Bringing Back the Buzz: Zo & '92-93 Hornets

[studbucket]

As the Hornets near the midpoint of their season, things could barely be going better. Sitting at 32-8 and on top of the East, the Hornets are riding an 18 game winning streak and teams have barely been able to slow down the young frontcourt of Johnson, Mourning and Gill. The Cavs have kept pace, with 11 straight wins of their own, but Charlotte’s veterans are feeling confident.

“It’s been amazing. These guys, Zo, Gill, and Larry…these just run for days and create mismatches. I mean, man, I’ve been on awful teams my whole career. I didn’t know what to expect when I got traded. Some college hotshot comes in, blows up the bottom half of his roster, and I end up here as a 6^th man. It’s not what I expected, but it’s worked. Dell and I, we provide some calmness to the team. We keep things from getting too hyped up, but really, we just let the young guys do their thing.”

It hasn’t all been perfect. Kendall Gill got hurt again in game 39 against New Orleans, and he’ll miss 6-8 weeks with tendonitis in his right knee. With Gill out, look for Coach J to bring Sessions back into the starting lineup, play Johnson more at the 3, and give Olynyk, Gibson, and Aldrich more minutes at the 4 and 5. However, the Hornets have a great defensive small-ball team if they choose to bring in Roberson at the 3, which Coach J has been doing more of lately.

The next 2 weeks will be busy ones for the Hornets. They have 6 games in 12 days, 5 of which are on the road. The opponents aren’t especially tough, but the underperforming Thunder and overperforming Blazers could be interesting matchups. It’s also rumored that Joey Fletcher is looking forward to his 3^rd matchup against Coach J, wanting to make up for the mediocre performances he’s had so far.

League Moves

• It looks like the league will start making some moves, with the Nuggets trading Jameer Nelson to the Pistons for Joel Anthony.
• Tony Parker is still the biggest name and is out another 4-6 months.
• Ersan Ilyasova is the first player lost for season

Standings
Outside of the Hornets, there are no major surprises in the East…good surprises that is. Washington’s 7-win season is an atrocity and far worse than anyone could have reasonably expected.

In the West, there have been several shakeups:

• The Suns are playing great team basketball. No player is averaging over 18 points a game, but 6 players are averaging over 11 points per game. Led by starting PG Eric Bledsoe and 6^th man Brandon Knight, the Suns are 26-16 and 3^rd in the West.
• Portland is sitting 6^th in the West right now despite injuries to 3 of their top 8 players. Damian Lillard has taken his game to the next level and is a bona fide MVP candidate. He’s averaging a double-double (2^nd in the league in scoring) and 2.5 steals per game. He’s complemented by rejuvenated Mason Plumlee. We’ll see if they can keep it up.
• The Spurs may have 3 players in the frontcourt all-star voting, but they can’t get wins without Tony Parker. The Spurs are sitting in 9^th place and tied with the Timberwolves.
• Golden State may have suffered a rough loss to the Hornets, but that must have spurred them on, as they have 6 straight wins and are 7^th in the West. At 23-18, they are in much better position to overtake the Blazers, Grizzlies, or Thunder than they are to be overtaken by the Wolves or Spurs.

Charlotte Hornets
The team continues to get contributions from many players, but is also totally reliant on Mourning and Johnson for offense.

• Kendall Gill, Ramon Sessions, and Larry Johnson are all averaging 6.1 assists per game and starting point guard Avery Bradley only gets 3/1 apg. Creation comes from all over the floor which is part of what makes this Hornets offense so hard to stop. It doesn’t show up on the stat sheet, but Mourning has a lot of the passes before the assist as he throws beautiful outlet passes to Curry, Gill, and Johnson on the break, letting them pile up the stats.
• Avery Bradley is only shooting 24.8% from deep, which is barely better than Andre Roberson. Bradley was brought in for his shooting and needs to do better. Perhaps playing point guard has limited his shots, and if that’s the case this stretch with Gill injured should result in better shooting for Bradley.
• Larry Johnson and Mourning continue to fill up the advanced metrics sheet:
  • LJ is 4^th in PER, Mourning is 6^th.
  • The next best set of teammates are Durant and Westbrook at 1^st and 9^th.
  • Grandmama is 2^nd in the league in efficiency (behind Durant)
  • LJ is 5^th in the league in expected wins added (11.0) and Zo is 11^th (9.2)
• Mourning leads all rookies in scoring and blocks, is 2^nd in rebounds

League Awards
We’re less than a month from the All-Star game and we’re starting to see who the leading award candidates are. Larry Johnson has put himself on the map, having won a player of the month award and 3 player of the weeks, which is 2^nd only to LeBron’s 5 and tied with Durant and Lillard. LJ is also sitting 4^th in frontcourt voting for the Eastern Conference All-Stars. All of this has added to up LJ sitting 5^th in MVP voting. Can he get higher? He’ll probably need a few more triple-doubles to make that happen.

