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Hornet Henry’s Mailbag
August 9, 2006
Hornet Henry, How do you see the Hornets’ starting lineup and playing time shaking out for this season? It seems like the starters are probably pretty much set, don’t you think? – Karen Thanks for the e-mail, Karen. From my vantage point, I would draw up the starting five as Chris Paul (point guard), Peja Stojakovic and Desmond Mason alternating the duties at shooting guard and small forward, David West (power forward) and Tyson Chandler (center). Off the bench are Bobby Jackson (backing up ROY 2006), Marc Jackson (backup to Chandler or West), Rasual Butler (comes in for Peja or DMase) and Hilton Armstrong (like Marc Jax, a backup to Chandler or West). Based purely on what I saw on NBA TV from my couch of Cedric Simmons in the summer league, I am not sure if Big Ced is going to be in the regular rotation right away, but he would potentially join West, Chandler, Marc Jackson and Armstrong as someone who’d get playing time at power forward. One minor but maybe underrated thing I really like about the depth chart is the situation at center, where Chandler and Marc Jackson should play a lot. While Ty Lob is a defensive-minded shot-blocker and plays close to the hoop, Jackson is skilled shooting 18- to 20-footers and is a solid offensive player. Having two completely different players at that spot should give Byron Scott more options based on what the Hornets need on a given night or late in the fourth quarter of a close game. – HH Hornet Henry, I’m not gonna lie, I think the Hornets have done a fantastic job this offseason filling in the gaps that may have caused them to fall short of a playoff berth last season. However, in acquiring these big men, do you feel that we may have neglected the guard position? I think everyone realizes that we have one of the best point guards in the league in Chris Paul and Bobby Jackson was a good pickup, but who else do we really have at this position? Desmond can certainly play the guard position but he isn’t necessarily considered a “true guard.” Other than that, we have Rasual Butler filling in as the fourth guard. Butler is a great player but putting him at guard is similar to a problem we had last year – having a forward (PJ Brown) play center. And then, what happens if one of these guys gets hurt? We don’t seem very deep in the backcourt any more, and I am not sure why we traded Kirk Snyder off for nothing. So I guess my question is: how do you think we are holding up at the guard position? It seems to me that we have had a huge reversal in our roster. While we were lacking at the post position last year, I am afraid we may be hurting near the end of the season at guard. – Terry Terry, gracias. You raise a lot of concerns about the backcourt, so let’s get right into it. 1) As far as signing a third-string point guard goes, the Hornets landed Jannero Pargo a few days after you e-mailed. In addition to having quite possibly the coolest name in the entire NBA (it’s Juh-NAIR-oh), I really like him as a third point guard because he can provide instant offense with his 3-point shooting (38 percent on treys in 2005-06). He’s definitely more of a shooter than a conventional point guard from back in my heyday, but there weren’t many guys available at this stage of the NBA offseason who bring his caliber of offensive skills to the floor. I think the Hornets did about as well as you could expect in this category. 2) Regarding your concern about Rasual Butler having difficulty playing at shooting guard, Hornet Henry must respectfully disagree. Butler mentioned when he re-signed that he thinks of himself as more of a natural shooting guard than a small forward. I see him as a big 2 (shooting guard), especially since his long-range perimeter game puts him more in the mold of that position than the 3 (small forward). Plus, I think shooting guard and small forward are much more interchangeable positions anyway than, for example, power forward and center. Or point guard and shooting guard, for that matter. 3) On the Kirk Snyder trade to Houston, Byron Scott pretty much explained that we had to choose between keeping Snyder or Rasual Butler. I think being two-deep at both guard spots is sufficient (Chris Paul/Bobby Jackson at the 1; Butler at the backup 2), plus we can’t forget how big the Hornets Gurus seem to be on second-round pick Marcus Vinicius. If the 6-foot-8 Vinicius turns out to be as legit as advertised (remember, he was a likely first-round pick before breaking a finger in draft workouts), the Hornet coaching staff might also have to find some playing time for him at the 2 and 3 positions. If you look at it that way, it does seem like Kirk might have been hard-pressed to play much. To be honest, I have to agree with Lord Byron’s decision of picking Butler over Snyder. While Kirk definitely shone at times last season and made Von Wafer’s life miserable on Super Bowl Eve, (Ra)Sual Bop was more reliable and appeared to improve throughout the season. Kirk seemed to regress after playing really well in January and February. And he really had a rough time in the Vegas Summer League right before he was dealt to the Rockets. – HH Hornet Henry, I couldn’t get to any games in person last season, but I’m a huge Hornets fan and watched almost all of the games on TV. And if the game wasn’t on TV, I listened to Sean Kelley and Gerry V on the radio. I’m curious: How do you think the team’s broadcasters did in dealing with the situation of the team having fans in two different cities? It seemed like it might have been a pretty sensitive issue to contend with, because people were watching to see if they were too supportive of one city or the other. – Kevin That’s actually a very interesting question, Kevin. I think first you have to put yourself in the shoes of the broadcasters themselves. It seemed like a pretty unenviable situation to me, because they simply had to address the fact that Oklahoma City provided such a positive welcome to the Hornets last season. At the same time, they had to remember all of the fans and what was left behind in New Orleans. They had to deal with a situation where if they said anything positive about one city, they risked upsetting some fans from the other city, and vice versa. What other team’s broadcasters have ever had to think about stuff like that? It’s one of those scenarios where you can’t even “grade” them, because what do you compare it with? On a lighter, unrelated note, Mrs. Hornet Henry’s longtime crush on Bob Licht seemed to reach a new level last season. I knew something was up after she started watching Hornets telecasts ONLY during the pregame and halftime shows – when Licht gets his most camera time! – HH Hornet Henry, I see you are enthusiastic about the changes the Hornets made on the team this summer, but I don’t agree with you completely that some of these moves are necessarily upgrades. PJ Brown is a lot better offensive player than Tyson Chandler, and I am also worried that Bobby Jackson is past his prime and might get injured too much to give the Hornets the kind of spark off the bench that Speedy Claxton did last season. – Vince Vince, thanks for the opinions. 