The Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs have had historic seasons, but the hottest team in the NBA at the moment is the Charlotte Hornets. Yes, you read that correctly. The Charlotte Hornets are the hottest team in the NBA. The artists formerly known as the Bobcats have won seven games in a row entering Monday night, all in impressive fashion. They have shot up the Eastern Conference standings like illegal fireworks and are just a game and a half out of the third seed in the conference. How has a team that couldn’t get out of their own way a year ago become one of the more dangerous clubs in the East? Well, to be succinct, they’ve finally found their identity. The Hornets are thriving as the NBA’s version of the Island of Misfit Toys.
For those too young to get the reference, the Island of Misfit Toys comes from a Christmas special that first aired in the 1960’s called “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer”. You’ve probably heard of the glowing nosed little fella, but are now getting increasingly confused as to how this has anything to do with a professional basketball team. The Island featured toys that were deemed unwanted by children. They either had a flaw or damning defect that ultimately would not allow a child to get Christmas joy from opening them on Christmas morning. There was a boat that couldn’t float, an airplane that couldn’t fly, a train with square wheels, among others. The Charlotte Hornets are those toys in an NBA sense. They are the players that were too short to do this or too tall to do that. They were flame-outs or ill fitting pieces in other locations. But under head coach Steve Clifford, they have all found a home and are part of something special brewing in the Queen City.
Everything the Hornets do begins and ends with Kemba Walker. A standout at the University of Connecticut, many believed Walker to be a “tweener”, one of the worst labels for an upcoming prospect, entering the league. He wasn’t adept enough to handle an NBA offense as a point guard, but at 6’1″ was also far too small to be a shooting guard. That label has hindered many coming into the NBA, especially those who weren’t saddled with such criticism on the college level. But instead of falling into the void of woe is me mediocrity, Walker has become one of the best at his position in the game.
Outside of an injury riddled season a year ago, Walker has improved statistically and in the all important “eye test”. He is one of the most clutch players in the Eastern Conference and is the Hornets’ go to guy in crunch time, every time. He is averaging a career high 21.4 points per game this year, including setting a franchise record with 52 against the Jazz in January. He is on pace for career bests in shooting percentage from everywhere on the floor this season. His assist numbers have The man too unskilled to run an offense has become the conductor of Charlotte’s orchestral four out attack.
Steve Clifford wanted to run such a system from his days in Orlando under Stan Van Gundy. Place a dominant big man in the middle and surround him with bombardiers at the three point line, ready to rain threes on the opposition who dare double down on the man inside. Up until this year, Clifford didn’t have an adequate cache of gunners for his system to work. He tried last year and it blew up in his face as the Hornets were the third worst offense in the league as well as one of its worst shooting sides. But this past summer he brought in some of the other league’s throwaways, and re-purposed some of his own, to give Walker some support on the arc.
Marvin Williams was a hype machine coming out of North Carolina. He won a National Championship in his lone season in Chapel Hill and was selected second overall by the Hawks in the 2005 NBA Draft. Williams was a fixture in the starting lineup during his tenure in Atlanta, but never reached the lofty heights that his hype proclaimed he would. He continued to plod along unceremoniously with Atlanta until he was eventually traded to Utah, to little fanfare. He would sign a two year deal in the summer of 2014 to return to his collegiate stomping grounds to try to rebuild his career. It seemed it would be another ill fit for the forward in Charlotte, but as it would pan out this year, nobody really fit on the 2014-15 Hornets. Instead of being jettisoned once again, Clifford gave Williams a challenge to turn himself into a capable shooter, something he’d never been as a professional.
Williams has already set a career high this year in three point attempts (299) and is shooting at the best clip of his life from distance (40.1%). Rather than looking uninterested and lethargic, as he had towards the twilight of his Hawks days as well as his time with the Jazz, Williams He is the only man to have started all 65 games for the Hornets this year and has manned two positions in the wake of the injury to Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. Oh, did I forget to mention that Charlotte has undergone this transformation this year with just seven games from their best defensive player? How thoughtless of me. But in some ways, Charlotte’s injury woes have been somewhat of a backdoor help instead of hindrance.
