Charlotte Hornets: Blaming Rasheed Wallace

By John Woodcock | May 4, 2016

Feb 10, 2016; Auburn Hills, MI, USA; Former teammates (left to right) Ben Wallace and Rasheed Wallace and Tayshaun Prince and Richard Hamilton smile and look on during the second quarter in the game between the Detroit Pistons and the Denver Nuggets at The Palace of Auburn Hills. Nuggets win 103-92. Mandatory Credit: Raj Mehta-USA TODAY Sports /

The Charlotte Hornets’ off season power forward concerns have one source: Rasheed Wallace

It is Rasheed Wallace’s world and we are just living in it.

To understand this, let me take you back to the 2003-4 Detroit Pistons. This Larry Brown coached team had three perimeter guys skilled in defense and each a reasonable shooter. Down low was Ben Wallace, the best post defender in the NBA.

Out at power forward was Rasheed. While Rasheed had brought up as a conventional post at North Carolina, his skill set was more diverse than that. His ability has a shooter emerged toward the end of his career and opened a new problem for teams playing the Pistons. How do you cover somebody like that at the four spot?

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Fast forward to 2006. The Pistons won a title and came close to winning another. The reborn Charlotte Bobcats were trying to build a team on team ball and defense sort of like those Pistons teams. Going into the 2006 draft, Sheed’s role impressed me enough that I thought that the Bobcats should take LaMarcus Aldridge if they had they had the chance.

Aldridge represented something close to Sheed’s game. He went number two overall and the Bobcats were denied at the third pick in the draft. Yet I was missing the point, I liked Sheed because he was unusual. He was a big who could shoot. I was not in love with spacing the floor by having a shooter at that spot.

Fast forward to now. The Rasheed phenomena is now the status quo in the league. Teams want shooting at that four spot and are even willing to sacrifice size to get it. Where Sheed was relatively alone (Robert Horry comes to mind), teams now have Dirk Nowitzki, Kristaps Porzingis, Kevin Love, and at the extreme Draymond Green. LeBron James will sometimes shift to four and accomplish the same thing.

This development was accepted relatively early by Charlotte Hornets coach Steve Clifford. His time in Orlando saw the team use the Rashard Lewises and Hedo Turkoglus of the world instead of really power forwards that might get in the way of Dwight Howard.

Now this is the status quo. Teams like the Clippers with two traditional bigs are relatively rare while teams like Detroit, Golden State, Charlotte, Indiana, and others play with the shooting four. It is the reason the Hornets would like to bring back Marvin Williams. It is also the reason that other teams would be interested in Marvin.

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Wallace could have played in both worlds, but one would wonder what his career arc would have been if he had come along a decade later. The kinds of skills he would have been focused on would be a little different, but he still would have been an impactful and flexible guy.

He also is not in great quantity despite the demand for guys like him. In the upcoming NBA Draft, teams might hope that Ben Simmons becomes like him, but there are no clear cut comparisons. This is especially true for the Hornets at twenty-two.

That again shows the importance of bringing back Williams for two more years. The only guy the Hornets can reasonably replace Williams with is Frank Kaminsky. Can Kaminsky handle long minutes with defensive assignment on other flex fours?

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The Hornets will have to answer that question in order to move forward. Their conundrum of course, was all the work of Rasheed Wallace.

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