with a point differential that suggested 40 wins, not 43. A name change and a new floor design won’t transform the organization, but they might have a few of the young pieces to build a stronger team.

Rotation players in: Nic Batum, Jeremy Lin, Frank Kaminsky, Tyler Hansbrough, Spencer Hawes.

Rotation players out: Gerald Henderson, Lance Stephenson, Bismack Biyombo.

The prize player this summer was Batum in a surprising move that sent high lottery pick Noah Vonleh packing for the Pacific Northwest. It was a roundly criticized trade for Charlotte, but in the short-term the benefits are huge and they have the inside track on re-signing the versatile Frenchman. Their other moves were are all at least plausibly sensible. Jeremy Lin is still a talented point guard who does well with the ball in his hands. Tyler Hansbrough is a decent bench frontcourt player. Spencer Hawes had a poor season shooting the ball for the Clippers, but he’s young enough that he should rebound. Frank Kaminsky is a scary draft pick, and it’s the type of move that hampered the team for years: target a big name college player without considering how well he’d do against NBA competition. Gerald Henderson was an okay guard, but he’s not a big loss, while Bismack Biyombo was potentially great on defense but had severe issues on offense, which doesn’t match well with the team. Lastly, the biggest addition besides Batum was simply the loss of Stephenson, who’s set to befuddle teammates and coaches in Los Angeles.

2016 Projected

The Hornets were set on a wing duo of Batum and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist that could have worked well together. MKG emerged as one of the best defenders at small forward and Charlotte played excellent defense when he was on the court, but his jump shot is still a work in progress. Enter Batum: one of the better three-point volume shooters in the league Last season was an aberration, not an indication of things to come. He’s still young and his percentages rebounded after the all-star break, and the possible recovery of wrist injury which hampered his early season stroke, so in some respects it was a smart “buy low” move from Charlotte. He’s also flexible enough on defense that he can cover shooting guards, and all guards in general, with ease, which is something he did in Portland. In fact, using some objective information and statistical clustering, I found that Batum was definitely guard-like in his defensive duties.

Unfortunately, Kidd-Gilchrist is out several months with an injury, and many critics are taking this as a sign that Charlotte will have another season like the previous one. But there are a few reasons why hope remains. First of all, Batum is still a major short-term upgrade, and as a versatile player he can fix multiple issues. He’s a capable ballhandler on a team with few players who have the same skills, and they lacked potent outside shooting – which should help Al Jefferson in the middle.  Per research shown on HP Basketball’s grand preview, Batum’s one-year drop in 3PT% is nothing to worry about, especially considering his age and how he recovered after the all-star break. He’s going to retain his shooting value, and he should add a much needed scoring punch to a team that lacks efficient scoring. Charlotte had the worst effective field-goal percentage since 2005, with the exception of a lockout year, which was another Charlotte team.

There’s also a rebound effect for a team coming off a disappointing season. Charlotte probably overachieved in 2014, but they may not be as bad as they were last season – so the likely “real” strength of the team probably lies somewhere in between. This extends to a couple of their new players too, like Batum and Hawes. Thus, they should be slightly better, all other things being equal.

With a stash of young players, there’s a lot of natural internal improvement to be expected too. Cody Zeller, for instance, just turned 23 years-old. Sadly, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist was probably going to make the most improvement before his injury. But at least they won’t have another awful Lance Stephenson season – Jeremy Lin should provide some good backup guard minutes without having one of the worst scoring seasons in the history of the league. The team was famously much better with Michael-Kidd Gilchrist on the court, by the way, but people are way too trusting of raw plus/minus. It’s a notoriously fluky stat and it’s adjusted for absolutely nothing, like strength of schedule or teammates involved. And it helps that he was gone for a large part of the season Stephenson was in the rotation. If you want to make adjustments for those on/off stats, you basically create something like RAPM, which adjusts for the other nine players on the court, home games, small sample sizes, etc. When you look at those stats, Kidd-Gilchrist is certainly a good defender, but the team won’t fall apart without him – that’s a rational answer.

While the Hornets should be better than many think, they have a core issue that has to be resolved: the team is built around Kemba Walker and Jefferson, which ensures the team will have a poor offense. Jefferson is entrenched now, and people will fight for him out of some nostalgia of a fictional past inhabited solely by low-post scorers. Charlotte’s ineptness when shooting the ball shouldn’t be ignored either, as they were the first team to rank last in 3PT% and percentage at the rim since shooting locations were first tracked in 1997. Their shooters are their major issue right now.

The team should give up on Kemba Walker soon. He was recently compared to Dion Waiters where it was surmised Dion was less respected because of miscellaneous factors like body language and a college pedigree, but I think the argument should be inverted: Kemba Walker is overrated and at some point we should make more of a big deal about a leading scorer with dreadful shooting percentages on one of the worst offenses in the league. This is a team trying to get to the playoffs; they shouldn’t be this bad.

Quick statistic/graph

One common thread among successful defenses is that they allow more midrange shots, particularly long two-pointers. Smart defenses understand that it’s better to push players off the three-point line and crowd the paint, coaxing more midrange jumpers. Charlotte, for instance, has done this to create a defense that punches above its weight because they understand how debilitating it is for an offense, but that’s how their own team operates on offense. Shot proportions are largely driven by the personnel, but one would think the coaching staff would have a realization about how their own team functions like an ideal one for opposing defenses.

Summary

The Hornets have had a setback with Michael-Kidd Gilchrist’s injury, but Batum is a greater addition than his loss. The team mimics Al Jefferson on offense with absurdly low shooting percentages and turnover rates for an overall effect that’s still below average. They’re still a team with a realistic shot at the playoffs, however, partly due to the conference’s own failings but also for Charlotte’s overachieving defense and their improved offense. Rebuilding without removing the team from the playoff race is tough work, and they’ll probably be better off dumping Al Jefferson and Kemba Walker, and maybe another piece, but for now they’re comfortable on the treadmill for mediocrity and when MKG is healthy they could rise to the top of the east’s middle class.

PBP-Metric[1. This is the initial version of my own metric, which uses a full range of stats collected from play-by-play logs and tested extensively to avoid overfitting.]: 40.6

PT-PM: 42* (before MKG’s injury)

Nick‘s[2. For a short description, the predictions use regression models and neural networks to apply various stats like BPM, RAPM, and Win Shares to 10,000 simulations of the season game-by-game to select the “best” result.]: 26

Nathan Walker: 38