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| New Orleans Hornets: What Happened? Posted by SoFresh Of course we all remember the great 07-08 season. CP3 and DWest are all stars, Tyson is a huge presence athletically on offense and defense, Treja Stoy-arc-a-swish with deadly 3s, and a high energy, productive bench. Fantastic team and peak of the franchise. 2 seed in the West and gets knocked out in game 7 of the western conference semi-finals by the defending champion Spurs.  on 3/15 at 1:34 pmSince then, 3 seasons have passed and we have the 3rd worst record in the league. Now I'm not saying our franchise is in a terrible position, but it is certainly in rebuilding mode which is definitely not where I expected us to be. Now with probably 2 lottery picks and one most likely in the top 5, a top 5 SG in Eric Gordon, young and promising coach, proven GM and a new owner coming in shortly, the future of the Hornets is definitely bright. BUT, how did we get here and why? Some significant events have happened since 2008, namely CP3 demanding a trade, poor signings, and draft picks not developing into what we thought they would be. I would certainly attribute the turn of the franchise to rebuilding mode because of CP3, but what made him unhappy here is simple. Jeff Bower. The Walrus. Our incredibly infamously terrible GM. Jeff Bower was GM of the New Orleans Hornets for five years before he was fired in 2010. Promoted in 2005 to GM, he was credited with drafting CP3 4th overall in the 2005 NBA draft. Then made good moves to turn the lowly franchise into a contender. He made good moves in his early years to build but with pressure building to keep the Hornets in contention, and eventually move over the proverbial championship hump, he made very questionable moves. Outside of CP3, Bower never really hit on any draft picks and got rid of the good ones before they had developed. Of course drafting Cedric Simmons, Hilton Armstrong, and Julian Wright aren't going to help his cause. But the picks that have turned into decent players in the NBA are no longer on the team such as Brandon Bass, JR Smith, Marcus Thornton, and Darren Collison. Brandon Bass was released, Marcus Thornton was traded for Carl Landry, and Darren Collison was dealt in a 3 team trade to acquire Trevor Ariza. JR Smith was dealt along with PJ Brown for Tyson Chandler (good move). Bower acquired through either free agency or trades leading up to the 2007-2008 season Tyson Chandler, Peja Stojakovic, Mo Peterson, Jannero Pargo, Rasul Butler, Bonzi Wells and of course... Ryan Bowen. These moves accompanied with development of Chris Paul to elite level, and David West to All Star level led to such a great season. There were 3 paths the Hornets could take from here. 1. Keep the nucleus of the team, add small pieces and replace people who leave and continue to contend for years to come. 2. Keep half of the nucleus, and trade/release the other half to get better players in return and become a legit annual championship contender. 3. Keep half of the nucleus and trade/release the other half to get players in return who end up being worse than what you dealt leading to years of mediocrity. This is especially bad for a small market because it is not a FA destination and never gets a pick high enough in the draft to effectively get a great player. The Hornets unfortunately went down path #3. Where it all went wrong was after the season when Tyson Chandler was traded for Emeka Okafor, Jannero Pargo left the team to play in Russia, Bonzi Wells was released, and Peja's age caught up with him. Due to these bad managerial decisions, the Hornets trended downward and as Chris Paul experienced this decided it was time to get out before the franchise went through a long stretch of mediocrity. Moral of the story is this is not entirely Chris Paul's fault because his hand was forced by Jeff Bower's poor decision making. Hindsight is 20/20 and it is easy to see through the myriad of awful moves, Bower unintentionally forced CP3's hand in the whole situation. Thanks to Demps, we are set to be a contender once again in a few years down the line, but it is Bower's fault that we are not one right now. I was thinking about where we were and decided to share my thoughts. TL;DR Reply • Back to Top |
quote: sb quote: Chandler for Oak was purely financial in nature. Pargo to Russia was a case of Pargo being a goddamn idiot, however. Reply • Back to Top |
quote: Well, I skimmed very quickly. Yes. The Hornets were on the brink of being a serious contender and a broke dick owner and less than mediocre GM fricked it up. I think that's more concise and just as accurate.  Reply • Back to Top |
quote: Meh, it was mainly because of Chandler's foot if I remember correctly. Doesn't seem very financially conscious with Oak's current contract. quote: I agree, but you have to go out and find somebody to replace him not named James Posey. Reply • Back to Top |
quote: Oak's salary was a short-term gain for the Hornets. It meant that Shinn could make payroll easier at the moment. Reply • Back to Top |
quote: Pretty much. Actually, at the time I remember that NIH and I thought it was a good deal, but hindsight's 20/20. Looking back, I'd love to have seen Paul, West and Chandler stay together and the team sign someone other than Posey. Ah, well. Reply • Back to Top |
| we were fricked with by bad management lets start with the 06 draft. The draft class wasn't very strong, but we had two picks the 12-15. We finished 25 in scoring, and could have used help at the 2. We should have traded up to the 8th pick and draft Rudy Gay. Our starting 5 looks like PG-Paul SG-Gay SF-Peja PF-west C- TC we finish with a 45-37 we are 7 seed and get bounced by the suns 07 draft was a solid draft with a deep guard position we draft 13 and pick Wilson Chandler because of weak depth at the 3 we finish as the 1st seed and win the west but lose to boston. But we continue to build through the draft and CP3 is still a hornet Reply • Back to Top |
| biggest cause was Chandler's injuries he couldnt stay healthy, managment went to trade him, and it all went downhill from there. If Chandler would have stayed healthy, I think Paul and West would be here today At the time of the Okafor-Chandler trade, it didnt look that bad. You got salary savings(at the time), plus a guy that was playing every night. other primary causes were overpaying for Peterson, Peja, and Posey Reply • Back to Top • Refresh |
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