Mourning is also in the award conversations. He’s 9^th in Eastern Frontcourt All-Star voting, won rookie of the month for December and sits 3^rd in Rookie of the Year voting.

[studbucket]

We have another trade that went down. With Boogie hurt, the Kings are awful and dumping salary as they send Rudy Gay back to the Grizzlies. He presents an upgrade over Jeff Green, though he may not mesh as well.



I was also offered two trades that I turned down:




I'm not interested in 2nd round picks, I don't think Stephenson does anything for my team given its current makeup and while Isaiah Canaan may be a nice backup PG, I don't want to give up one of this year's draft picks, where I could get a better guard prospect.

[studbucket]

Larry Johnson wanted everyone to know he wasn't in a slump. Grandmama poured in 52 points as the Hornets ran away from the Knicks on a cold January night in Charlotte.

A few games prior, the Hornets had a strong team effort and beat the Thunder handily, but scoring was spread throughout the team and led by Zo's 20 point, 12 rebound, 7 block performance. LJ barely cracked double digits and just had an off night shooting. He came back 2 nights later to get 32 against a hapless Magic team, but all the talk was stil on the defense and Zo's 5 more blocks.

Johnson took shut everyone up with this game against the Knicks and was clearly the best player on the floor. He got very few of his points in garbage time, and racked up 15 in the first quarter on 5-6 shooting. On the night he shot 19-27, going 4-6 from three and 10-11 from the line.

Coming into the game, the Knicks were doing well. Sitting at 25-20 and 5th in the East they were looking strong and jelling as a team. Coach J's former protege, and rookie point guard, Joey Fletcher was coming off a triple-double against the Jazz (12 points, 14 rebounds, 10 assists). The Knicks had won the previous matchup in Charlotte as Carmelo ceded primary scoring duties to his teammates and they responded well in a 123-119 win.

It wouldn't go so smoothly for the Knicks this time. Fletcher got a double-double (11 points, 10 assists) and looked good when driving and kicking. However, he went 0-4 from three and his teammates were laying bricks. Afflalo and Carmelo led the Knicks with a combined 53 points, but it came on 20-49 shooting and with only 5 combined rebounds and assists.

After LJ set the tone for the game in the 1st quarter, the Knicks made it closer with their 2nd unit, but several key 3 pointers helped the Hornets pull ahead and stay ahead for good. In addition to 2 beautiful shots from LJ, Kelly Olynyk decided to launch a shot from just in front of the tipoff circle. He hit the shot nothing-but-net despite barely jumping and shooting from almost 40 feet out. The announcers almost fell out of their chairs with that shot.

Charlotte finished the first half up 14, and in additon to LJ's 25 and 6, Mourning had 16 and 6 at the half.

New York got it to within 10 on the Hornets backups in the 4th, but LJ came back in the game and Charlotte pulled away to end up winning by 21.

The win gives the Hornets 22 straight wins and they've managed to stay a game ahead of the Cavs. The young Charlotte team has been unstoppable, some nights on offense, some nights on defense. The balance is impressive, and they've done it while missing Kendall Gill for half of the season.

[trekfan]

That's some STRONG stuff from Larry Johnson. Got to love the way that man plays. Hornets tearing the league up, but the playoffs are a whole different beast ... not gonna proclaim them Gods yet, but they are getting close.

[studbucket]

Quote: Originally Posted by trekfan

That's some STRONG stuff from Larry Johnson. Got to love the way that man plays. Hornets tearing the league up, but the playoffs are a whole different beast ... not gonna proclaim them Gods yet, but they are getting close.

Yeah, I keep waiting for us to get a reality check. It seems like a lot of the league is struggling this year though and we've caught breaks. No Boogie when playing the Kings, no Bogut or Thompson when playing the Warriors both times, the Thunder are struggling, etc. I look forward to more games vs the Heat, Cavs, and Spurs though.

[studbucket]

This is the 2^nd in a series of posts about Coach J’s college coaching career. To see the first on his time at Eastern Illinois, go here.

Coming off some surprising success at minnow Eastern Illinois, the Boise State basketball program hired Coach J to help bring their basketball team out of the shadow of the football program.

This Boise State squad had not been successful, but Coach J liked what he saw. Maybe the bump from the OVC to a mid-major conference was coloring his vision, but he saw definite talent in this team. There wasn’t a ton of height on the team, but he inherited Senior leadership and some young shooters; that’s something he could work with.

Most exciting to Coach J was a 6’7” Junior shooting guard Paul Noonan. He was deadly from three and tall enough that he often got clean looks. Combining him with Sophomore Wallace Anrin, Coach J could see the beginnings of a dynamic offense.

