Hornets247.com

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.

Continue reading »

So LeBron James chose likely championships and comraderie over Cleveland.  I feel for Cavs fans, I really do.  I also identify with them, since that same situation could very well play out here in New Orleans over the next couple seasons.  Still, while I feel a vague sort of horrified comraderie with our bereaved friends in Cleveland, it won't stop me from picking at their once proud team's corpse.

I mean, let's face it.  Jamison and Mo Williams aren't going to take you to the promised land.  Minus Shaq and Ilgauskas, I doubt they'll even take you to the playoffs as your best two players.  That team was built around a single superstar talent, and without that engine, it's a fairly weak shell.

However, where else in the NBA can you find a team that has a single superstar looking for a talented cast to compiment him except in New Orleans?  Isn't it almost fitting that the Hornets try to pick up some of those pieces from Cleveland, while aiding that team in blowing up and starting over as soon as possible?

Now, of course, Cleveland may decide it doesn't want to start over, and try to futz something together.  However, I would love for the Hornets to make a move now.

Which, of course, leads me to one of the more entertaining things to do: Trade Speculation!

Continue reading »

The news was broken this afternoon by Adrian Wojnarowski at Yahoo! Sports:

The New Orleans Hornets have traded center Hilton Armstrong and cash to the Sacramento Kings in a salary-clearing move, league sources told Yahoo! Sports.

The deal removes Hilton’s $2.8 million salary from the Hornets’ payroll, leaving them only a little more than $500,000 over the luxury-tax threshold. The Kings will send the Hornets a future, conditional second-round pick.

Jimmy Smith of the Times-Picayune reports confirmation of the deal, also from a league source, so it seems it's as good as done. (Update: Hornets.com makes it official.) A few things running through my mind:

• Why did the Hornets do this? The big and obvious answer is money, as Wojnarowski stated. If the Hornets can now dump the contract of someone like Bobby Brown or Ike Diogu, they're under the $69.9 million luxury-tax threshold and won't have to pay the dollar-for-dollar penalty.
  
  
• Not only do the Hornets get that $2.8 million off the books immediately with this trade, but they also save themselves the $3.85 million qualifying offer Armstrong would have been owed next season. No other team would have offered Hilton more than that as a restricted free agent in the summer, so the Hornets would have been stuck with him. Update: As noted in the comments, this is incorrect. "If the Hornets didn't want Hilton on their roster next year, they simply need to NOT extend the Qualifying Offer to him next year. The QO applies only if a team wants to make a player coming off a rookie contract a Restricted Free Agent instead of an Unrestricted one. If Armstrong is not extended a QO, which is the team's right, he merely becomes a UFA."
  
  
• Armstrong had clearly fallen out of favor with head coach Jeff Bower, racking up eleven consecutive DNP-CD's despite being one of the few healthy bigs available with Sean Marks and Ike Diogu out injured.
  
  
• When Armstrong did play, he didn't play well. His averages this season: 2.8 points and 3.4 rebounds in just over 13 minutes per game. He's currently ranked as the fifth worst center in the entire NBA with a 7.75 PER (and look who's three spots above him). According to PER, Armstrong's best season was 2006-07, his rookie campaign, and even then he was worse than average.
  
  
• As we saw from the near-trade of Devin Brown a couple of weeks ago, the Hornets were desperate to shed salary. Thankfully that deal didn't work out, because today's trade of Armstrong works out better for them in almost every way possible. The only downside I can see is that Amrstrong was a big body who could step in and at least deliver six fouls per game if another of the Hornets bigs were to suffer an injury.
  

Overall, this trade doesn't make the Hornets any better or worse right now, but it saves George Shinn some money and avoids Bower having to resort to trading someone like David West to shed salary. Whether that's a good thing or just a delay of the inevitable is up for debate.

From the Twitter account of Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski:

The Hornets have agreed to trade Hilton Armstrong to the Kings, an Eastern Conference exec with knowledge of deal says.

More details will be posted here as we hear them.

12:10 p.m. UPDATE:

More from Wojnarowski on Twitter:

The Hornets have traded forward Hilton Armstrong and cash to Sacramento for a future conditional second rounder, sources tell Y! Sports...

Obviously, the move is a salary dump on Armstrong's $2.8 million salary. This gets Hornets within $500K of luxury tax threshold.

The Minnesota Timberwolves website had an press release up briefly stating they had just traded PG Jason Hart to the Hornets for Devin Brown.  Hart has played in only one game for the Wolves this season, and played only 29 last year for the Nuggets and Clippers.

The two players have the same salary, so the only reason this trade makes sense is if it's part of something else the Hornets are trying to get done - or if Jason Hart has an unguaranteed contract that can be voided, allowing the Hornets to get closer to the Luxury Tax line.  I'd probably suspect the latter.(Update: Jason Hart's contract is non-guaranteed, allowing the Hornets to cut him and get $1 million closer to the Luxury Tax Line, leaving the Hornets 3-4 million to go - otherwise known as the salary of Hilton Armstrong.)

Devin has been playing alright, but this doesn't upset me.  He has no business as a starting shooting guard in the league.  Of course, that leaves the Hornets with an interesting situation if it goes through.  Who does start at shooting guard?

Marcus Thornton?(please?)  Peja Stojakovic with Posey or Wright at the 3?  Collison and Paul as the starting backcourt?  *gulp* Bobby Brown?

Hat tip to Ball Don't Lie for the news.  We'll keep you posted on what happens next.

Update from Jerry Zgoda of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune's twitter account:

Kahn says Hart-Brown deal is neither snagged or dead, says more than 1 way to do it, other teams involved.

Update II: Jimmy Smith of the Times-Picayune

Though a report on Yahoo.com indicated the New Orleans Hornets had traded guard Devin Brown to the Minnesota Timberwolves, a source close to the Hornets said Tuesday afternoon no deal had been made or would be . . .

. . [Brown] attended the Hornets' shoot-around Tuesday here at the Toyota Center and is expected to play against the Houston Rockets tonight.

Update III:  Jason Hart was traded to Phoenix today for an expiring player, cash, and a 2010 draft pick. The Hornets had only offered the first two, and clearly were not willing to up the ante.