What’s Going on in Charlotte?
The Charlotte Hornets, left for dead following the devastating shoulder injury to Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, are quietly sitting at 7-6 with victories over quality teams like Chicago and Dallas. Despite losing MKG, the Hornets are simply not awful. In fact, they look pretty good. Nicolas Batum is casually averaging about 17 points a game in his first season as the go-to man in an offense, and the Jeremy Bros (Lamb and Lin) are anchoring a second unit that is 6th in the league in bench points. Moreover, the Hornets are shooting the 7th most threes per game, a drastic change in strategy over last year.
What’s Going On?:
To first look at what’s going on in Charlotte, let’s turn to the trusted offensive and defensive ratings [1. The Hornets have played 13 games. Hannes Becker’s recent analyst suggests the offensive rating should be relatively reliable about now. Also, for this chart, the numbers are coming from Basketball-Reference’s unadjusted calculations] for the Charlotte franchise when captained by Steve Clifford:
The Hornets have turned into an offensive juggernaut while their defense has remained steady. This, again, is despite the loss of Kidd-Gilchrist, who had a huge on/off impact of the team last year:
The numbers suggest Charlotte should be struggling offensively and absolutely tanking defensively with MKG out, yet this is not the case. Given this conundrum, I feel like it’s necessary to investigate why and how the Hornets are acting like playoff contenders.
Roster Turnover:
46.3% of the team’s minutes are going to players acquired this past offseason. Leading the pack is the previously mentioned Batum at 34.61 minutes a game. Lin, Lamb, Frank Kaminsky, and Spencer Hawes round out the battalion of reinforcements who have seen significant minutes for this year’s team. These players’ roles are two-fold; not only are they providing desperately needed shooting, but also they are taking the scoring load of incumbent Al Jefferson [2. The Charlotte Observer looked into this a bit just yesterday]. The following shows Jefferson’s MPG and TS% and Pts/36 from the past three seasons:
Having dealt with injuries the past two season, Jefferson lost weight this summer, which combined with the fewer minutes per game, should help keep him on the floor this year in an efficient role. Furthermore, presumed franchise player Kemba Walker is having his most efficient season of his career after shooting below 40% the past two seasons.
A look at the spike in 3 point shooting further exemplifies the importance of the new players. Of the 343 three point shots taken, 196 (57.1%) have come from the new players. These players are hitting on 38.7% of the shots compared to a 3pt percentage 34.0% for the roster holdovers [3. For the holdovers, Walker is currently shooting 37.2% and Marvin Williams is shooting 39.6%. These are significantly higher than their career averages, yet some of the hike could be associated with floor spacing. The cumulative holdover percentage is weighed down by PJ Hairston, who’s at 25% for his 32 attempts. Hornets fans need not worry for long though, for Hairston’s 3rd year option was not picked up.].
Offensive Change:
Beyond just three point shooting, Steve Clifford has changed up the offensive scheme. The following, courtesy of Ian Levy, shows the Hornets offense this year compared to last[4. Levy describes the chart as, “the further away from the center on each axis the more of that characteristic is present in their offense (or generically better in the case of shot selection). Pace is measured by average length of an offensive possession from inpredictable. Shot Selection is Seth’s XeFG%. Ball movement is average touch length from NBA.com. Player movement is offensive distance traveled divided by time of possessions (both per game) also from NBA.com.”]:
Clearly, the Hornets are playing far better offense. The improvement in shot selection, spurred by the 3 point shots, jumps the team from last place to the middle of the pack in the shot selection metric. Improved pace, player movement, and ball movement are also all indicative of a more active offense that no longer relies solely on Jefferson and Walker.
Digging a little deeper, SportVU statistics show the following:
Summarized, less reliance on pull ups, better catch and shoot shooting, and more effective passing helps lead to an improved offense.
Rebounding:
The last aspect I want to look at is rebounding, particularly defensively. Clifford is known for crashing the defensive glass and almost ignoring offensive rebounding. The loss of Kidd-Gilchrist and the reliance on more stretch 4s would suggest that defensive rebounding would suffer. However, the Hornets still have a DReb% of 80.6%, behind only Detroit at 80.8%. In fact, the Hornets’s rate is higher than it had been the previous two years. Limiting second chance opportunities helps a defense, which may explain why the Hornets have maintained such a similar defensive rating[5. Perhaps Batum has essentially replaced MKG as the athletic rebounding wing. Batum has a career DReb% of 14.4 while Kidd-Gilchrist sits at 13.1].
Conclusion:
13 games is quite a small sample size, so whatever conclusion presented here should be taken with a grain of salt for the time being. That said, the Hornet’s emphasized three point shooting this off season, and with it came much better ball movement. The additions have not only performed well themselves, but have had a positive effect on the likes of Kemba Walker, Al Jefferson, and Marvin Williams. Much like the Boston Celtics, the Hornets now have a deep roster of capable players, so the offense is not reliant on a starting 5 to carry the load offensively[6. That said, the starting combination of Walker, Hairston, Batum, Williams, and Jefferson has a wonderful +18.9 net rating on 116 minutes]. Whether this will hold will depend on regression of their three point shooting, particularly for Williams and Walker, and the continued performance of Lamb and Lin. Until then, enjoy the offensive show in Charlotte.