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With all the free agent signings going on around the league, Hornets fans feel a little left out. Considering the team went 37-45 last year and Chris Paul wants to win right away, the team needs to make big moves right away, right? Wrong.

People seem to be forgetting that the Hornets are going to be a pretty damn good team this year without doing much of anything this summer. Don't forget, after Byron Scott was fired the Hornets went 18-10 in the 28 games in which Chris Paul was healthy.

Let's briefly look what the problems were last year and what can be done to remedy them. Some of the problems just went away by themselves.

• Marcus Thornton and Darren Collison were stuck on the bench for much of the season. Given that the two of the team's top five players weren't seeing much time in favor of Devin Brown, one can assume that they actually would have been even better had the rookies been given more time to shine early in the seaseon. It wasn't until March that Thornton surpassed 30 minutes per game despite his excellent season. That won't be the case this year and for good reason.

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Alright, it's time to drop a full stat-pack on you.  Over the weekend I've been collecting various stats we can use to evaluate the value of the picks traded and the players and their production in college.  So let's get rolling.

The Draft Pick Swap

The Hornets traded the 11th pick and Mo Pete's Veteran Towel Waving skills for the 21st and 26th picks.  So, before we even get to the players selected with those picks, let's simply evaluate how the picks historically perform.  In other words, is 11 for 21 and 26 worth it? 

The following chart shows the historical results for each pick to obtain a class of player. I.E. the 11th pick gets you a 13% chance at a Star(A ranking), a 9% chance at a starter(B ranking), 22% at a solid rotation player(C), a 43% at bench filler(D), a 9% chance at crap(F), and a 4% chance your guy won't ever play for you.(N/A)  Then I follow with the peak from each pick, the bottom from each pick, and the salary a player taken at that pick would make.

So mathematically, the chance of getting ONE good player(an A or B) is now about 45%.  Compare that to the 22% from the 11th pick, and I'm good with the trade already.

Now we shouldn't get carried away.  The chance that both players will be good is only 5%, and to illustrate just how much of a crapshoot every draft is, I should point out that there is a 34% chance that both players will end up as a D, F or N/A, and be completely useless.  Yes, that's a one in three chance.  And yes, that sounds horrible, but we still must go a little further and note that if the Hornet's had kept the 11th pick, they'd have a 56% chance the one player they got would be useless.

To summarize, the trade essentially doubled the Hornets' chances at getting a good player, and almost doubled their chances that the draft won't be a complete waste.  So even if Mo-Pete's cadaver hadn't been included in the trade, this was a good move for the Hornets.  Now let's move on to the players actually selected:

The Selected Players

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The dust has settled a bit, and here's a roundup of some of the reactions to the Hornet's draft.

The ESPN guys seem to like what they accomplished:

Chad Ford

New Orleans was over the luxury-tax line and had a mandate to get under. Moving Peterson and the pick will save them nearly $7 million next season, plus the tax, enough to relieve the pressure to trade a player like Paul or Darren Collison.

With their two picks, the Hornets also did a good job. Brackins is a versatile forward who can score inside and outside. Pondexter is a big-time athlete who reminds me a little of Desmond Mason. Both could play important rotation roles for the Hornets next season.

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The Hornets draft day trade may have been about more than just shedding a few dollars. After the draft GM Jeff Bower gave a brief press conference to the media in which he hinted that the Hornets might be finagling themselves into position for a major free agent score.

"When the transaction does reach conclusion," Bower said referring to the deal that sent Morris Peterson and the 11 pick to OKC for the 21st and 26th pick, "the flexibility it provides does allow us to continue to look to add to our roster".

The draft day deal cut more than six million dollars from the 2010-2011 payroll, puts the Hornets below the luxury tax line for upcoming season for the time being, and nets them an extra young player to develop.

What exactly the team will do with the newfound flexibility is still a mystery. The Hornets are prohibited by the NBA from discussing specifics before July 8th. That's also the first day of freedom for a class which includes potential running partners for Chris Paul such as LeBron James, Chris Bosh, Amare Staudemire and Carlos Boozer.

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This night was a disaster for me.  First, the site went down under the blast of Draft Night traffic.  I'm deeply sorry about that.  We'll do our damnedest to make sure it doesn't happen again.  It didn't stop there, though, as my air conditioner stopped working after that . . .  

. . . and then, of course, there was the draft, one of the most hopeful and pleasant events of the NBA season.  It didn't take long for it to go south.

The Hornets turned the 11th pick of the draft into cap relief tonight, moving it to dump Morris Peterson and acquire two later picks.  That, in itself, wasn't bad - until the 1st pick was made.  I'm absolutely flummoxed by the Hornets drafting power forward Craig Brackins with the 21st pick.  I pulled up his advanced stats, and I have nothing but bad news for you.  Brackins was terrible last year.  At almost everything.  He was dead last in True Shooting %.  He was 2nd to last at offensive rebounding and in the bottom half at defensive rebounding.  He was a poor shot blocker, and a mediocre ballhawk.  The only good thing he can do is pass - with a top 10 assist rate combined with a bottom 5 turnover rate.  A power forward who can pass, but can't score or rebound?  He's not going to help.

They followed that selection with Quincy Pondexter at 26.  This saved the night a little because Pondexter was a decent pick.  He's a big, 6'7" wing player who could be pretty solid.  Offensively, he's primarily a slasher, posting the 7th best True Shooting Percentage in the draft of 62%.  A lot of that was acheived by driving or grabbing rebounds and getting fouled, as he had a very high free-throw rate, and a solid 82% finish rate from the stripe.  He was also a very solid rebounder, posting the 4th best offensive rebound rate among wing players in the draft.  Perhaps most intriguing is his potential as a defender.  When he was on the floor, his team's defense improved by 8 points.  In the end, he could be a quality contributor, working with Marcus Thornton as an offense/defense combination.

I don't have a lot else to say.  I'm a glass half-full kind of guy, and sure, the salary relief takes care of one big issue hanging over the Hornets this off-season.  Still, I have a hard time getting past the fact the Hornets could have grabbed a contributor tonight, and they most likely did not.