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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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The news that Jeff Bower is done as the Hornets GM may just be exactly what somes fans have been hoping for, but that doesn't mean that his time in New Orleans was disastrous by any means. Many basketball minds feel that he's proven himself to be a capable GM.

More importantly though, he gave everything he had to the Hornets both as a GM and as a head coach, a position he was essentially thrust into after Byron Scott pulled up lame out of the starting gate in 2009. The results were solid, as he finished the season with a 37-44 record despite losing CP3 for 37 games.

For just one post let's ignore the bad stuff and focus on the positives. Seriously, this isn't a post to bash Bower. If you don't like him that's your right and I won't disagree with you, but do it elsewhere. The man deserves some credit and respect for the admirable job he did in the Hornets front office.

 

5. Drafting Darren Collison with the 21st pick in the 2009 NBA draft.

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Okafor gets a lot of flack from Hornets fans.  Billed as a replacement for Tyson Chandler, I believe most were hoping that he would step in and give us the same highlight-reel alley-oops that Chandler did.  When that didn't occur, and Okafor was frequently nowhere to be seen in the fourth quarter because of defensive issues, people really began to sour on him.

During the off-season Okafor's reputation has taken even more of a beating, as Bill Simmons listed him as one of the worst contracts in the league, all the rumors reported about Chris Paul being moved have involved Okafor with the implication that the only way to trade such a horrendous contract would be to send out some amazing talent with it.

All in all, it's not been a great six months for the Hornets' Center.

I do think, however, that there needs to be a sanity check about Okafor.  Okafor is a solid player.  He does a lot of things well, and the idea that he just needs to be dumped after only one very chaotic season is a bit inane.(Particularly when moving him now would be the epitome of selling low)

So, here are three popular Okafor myths and a stat-pack to knock em down.

1. Tyson Chandler was so much better than Okafor

First, let me state that yes, I know Chandler's a better defender.  I recognize that.  I still want to compare statistical apple to apples here: Tyson Chandler's first season as a Hornet to Emeka Okafor's first season as a Hornet.  To make the comparison even stronger, I've included Okafor's stats in one row, and then give you his stats had he played as many minutes as Tyson Chandler did:

Player	M/G	FG%	FT%	Stl/G	Blk/G	TO/G	PF/G	Reb/G	Ast/G	Pts/G
Chandler	34.6	0.62	0.53	0.51	1.8	1.73	3.3	12.4	0.9	9.5
Okafor	28.9	0.53	0.56	0.66	1.5	1.35	2.7	9	0.7	10.4
Okafor Normalized	34.6	0.53	0.56	0.79	1.8	1.62	3.2	10.8	0.80	12.5

As you can see, they really aren't that far apart.  Okafor scored a little more, albiet somewhat less efficiently, and Chandler rebounded a little more.  So the idea that Okafor was terrible is a bit disingenuous.

2. Chris Paul didn't make Okafor better

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It's contest time here at Hornets247.

Recently we've been talking blockbuster trades because, well, the Hornets aren't in the playoffs and it's fun to play casual fan for a while. Are those trades going to happen? Probably not, but even the remotest chance gives us the liberty to discuss them occasionally. Right now though, it's time to get back to serious business around here.

We have been informed that new owner Gary Chouest has developed a time machine/magic device. Now that he runs might be in some way involved in the organization's decision making, he's going to let them use it for one time and one time only in order to get Paul the best possible sidekick. One player might be the key the Hornets taking the next step in becoming a legitimate title team.

That's where you come in. Given the possibility of anyone from any time period, who/what would you bring in to be his sidekick and why?

This one is actually going to be split up into two different contests in itself. One for hilarious journal entry and one for best overall.

The Prizes

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Salary Cap Stuff

Don't get too excited, but it appears that the that the NBA salary cap and luxury tax lines are dropping less than expected. It's now being projected that the cap will fall from 57.7 million to 56.1 million. The 1.6 million dollar decrease is millions less than most front offices had anticipated.

The expected luxury tax hasn't been revealed, and likely won't be until the official salary cap is set. That said, I project it to be just over 68 million, given the historical correlation between the two. This years luxury tax line was set at 69.92 million.

As it stands right now the Hornets have ten players under contract for approximately 72.2 million dollars.

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