NBA Season Preview: Charlotte Hornets hovering just above medicority

There’s a hornet metaphor begging to be used here — something about them appearing to float the in air rather than fly — but, sadly, the entomological resources to back this up simply don’t exist. But where insect-related science fails, there’s still a basketball season waiting to begin and the sad reality that the Charlotte Hornets (the team, not the wasp) may still fall short of achieving great success.

Optimism runs rampant among all 30 NBA teams at this point; still weeks away from meaningful games being played, every team is equidistant from winning a title. Hornets fans are especially encouraged by the team’s activity this summer. They re-signed Nicolas Batum and Marvin Williams, both versatile scorers and defenders. Michael Kidd-Gilchrist is healthy, and his athletic potential remains as tantalizing as ever. Marco Belinelli and Ramon Sessions were added as well, bringing a scorer’s mentality and veteran presence to the bench. In a vacuum, these moves are reassuring.

But there’s also the loss of Jeremy Lin (now with Brooklyn), Courtney Lee (New York) and Al Jefferson (Indiana) to contend with. This trio was definitely flawed, but they were also productive enough to help Charlotte secure a playoff berth last season, as well as the third-best record in the Eastern Conference quagmire. And this dichotomy is at the root of the Hornets’ problem.

This season won’t result in a title in the Queen City but will serve as another shining example of head coach Steve Clifford’s undervalued mastery. Now in his fourth season with the team, he continues to draw the most blood from this haphazardly-assembled stone of a roster. In 2013, he inherited a team that had won just 21 games the previous year and more than doubled that total. When injuries derailed the next season, he helped maintain the team’s defensive identity but recognized a lack of perimeter shooting; that led to a revamped unit in 2015 that finished with the seventh-best three-point percentage (36.2 percent) in the NBA.

So what happens now that the team has added enough players to its existing core to retain continuity? The answer is that it still probably falls well short of displacing more talented teams in Boston, Cleveland and Toronto.

It’s become an annoying trope for the Charlotte faithful but the 2015 NBA Draft still remains a pivotal fork in the road in the team’s quest for success. Much as they tire of hearing it, Hornets owner Michael Jordan’s refusal to accept Celtics general manager Danny Ainge’s offer of multiple future picks for the ninth selection in 2015 capped the team’s chances of championship success. This isn’t a condemnation of the player that Charlotte did select — Frank Kaminsky — who is, in fact, a solid overall player that should have a long, if unspectacular, career. Rather, it was Jordan’s stubbornness that limited the team’s options to turn one draft pick into several or, perhaps, the necessary complement to a trade that might have netted the team a star.

Instead, the team remains just competitive enough to be good but not great. The Hornets find themselves capable of winning the league’s Southeast Division, a dubious honor that means next to nothing. Charlotte’s competition in that group — Atlanta, Miami, Orlando and Washington — have all undergone their own changes this past offseason, some more severe than others. In truth, this is an unspectacular group that is part of even larger melange of boring that hovers well below the Conference’s (and the league’s) true elite teams.

Things aren’t actually that bad in Charlotte. There’s a definite core in place, one that can be potent offensively and versatile defensively, further aided by Clifford’s indisputable ability to simultaneously remain pliant yet durable. He’ll continue getting the most out of Kemba Walker, who remains just out of reach of his first All-Star selection. Cody Zeller isn’t dominant but won’t hurt the team, either; he’s the seven-foot embodiment of staying-in-your-lane. Roy Hibbert might regain his form as a solid rim protector and Spencer Hawes is likely to hit the occasional outside shot. The team’s 1-3 start to the preseason doesn’t exactly scream excellence, but you can expect that the team will continue to fuse as the year progresses and that Clifford will find a way to blend new and old pieces together seamlessly.

What this team ultimately fuses into — a talented but limited also-ran — still falls on Jordan, and not without a healthy dose of irony. His career was dominated by winning at the highest level and his legacy if forever defined (and loudly maintained by his legion of acolytes that shoot down any modern comparison) by his six championships. Taken a step further, how many players and teams were denied the ultimate goal of titular success by Jordan and his teammates?

As an executive, however, Jordan has always been found wanting. His choices have ranged from the outright disastrous to uncomprehendingly bland. A player that was better and more dazzling than the rest has elected the safe comfort of uninspired decision-making. For a man with Jordan’s well-earned reputation as a gambler, his unwillingness to make the right bet has resulted in the Hornets waiting patiently while other teams keep winning the jackpot.

Perhaps this season, like much of Clifford’s tenure, will be the ultimate consolation prize for the team and its fans. After reaching the postseason just once in a nine-year span, flirting with success is still better than being left rejected and alone. But the realm of moral victory is a dull landscape and Jordan’s failures may have doomed the team to remain there for a long while. If the Hornets are indeed capable of flight, they seem content to simply remain stuck in place, hovering in the dense air of competence.