30 teams in 30 days: Charlotte Hornets offseason preview
By Jeff Siegel
Owner Michael Jordan and general manager Rich Cho better really like this Hornets team because they’re locked into it for the next few years. With seven players making more than $7 million for at least each of the next two seasons, head coach Steve Clifford will have to make the best of what he has since it’s going to be hard for the team to add significant talent any time soon.
The Hornets begin their summer with $114 million in salary already on their books. They can cut back to $102 million if they really wanted to, though they wouldn’t buy much additional flexibility by doing so.
The luxury tax is the most important concern for Charlotte this summer — they’ve never paid it under Jordan’s regime and aren’t going to want to cross that line for a team that will max out as the fourth or fifth seed in the Eastern Conference. They’re about $7.0 million from the tax going into the NBA Draft, but adding in $2.9 million for their 11th overall pick puts them dangerously close to that tax line. Ramon Sessions is their biggest movable piece; the team holds an option on his $6.3 million salary for next season. He’s a solid backup point guard but it’s possible they can do better with that money than bringing back Sessions for another year. Opting out of Sessions’ contract and adding a backup point guard with their full mid-level exception (starting at $8.4 million next season) might be a more prudent use of their very limited resources.
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A backup point guard — preferably one who can play both with Kemba Walker and run the offense when he’s off the floor — is the biggest need for the Hornets this summer, but the market isn’t ripe with players who fit that description. A point guard who can defend shooting guards and create for himself and others on the offensive end will command more than the $8.4 million Charlotte can offer.
Odds are the Hornets can pick up a point guard who can do one of those two things. An offense-focused player makes more sense for them given what Clifford and his staff have been able to do with this team on the defensive end of the floor. Clifford is a wonderful defensive coach and can engineer around just about any personnel. Hell, the Hornets played Al Jefferson at center for a few years and were still very solid defensively. A guy like that wouldn’t need the entire mid-level exception and the NBA allows teams to break up that exception between multiple players, so the Hornets could use part of their MLE on a backup point guard and still have some leftover to take a swing on an undervalued wing to add to their depth at that position.
The Hornets would also have their bi-annual exception ($3.3 million next season) to bring in that backup point guard if a better wing was willing to come to the Hornets for the full mid-level exception.
In the scenario above, the Hornets use their exceptions and end up slightly above the tax, but they would still have three non-guaranteed contracts to cut to get back under the tax threshold before the end of the season. Johnny O’Bryant and Briante Weber don’t become fully guaranteed until Aug. 1, and the decision on Treveon Graham isn’t due until the league-wide cut date in early Jan. 2018. Additionally, a player like Marco Belinelli or Jeremy Lamb might have some value on the trade market and the Hornets would have Nicolas Batum, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, the wing they sign with their MLE and both Belinelli and Lamb in their backcourt, perhaps one more than is necessary. If they could pick up a second-rounder for one of those guys, even though they sent out a first-rounder for Belinelli just last year, that move would also get them under the tax and give them a little more wiggle room to go after another minimum player to fill out the roster. They’ll have a roster crunch as well; the scenario above has them at 16 players, above the 15-man limit.
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The Hornets, like a few other teams around the league, are very much stuck with the team they have and will have to make the most of it for the next few years before their current set of contracts run out and they can rebuild. They’ll top out as a mid-tier playoff team in the East at their best, though it’s certainly possible they’ll find themselves on the outside looking in once again this season. Of course, all of that changes if they land a veritable superstar with their 11th overall pick this season, which is unlikely but certainly possible. Far more likely is that the Hornets play out the string on this group of guys before bottoming out for another crack at a superstar in the draft.