Charlotte Hornets: Trade Deadline Challenges Approaching
The trade deadline will cause a lot of hard thinking for the Charlotte Hornets as this season has started to unravel on them.
The Charlotte Hornets are at rest. Kemba Walker may be playing in the NBA All-Star Game, but the Hornets as a whole are not in the best of spots. They ended the run up to the All Star Break by losing a bucket of games with a win over Brooklyn spotted in there somewhere.
The team misses Cody Zeller. They traded their available assets to acquire Miles Plumlee, who still needs to be brought up to speed. They now sit eleventh in the Eastern Conference. The Miami Heat have now surpassed them in win loss record. Things look hard for the Hornets to turn this season around.
This makes the trade deadline so important. The team will either needs to make a move to energize their chances or they need to consider moves that would essentially mean giving up on the season to get some future flexibility. Given their lack of assets, the former could be hard.
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Let’s also realize that one Hornets target is essentially off the market. The Orlando Magic traded Serge Ibaka up to Toronto to finish out his contract. Ibaka was an upcoming free agent, but he will give a defensive boost to any team that has him. It does not take much to wonder if the Hornets could have been the one to pry him away.
The trade cycle has thrown some big names out there like Carmelo Anthony and Demarcus Cousins, but neither of those players is coming to Charlotte. A third team would have to get involved, and not every team sees those kinds of things to be to their advantage.
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The Hornets have now seen their nucleus play together for most of the season and should be in a place to evaluate if they have reached their ceiling with this group of players. Attention needs to be paid to Marvin Williams and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist especially. If one of that duo is holding the team back, then maybe it is time to consider moving them while they still have value.
Otherwise the team is just banging around the hedges. No single bench acquisition would do much to change the fate of the team unless a quality big man magically appeared. If the Hornets were closer then they could stomach a trade for someone like Lou Williams of the Lakers. However the Hornets need to figure out if their problems go deeper than just needing Cody back.