You have all been duped (A Williams and Demps Tale)

By:
Published: March 15, 2011

Ok, so the 10 game experiment that I was looking forward to with Marcus Thornton has come and gone. I gave Marcus 10 games as a King to see if last year really was his ceiling and if his game had really devolved since his rookie season. I know 10 games isn’t exactly a ton of time, but the offensive prowess that Marcus Thornton has exhibited since then is just downright nasty. Guess what folks? He is who we thought he was and possibly better.

22 PPG

49% from the field

44.7% from beyond the arc

1.9 steals to 1.5 TO’s

I’ll tell you what. This kid is the main reason I opted to upgrade from half season tickets last year to full season tickets this year. His energy coupled with his being from our hometown school of LSU (yes, hometown, if you don’t think NOLA is an LSU town you are crazy) provided a young asset that we had not seen since the likes of Chris Paul. The fact that we found this guy in the 2nd round and robbed him from a Miami Heat team that is competing for a title right now makes it all the more savory. Rookie SG’s are not typically successful in their rookie years in the league and for this kid to be making an impact so fast left us with hope we hadn’t felt since 2007-08. “Holy crap, Chris Paul finally has his backcourt mate.”

Not so fast!

The young duo of Chris Paul and Marcus Thornton that posted ridiculous offensive effiency numbers as a starting unit last year was in serious jeopardy due to Monty Williams reluctance to hand Marcus the starting job. We were then told that our newest hope was going to be relegated to the 6th man duties for his new team because Marco Belinelli and his uber-fantastic defense (which, by the way, has been considered bottom 5 in the league defense by Synergy Sports at points this year, along with the fact that the team’s defensive efficiency numbers *cough Nikko* were better with Thornton on the court) were going to supplant Thornton in that starting 5. Ok, at this point, we are starting to wonder what is going on. Belinelli couldn’t even crack consistent minutes on a bad Toronto team and now he’s supplanted Thornton? No matter. Visions of Jason Terry were dancing in our head. AN ACTUAL BENCH!! Belinelli can shoot from downtown after all. Monty assured Marcus “it’s not who starts, it’s who finishes” and the world goes round.

Marcus endures a tough preseason at the hands of the Monty Williams’ coaching staff and refuses to attend a “voluntary seminar”.

Game 1 – 11 minutes. Monty must be teaching him a lesson. Play defense or else.

Game 3 – 30 minutes in a huge win against SAS. Ok, that’s what I’m talking about folks!

Game 6-10 – DNP. *Insert random Tim Allen Home Improvement noise here*

Game 25 – Marcus Thornton comes off the bench for his most meaningful game of the season, leading the Hornets to their largest come from behind victory in franchise history. The crowd is bananas. Marcus is going bananas. Chris Paul is talking about Marcus like he’s a beast. Monty Williams says he’s happy for him. Alas, may the feud be over?

Game 26 – Breakthrough! Back to back successful games from MT5. The crowd’s going nuts. The city is abuzz. The favored son is back in business. Surely Monty Williams must see the value in having someone who can light that offensive flame at the drop of a hat, especially when the defense of his wings has gotten severely worse over the last 15 games!

Games 38-47 – Hornets go on a massive winning streak. The team is playing it’s best ball of the season. Marcus Thornton is getting playing time. Jarrett Jack doesn’t look completely awful. Things are looking up. Finally. The full potential of this team.

Games 48-54 – After 1 good and 2 subpar games, Marcus Thornton has fallen back out of the rotation, again…, Jarrett Jack and Willie Green are sharing the majority of the 2 guard minutes. We go 1-6 in this timeframe. MT5 bobblehead night is cancelled. Panic is starting to seep into the masses. Uh oh time. This was the first telltale sign.

Game 55 – DNP.

Game 59 – He’s gone.

Game 60-69 – KABOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE

The chronological order of this season. 2 things are blatantly obvious to me by game 58 right before the trade. 1) Monty Williams will never give Marcus Thornton consistent minutes 2) Jarrett Jack is the worst defender on our team, getting SG minutes ahead of Thornton, while complaining about playing time. The logic for giving minutes to players applies really only to Marcus Thornton and Aaron Gray.

