It’s been quiet, although not for everyone.
Activity is ramping down following the early flurry of signings with the headliners already plucked off the NBA’s free agent landscape. Teams have reconstructed rosters or made tweaks, bringing in a new face here or there to add to their cores.
Then there’s the Charlotte Hornets.
Save for re-signing Cody Martin, who’s a key piece off the bench and the team’s best defender, the Hornets have been mere bystanders over these past few weeks. Part of it can be attributed to Miles Bridges’ murky situation after he was arrested and charged with felony domestic violence last month hours before the start of free agency.
Bridges is scheduled to face the charges in a Los Angeles courtroom on Wednesday, perhaps giving more clarity to his future. But there is also the possibility of the hearing getting pushed back.
Until there’s more certainty with Bridges, the Hornets are in a holding pattern of sorts. The $7.9 million qualifying offer they extended last month to make him a restricted free agent still remains in play.
So Bridges is technically still on the team’s salary cap sheet and even if they rescinded his rights, because they are operating as a team over the salary cap due to various cap holds, it wouldn’t open up any extra space to add another high-priced player.
The Hornets have a few options at their disposal if they want to make a move.
But even if they do, it likely won’t be anything of significance. Instead, unless they swing a trade, the new pieces will probably resemble more of an end-of-bench, veteran-role-player type.
In case it wasn’t crystal clear before, things should be even more obvious now: The Hornets are banking on their youth, hoping they can reach their goal of making the actual playoffs with essentially the same roster they trotted out in 2021-22.
Of the 14 players currently on the roster, only two were born prior to 1991. Mason Plumlee is the oldest of the duo at 32 years old, beating out Gordon Hayward for that title by 18 days. Translation: The Hornets are banking on youth taking them to the next level.
Players who weren’t major contributors a season ago stand to see valuable minutes unless there’s a major roster shakeup. Whether that’s James Bouknight, Kai Jones, JT Thor, Mark Williams or even Bryce McGowens, those that slide into the rotation at any point are going to be young and inexperienced.
That’s a problem, considering they’re hopeful of making a major leap under new coach Steve Clifford. They finished third in the Southeast Division this past season, and scouring the early returns of this offseason, topping that is going to be a difficult task.
How do the Hornets stack up against the rest of the division after the first major portion of the offseason’s conclusion? Let’s just say it’s not too favorable at the moment.
For comparison, a look at the notable transactions within the rest of the division:
ATLANTA
While Miami is the reigning division champs, Atlanta is the team the Hornets should model themselves after in the short term. The Hawks, who knocked the Hornets out of the play-in tournament in April, have made it to the postseason in successive years, including a run to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2021.
Hawks general manager Travis Schlenk has been busy over the past couple of weeks, making one of the biggest splashes in the offseason pool with his acquisition of Dejounte Murray from San Antonio. It cost Atlanta a haul to swing the trade, but pairing Murray with Trae Young gives the Hawks an extremely formidable one-two scoring punch.
Schlenk also landed Maurice Harkless and Justin Holiday via trade from Sacramento, and signed Aaron Holiday in free agency, providing the Hawks with depth. Drafting Duke product A.J. Griffin at No. 16 equips them with a young power forward to groom.
Atlanta obviously wasn’t pleased with the step back it took, getting bounced in the first round by Miami a year after its lengthy postseason trek. The Hawks have improved significantly.
MIAMI
Although Miami has yet to be active this offseason after advancing to the Eastern Conference Finals before bowing out to Boston in Game 7, the Heat has reportedly been linked as potential destinations for either Brooklyn’s Kevin Durant or Utah’s Donovan Mitchell.
Supposedly, Durant’s preferred place is Phoenix, but that is going to be hard to do after the Suns reportedly matched Indiana’s offer sheet for restricted free agent center Deandre Ayton. And Mitchell is already being associated with New York.
Still, one should never count the Heat out as long as team president Pat Riley is at the helm. He’s seems to always lurk, waiting to pounce on the ultimate prize at the right moment.
Miami’s biggest loss was seeing P.J. Tucker leave for Philadelphia in free agency. But the Heat did re-sign former Hornet Caleb Martin, the twin brother of Martin, to a three-year deal.
It feels like Miami has a trick up its sleeve.
ORLANDO
In the midst of a rebuilding stage, Orlando has infused itself with youth and is assembling some nice pieces. That includes the franchise’s most recent prize: Paolo Banchero.
The Duke product and No. 1 overall selection in last month’s draft left quite an early impression on spectators at the Las Vegas Summer League. Displaying length, court vision and an obvious knack for making the right play — as evidenced by his game-winning assist in the Magic’s sudden-death double overtime win over the Kings — Banchero is someone the Hornets are going to have to deal with as many as four times a year.
Orlando also re-signed Mo Bamba to a two-year, $21 million deal after the Magic didn’t extend a qualifying offer to him, allowing him to become an unrestricted free agent. Coming off his best season as a pro, Bamba reportedly garnered interest from other teams but returned to the Magic.
Remember, Orlando wasn’t a pushover this past season anyway and head coach Jamahl Mosley has the Magic scrapping on a nightly basis. The Hornets can attest to that thanks to that ugly 116-109 loss to the Magic at Spectrum Center in January. It’s one of the many stinging defeats the Hornets could nit-pick at the end of the season, pointing to it when the tiebreaking scenario didn’t go in their favor and dropped them into the 10th seed in the Eastern Conference.
FINAL ANALYSIS
After digesting all of that, it’s hard to draw a conclusion other than this: Unless the Hornets’ front office pulls off something short of a magic trick to improve the roster in a creative way, on paper they aren’t better than two-thirds of their division.
