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Two months into the season the media and basketball junkies worldwide are going to be talking about the New Orleans Hornets and Chris Paul as if they just crawled out of the swamp to become one of the better teams in the Western Conference. When that happens remember this post.

You see, the memory of NBA fans can be compared to a stoned elephant, or perhaps a goldfish swimming in Everclear. As soon as something new and flashy comes along or an completely fluke injury occurs to a star player they do a 180 on their stance, sometimes completely contradicting their previous sentiment.

Think about it for a second- Two years ago the Hornets were considered dark horse title contenders. ESPN experts had them as the second most likely team to win the NBA title. They weren't unrealistic though, and had the foresight to essentially predict what would wind up happening.

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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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For a while now I've stated Chris Paul has a positive effect on his three point shooters. Today we will find out how much water that claim holds by taking a look at the three point shooters that have surrounded him, and their success before, and if they've been dealt, after.

This chart shows the three point percentages of the Hornets top deep ball threats for the 06-07, 07-08, and 08-09 seasons. During that time, Paul played 71% of total minutes. I'll be comparing their percentages to how they fared when Paul is completely out of the picture.

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After many years of enduring mediocrity from Chris Paul's back court mates, Hornets fans can finally breathe easy. With Marcus Thornton's huge performances, non-stop hustle, big plays, and constant scoring, it's apparent he's quickly become a quality starting shooting guard in the NBA. More importantly, he's become The Hornets starting shooting guard.

Thornton is obviously better than the guys he's essentially replaced, but just how much? Let's just say that even the die hard Hornets fans will be surprised at how mediocre the shooting guards have been for the past few years, even compared to a rookie like Buckets. It wasn't until I compiled these stats that it truly set in how poorly guys like Pargo and Brown actually played.

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As many of you already know by now, the second-round draft pick the Hornets received from the Clippers in yesterday's trade is for 2016. Clippers.com also reports that the Hornets gave up Rasual Butler and an undisclosed amount of cash in the deal.

Diving into some reactions to the trade from around the web:

Tom Ziller, NBA Fanhouse:

This is precisely what New Orleans general manager Jeff Bower was not going to be able to do: drop salary in the tighest NBA climate in decades. But lo! the Hornets are actually on the precipice of slipping under the luxury tax threshold...

The Chandler-Okafor swap was major, and some feel it will hurt New Orleans. But even if it's a downgrade -- and I'm not convinced it was -- it's not big enough, combined with the loss of Butler, to destroy the Hornets' chances. And that's the key here: cutting salary while maintaining your talent base is difficult. Bower has done it.

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