Now for some reason, throughout all of this, the fans are vehemently defending then CoTY candidate Monty Williams. After all, we are playing defense most nights and Thornton not playing must be the cause to that effect.

I’m here to tell you that you have ALL BEEN DUPED (myself included until now) by a coach that you will defend to your dying breath. Ending at the Collison trade, with no real bench except for what we had last year, we had a 39-30 team EASY. Chris Paul had been able to carry much crappier players than Thornton and Ariza (Devin Brown, Morris Peterson, Rasual Butler) to better records than we are seeing out of these current Hornets. Much less the fact that Okafor has had a full year to gel with the team and David West is in a contract year so of course he is going to give effort.

This heinous crime was committed with no regard for the fans of New Orleans. The Hornets have sent out the best prospect they’ve had since Chris Paul for a THREE MONTH FRICKING RENTAL.Don’t tell me that Collison and Thornton weren’t worth a living crap. They brought a bad team that didn’t give a crap early to a 37-45 record. Look at GS and all the talent they have. They probably won’t even win 37 fricking games this year. Not to mention the fact that Chris Paul came back WAAAYYY to early from his injury and essentially buried our playoffs hope single handedly. These kids were winners of the highest caliber. Advanced stats bullcrap all you want. I look in cold hard wins and these two won us more games than they should have on pure effort and talent alone.

WHY ARE WE NOT BEYOND LIVID AT THIS POINT? THEY ARE BOTH GONE! The only bright future we have had on this team in the past 6 years was given away. Houston didn’t even care about Ariza. They wanted his salary gone. We got rid of Posey. I’ll forgive that trade as it may have turned out equal if things had turned out the way they should have. We never ONCE this season got to see Marcus Thornton given the vote of confidence he shouldn’t have been denied in the first place. We all look at JR Smith, Brandon Bass, etc. of the world as terrible development from Byron Scott. The difference between Marcus Thornton and those players? MARCUS WAS ALREADY THERE! He just needed fine tuning. Instead, Monty acted like a confused moron and dug himself a hole he couldn’t get out of in the locker room. The cancerous infestation of the Jarrett Jack’s of the world was already working it’s magic. Marcus never had a chance.

The top level of our organization has no direction and no backbone. This much is clear. The Hornets traded away their fan favorite, ticket selling, confident, YOUNG, passionate machine for a 3 month rental. And we defend Monty Williams. Hell, I’ve defended Monty Williams. After last night. I have seen enough.

He is who we thought he is. He wanted to be here more than anyone on our current roster. His on court passion gave back to the fans their value. That was always the value in Darren Collison and Marcus Thornton last year. No matter what happened that night, you KNEW that those two were going to go to bat for your team. In the best way they knew how. If it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough. Don’t blame them for not trying.

Now I’m sitting here typing this journal, wondering why in the hell both of those 2 are gone with very little to show for it, seeing Marcus Thornton raise his stock in 10 games more than he did all of last year. I’m stuck watching lackluster performances from our 2 guards last night and Felton, Smith, Lawson bent them over and made them their puppy dog bitches. I’m stuck watching Jarrett Jack still play the 2 guard when Belinelli should be getting 30+ minutes a game. I don’t believe in advanced stats. Sorry. Belinelli is a tough ass, in your face, defender and I apologize for saying he was otherwise. Never blame him for not trying. He’s the last vestige of mental toughness we have left on this team after the gaping hole was left by the departure of Marcus Thornton. When the going gets tough, the Hornets play Jack and watch the tough get tougher. AGHHH! I only wish I had tried harder to keep Thornton here. To not try to see the other side. The other side sucks. Ask Sacramento. They’re cackling with glee right now, making fun of us as they parade around acting like they got a steal.

Speaking of steals.

Don’t even get me started on Chris Paul.

This mess is so long that I will not proofread it. My anger will not subside. The 10 game trial is over. The Hornets got robbed. They even paid Sacramento to take Thornton. LOL.

I got duped.

FUCK YOU MONTY!

33 Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.