The Charlotte Hornets should “Trust the Process”, Move on From Walker

Walker Should Walk Away From the Hornets

Following what has been a season of “will he or won’t he” with Charlotte Hornets point guard Kemba Walker, it is expected that the Hornets will walk away from contract negotiations with Walker following the reported details of what they offered the all-star.

According to multiple reports, the Hornets were offering significantly less than the five-year, $220 million super-max contract that Walker had qualified for. The Hornets proceeded to take his willingness to take less than that a little too seriously and offer him a five-year, $160 million contract.

While I was on the side that didn’t want to offer him the supermax, the max contract should’ve been offered to Walker, but the Hornets played their hand and expected Walker to take a heavy “Hometown Discount”.

Walker needs to find a team that needs to fit his skill set and one where he is not needed to be the primary offensive option or other players capable of making their own shot like in Dallas, Los Angeles or Boston.

This is Another Example of How The Hornets Failed Walker

To be honest, it is a miracle that the Hornets were able to keep Walker around for this long because everything they’ve done to keep him around has been a case of Rob Pelinka-ish mismanagement.

Walker resigned in Charlotte in 2014, and from that point, there has been a multitude of cases to prevent Kemba from staying in Charlotte. Let’s start with their draft pick in 2015, Frank Kaminsky.

Kaminsky was a really good player when he played for the Wisconsin Badgers, but has failed to live up to what he did in college since arriving in the NBA. As we broke down a few days ago, Kaminsky has only averaged more than 10 points during a season twice, and the other two seasons he couldn’t even average more than nine points per game.

Kaminsky never averaged more than five rebounds per game during his tenure in Charlotte and it was finally enough to allow the Hornets to presumably move on from the former Wisconsin big-man.

The next moment that was a detriment the Hornets’ chances to keep Walker was Nicolas Batum‘s contract in 2016. Don’t give me wrong, Batum had a good year in 2015-2016 when the team made it to the playoffs and had 48 wins that season, but one that wasn’t worthy of a five-year, $120 million offer from the Hornets from the following offseason, which was the largest in franchise history.

Since then, has been a contract that has aged like a strawberry due to Batum’s passiveness, and Dan Favale of Bleacher Report why that his contract went from okay to terrible.

"Batum has devolved into one of the NBA’s most passive players. Bismack Biyombo was the only member of the Hornets who closed 2018-19 with a lower usage rate. Think about that, but not for too long because your brain will start to hurt.Meanwhile, Batum’s 8.6 field-goal attempts per 36 minutes weren’t just a career worst. They were obnoxiously low. Among 103 players who logged more than 2,000 total minutes this season, only five attempted fewer shots on a per-minute basis."

Now as someone that you want as your number two scorer for the team, those are not the numbers that you want.

The final nail in the coffin was the Hornets’ unwillingness to spend beyond the luxury tax, and the Hornets have no one to blame but themselves for that situation.

The Hornets have a lot of bad contracts on the books, including Batum, Marvin Williams, Biyombo (who is owed $17 million), Cody Zeller and others. Now, those mostly aren’t on Mitch Kupchak, as he inherited most of that mess from former GM Rich Cho, But Kupchak did not do much to alleviate those issues.

Kupchak had to trade for Biyombo by trading Dwight Howard for Timofey Mozgov and then trading Mosgov to Orlando to get Biyombo. Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer broke down what happened at the prospect of the Hornets flirting with crossing the luxury tax threshold.

"The immediate value of those trades was reducing the Hornets payroll enough to sign free-agent Tony Parker without reaching the luxury-tax threshold. But it meant the Hornets would pay Biyombo for 2019-20, which is part of the reason they’d be flirting with the tax by re-signing Walker, likely to make more than $30 million next season wherever he signs.The NBA’s tax threshold for next season is projected at $132 million. While Walker has said he’s open to taking less than the full $221 million to remain in Charlotte, the team is likely to offer tens of millions less over tax concern."

All of which has set the Hornets to be a slightly above average team at its peak during Walker’s time with the Hornets. Since the 2011-12 season, Walker’s first with the team, the Hornets/Bobcats only had a 263-377 team record, with the team only reaching the playoffs twice and being bounced out in the first round. And during the last four seasons, with Walker leading the team in win shares, the team only had more than 40-wins in a season once.

The Hornets Need to Have a 76ers-like Rebuild and Move On from Walker

The Hornets have been one type of team during Walker’s tenure with the team: A team that wasn’t good enough to consistently make the playoffs, but one that isn’t bad enough to acquire talent players or assets to change that narrative.

Most teams, if they aren’t good enough to consistently make the postseason, often blow the whole thing up and start from the foundation up, and that’s exactly what the Hornets need to do.

As much as I hate tanking and how much Michael Jordan, the Hornets owner, would hate it, it seems the only way for the team to finally rebuild and get a superstar that can lead the team going forward.

This current draft lottery showed us that sometimes it’s not about how much you tank, it’s about when you tank. When the New Orleans Pelicans and Memphis Grizzlies began to tank shortly following when it was obvious that their teams weren’t good enough to make the playoffs, or in the Pelicans’ case when Anthony Davis said he wanted to be traded, and they ended up with the first and second overall picks, despite having worse odds than the Phoenix Suns, Cleveland Cavaliers, and the New York Knicks for the first overall pick.

The Hornets have pieces now that they can jettison for draft assets and build a team similarly to how the Hawks have put together a solid young core of players.

If the Hornets can scout right and pick players that have a solid track record to develop, much like Kemba did, It will be possible for the Hornets to effectively rebuild from the Walker-era and find the team’s next superstar. Hopefully, they will retain the lessons they learned from this saga and keep the next superstar around.