Kidd-Gilchrist’s torn labrum removed the Hornets’ best on the ball defender from their team’s equation, but it gave Steve Clifford some much needed roster fluidity. Being able to shuffle Williams, Nicolas Batum, and the recently acquired Courtney Lee around as the tempo of the game demands has been vital to the Hornets’ renaissance as a franchise. The trio has flanked Walker perfectly and throughout this recent run of form have been terrors on the wing, with the Hornets hitting double digit threes in every single game during their winning streak. Each has had their game to shine alongside the enigmatic Walker, but none have been irrelevant in the background either.
Speaking of background, it would be neglectful to forget about the man in the middle of Charlotte’s onslaught. Cody Zeller has become the fulcrum in which the offense pivots upon. After Al Jefferson was shelved for nearly two months, Clifford had to make a decision as to who would be the inside man of his offense. But instead of deploying Zeller as a Jefferson stand-in, he tweaked his system to fit the skills of the man he was inserting into the lineup.
Zeller had been a disappointment over his first two seasons after, like Williams, being a high pick in the draft. The then-Bobcats took the Indiana big man fourth overall in the forgettable 2013 NBA Draft and hoped he would help from day one. Instead of becoming a building block, he became trade bait, even more so when the Hornets spent a lottery pick this year on Frank Kaminsky. But when Jefferson suffered several lower body injuries in November and December, it was Zeller who was called upon to fill the void. And boy has he, instead of being a dump in, dish out guy like Jefferson was on the block, Zeller has become a pick and roll specialist with Walker. His passing, rebounding, and overall court awareness has improved because of it and the flow of Hornets’ games no longer plods along like it has in past years.
Jefferson has returned to a reserve role and Kaminsky is a bench guy as well. Spencer Hawes, a potential stop gap replacement for Zeller if they found a trade, is there with the second unit as well. Each provides something different than Zeller though, which allows Clifford more permutation options to adapt with mid-game. Jefferson has his injury concerns, but is still a huge target and certified scorer down low. Kaminsky was picked a bit above his proverbial weight in the draft, but his character built from his time at Wisconsin has allowed him to acclimate to the Hornets’ system pretty seamlessly. Hawes can still spread the floor with his shot, even if he doesn’t move as well as he used to. Though all three are used to starting they are perfect compliments off the bench with the rest of the misfit toys in Charlotte’s substitute squadron.
While the big men are the meat of the bench, a pair of Jeremy L’s are the stories for Steve Clifford and company. Lin and Lamb have had heaps of pressure thrown on their slight shoulders elsewhere, only for it to crumble them as players. Both have been reborn in Charlotte. Linsanity took over New York in the winter of 2012 putting the Harvard grad in the spotlight as the savior of a struggling Knicks team marred by countless lost players. He would parlay that short burst of success into a lucrative contract with the Rockets that quickly became an albatross. A year to forget with the Lakers left Lin looking to rehabilitate his image on a cost-effective two year deal in Charlotte. Jeremy Lamb’s pressure came on his exit from Houston rather than his arrival. That is what happens when you are the main chip going in the other direction for James Harden. Lamb never found his feet in Oklahoma City as he could never live up to the expectations of “replacing” Harden. His tenure came to an end after a trade to Charlotte for Luke Ridnour was completed shortly after the 2015 draft. He signed a three year extension shortly after the season started.
Lin has been terrific as the backup point guard and sporadic spot starter for the Hornets. Lamb has rediscovered his basketball enthusiasm in a reunion with former UCONN teammate Walker. They are the epitome of the 2015-16 Hornets. Players that nobody else wanted have all congregated in the Hornet’s Nest. With the cap expanding this summer too, there is a very good chance that Michael Jordan and GM Rich Cho will be able to keep the island intact as well as add some new members. Rudolph’s tale ended with a happy ending. While we still have a ways to go in this NBA season, Charlotte’s Island of Misfit Toys is well on their way to producing smiles at the end of their story as well.