2009-10 Season
Students could see Coach J’s impact right away as the Broncos played attractive, high-intensity, and high scoring basketball. Averaging nearly 80 points per game stealing the ball nearly 10 times a game, the Broncos went 28-5 in the regular season and won the WAC. Paul Noonan set a school with 292 field goals, but even more impressive, 166 of those were from deep (also a school record that stands to this day.) Outside of Noonan’s hot hand, Ike Okoye grabbed 8 rebounds a game and PG Anthony Thomas set school records in assists (310) and steals (108) that season.

Even though the Broncos bowed out in the 2^nd round of the dance, it was an unmitigated success for Coach J and the Broncos in his first year at the helm.

2010-11 Season
Expectations were high heading into Coach J’s second season and along with high expectations came more pressure on him and the Broncos players. Noonan, Anrin, and Okoye returned but would be joined in the starting lineup by 2 freshman: shooting PG James Ngounou and the barbarian down low, Adama Wheeler. With new freshman he brought, Coach J relegated last year’s starting center, Zach Moritz, down to 9^th man duty.

The new lineup worked like a charm. Boise picked up their 2^nd straight conference title, 4 more wins and 3 less losses on their way to the Sweet Sixteen. They weren’t powerhouses, but the national media had taken notice: this was a good Boise team. Paul Noonan’s senior numbers weren’t as gaudy as his junior numbers, but that was good for the team. The emergence of Wallace Anrin and adding better shooting at PG with Ngounou meant that Noonan didn’t have to bear the brunt of the shooting responsibility.

2011-12 Season
It was year 3, and the last year of the contract, for Coach J and the Broncos. All over the nation, people were wondering if this Boise team would show they were for real. Okoye and Noonan had moved on, with Noonan even getting some 10^th man minutes in the NBA as a corner three specialist. This was Wallace Anrin’s team and the slashing, sharpshooting, and high-flying Senior had been working hard all offseason to make sure that everyone knew it.

Joining him, Ngounou, and Wheeler in the starting 5 were sophomore 3 point specialist Alex Erickson and 6’11” Freshman from Portland, Kevin Marsh. This team looked a little worse on paper than the team last year, but Coach J was unfazed. “Losing Paul and Ike would hurt any team,” the coach mused. “But I’ve had 3 years to mold this team into the group I want it to be. I was blessed to have a guy like Anrin already on the roster, but you’re finally seeing a true Trees & Threes lineup now. Nobody in the WAC will want to bang with Adama and Marsh every game…and come on, which of the 3 shooters are you not gonna guard? This is gonna be a special year.”

The other coaches and media weren’t so sure, as rumors started to spread that Coach J might just have let his success go to his head. Everyone was about to find out they should have trusted Coach J.

Boise State had a fabulous regular season and finished the year at 34-3 and Wallace Anrin showed everyone that he wasn’t just going to be done as a Boise State senior, but that he would be playing at the next level. The undisputed highlight of his season was the game against Hawaii.

It was a snowy January day in Boise. Maybe the Hawaii players were feeling jetlagged, or maybe Anrin was feeling salty because Hawaii had Boise’s number throughout his career. Either way, he made it a day to remember. Anrin made 24 shots, 22 of which were 3 pointers and racked up 70 (SEVENTY!) points against the hapless rainbow warriors.

However, as Coach J predicted, it wasn’t just about Anrin. The Broncos made it to the Elite 8, marking their 3^rd straight year of improvement. As a team, they set several school records:

• 116 points scored against San Jose State
• 69.8% field goal percentage against Portland State
• 72% from three against Nevada
• 86.3 points per game scored
• Shot 56% from the field for the season
• Shot 45% from three for the season
• Had 401 team steals on the season

When the season wrapped up, everyone knew Coach J wouldn’t be back. Boise State made him an offer, but Coach J had much bigger names interested in him. Rumor was that he wanted the North Carolina or Iowa job, but neither Steve Alford or Roy Williams had stepped down at that point. However, Coach J was thrilled to take a job just 3 hours from his alma mater as he replaced Bo Ryan as the head man at the University of Wisconsin. It looked like an ideal opportunity for the young and rising coach. The Big 10 was down and Wisconsin had a couple of athletic twin towers waiting to be tutored by Coach J.

Boise State Broncos Single Season Player Records:

Boise State Broncos Single Game Player Records:

Boise State Broncos Single Season Team Records:

[studbucket]

Some more movement around the league.

The Hawks pick up some wing depth from the Nuggets.

With Tony Parker still out for another 4+ months, the Spurs needed to do something to get back into the playoff picture. They're hoping Collison can be that guy.

Also, here's a trade I veto'd. No way that Kevin Garnett would be on the table, given why the Wolves brought him in and the Wolves wouldn't give up a 1st.

[trekfan]

^Good veto, decent trades for all the other teams. Collison is quite underrated, glad that he found himself with such a good organization. Feel like the Kings sold low on him, but that's Sacramento for you.