1) There is really no denying that you are correct in saying PJ is more effective at the offensive end than Chandler, especially when it comes to making mid-range jump shots, but if you look at their career numbers, the statistical discrepancy isn’t nearly as big as I originally thought. This takes more complicated math than Hornet Henry is capable of, but someone smarter than me figured out that if you take Brown’s career averages of 9.4 points and 32.2 minutes (or roughly two-thirds of a 48-minute game) and Chandler’s career averages of 7.1 points and 24.4 minutes (about half of a 48-minute game), both players compute to approximately 14 points per 48 minutes played. I loved PJ to the point where I considered naming my youngest children after him – an idea that was quickly vetoed by Mrs. Hornet Henry – but even I have to concede that he never was a “great” offensive player. In addition to being 13 years younger, Chandler is a more gifted athlete and a better shot-blocker. The one caveat I have to throw in about Ty Lob, though, is that he must bounce back strong from being a disappointment last season. He was basically a non-factor in the playoffs and almost out of the Bulls’ rotation vs. the Heat. At the same time, he said recently that he never has played with a pass-first point guard like Chris Paul in his pro career. I think we should wait to see what kind of impact CP3 has on Ty’s output and go from there. Also keep in mind that the Hornets’ need for scoring from the center position declined significantly when Peja Stojakovic was signed. From a chemistry standpoint, to me it makes a lot of sense to not have an entire starting lineup of guys who need to get a certain amount of shots for them to make an impact. Tyson won’t need to put up big stats on offense for me to be content with his play. 2) On your comparison between Speedy and Bobby Jackson, I will grudgingly concede that most “objective” analysts believe the jury is out on whether it’s an upgrade or not. Obviously if Bobby misses a big chunk of games due to injury, the value of his acquisition to the Hornets will decrease substantially. But if you really examine it, like Bobby, Speedy has had his share of injury issues. If you look at his career, the 71 games Speedy played for the Hornets last season were the most for him over his five years in the league. The previous three seasons, he played in only 30, 60 and 62 games, respectively. He also missed the duration of what would have been his first NBA season due to a knee injury. While I agree that Bulldog Bobby’s injury history is a concern, Speedy has been sidelined somewhat frequently with injuries, too. If Bobby can stay healthy, he is a better outside shooter and has much more range than Speedy (36.4 percent on 3-pointers in his NBA career vs. Claxton’s 18.9 percent). B Jax is also regarded as a tougher defender than Speedy, meaning the Hornets will be a little better off when the 6-foot CP3 and the 6-1 Bobby play together on D. On the negative side of the ledger, Bobby is 33 years old and Speedy is 28; guards tend to lose some of their effectiveness when they reach their mid-30s, partly due to declining quickness. We’ll see how it plays out, but I am optimistic that Bobby will give the Hornets help in several areas. He may not be as big an offensive force as Speedy was stat-wise, but I don’t think Speedy would have gotten as many shots next season with Peja on board now anyway, so that may not be a fair comparison. – HH Hornet Henry, Since you seem to fancy yourself as such a big Hornets fan, answer these questions for me. Why is Tyson Chandler going to wear No. 6 for the Hornets? Why did Bobby Jackson pick No. 8? I’m pretty sure he’s worn No. 24 for his entire NBA career. – Barry Good questions, Barry. At first I thought Ty Lob decided to sport No. 6 because maybe he is a big Julius Erving fan, but then I realized that Young Tyson is probably not even old enough to have seen Dr. J play. It turns out that Tyson would have taken No. 3, except that is obviously already reserved for Chris Paul. Chandler said he went with 6 because he wants to be “twice the player he was in Chicago.” In Bulldog Bobby’s case, Desmond Mason already had the Hornets’ No. 24 jersey so Bobby had to go with a different number. He said by multiplying two and four he came up with eight. You are correct: Bobby has always worn No. 24 in the NBA... at least until now. – HH Hornet Henry, This isn’t really a Hornets question, but I was watching the USA Basketball team play the other night and I really liked how Chris Paul was setting up his teammates for baskets. I think they look like they’re going to be tough to beat, but why did the U.S. pick players like (Bruce) Bowen and Shane Battier for the team? Was some of who they picked political? Do you really think these guys are good enough to be on the squad? They’re only average players in my book. – Matt Well Matt, I think the two guys you mentioned are on the team because they are great individual defenders and also can make open 3-pointers. Sure, they may not be considered “great” players or stars, but the previous USA Basketball philosophy of throwing together a bunch of stars didn’t work. There was a complete change of philosophy, where now they’re trying to get players who fit together instead of people who duplicate each other’s talents and strengths. I think the team’s emphatic desire to bring in Chris Paul was also a sign of attempting to improve teamwork. They could have gone after a lot of other point guards who may have more scoring prowess and are more established in the NBA, but CP3 doesn’t need to shoot to help the team, which is exactly what the American squad needed from that position. We already had all-planet scorers like LeBron, Carmelo and Dwyane Wade on board. – HH (If you have a question or comment for Hornet Henry, send an e-mail to hornethenry@hornets.com. Please be sure to include your first name)
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