Happy Mardi Gras . . . So Far

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Published: February 10, 2013

Down in New Orleans
Where the blues was born
It takes a cool cat to blow a horn
On LaSalle and Rampart Street
The combo’s there with a mambo beat

The Mardi Gras mambo, mambo, mambo
Party Gras mambo, mambo, mambo
Mardi Gras mambo-o
Down in New Orleans

— The Hawkettes, Mardi Gras Mambo

Sports

The Hornets went 2-0 since Sunday, defeating the Suns in New Orleans and the Hawks in Atlanta. This brings their record to 17-33, putting them a half game ahead of the Suns, but still in the West’s cellar with them, the Kings, and the Timberwolves.

They play the Raptors and Pistons before returning to New Orleans to host the Trail Blazers before the All-Star Break. Those road games will feature the team’s Mardi Gras uniforms.

Neither win was particularly impressive in itself, as the Suns were on the second night of a road back-to-back and the Hawks have gone 7-12 since the last game against the Hornets, a winning percentage that is on par with that of tonight’s Raptors.

On the bright side, Eric Gordon played over 30 minutes in each game. Casting a pall over the week, Davis still seems limited. He also went 8 of 18 in the week, and 0 of 4 from the line. The latter is simply unacceptable, but the former is merely very concerning. Back in the light, Greivis Vasquez recorded his first career triple-double against Atlanta (11 rebounds, 12 assists, 21 points). Balancing that out, Xavier Henry’s minutes (20 total) were less than acceptable. This would likely explain his reduced minutes against Atlanta. Al-Farouq Aminu’s week was as expected: bipolar. 30 minutes, 16 points on 9 shots, 0.810 TS%, 11 rebounds, 1 steal, 1 turnover against the Suns followed by 19 minutes, 0 points on 1 shot, 0 TS%, 8 rebounds, 1 steal, 1 turnover against the Hawks. Team turnovers were down for the week.

Overall, it was a good week. Given the opponents on the horizon, the next could be as good or better.

News

While no current New Orleans Hornets player is part of the All-Star Game itself, two are a part of the weekend.

Anthony Davis was the top pick of Charles Barkley, chosen after Shaquille O’Neal chose Damian Lillard with his first pick. Davis and his teammates Kenneth Faried, Kawhi Leonard, Bradley Beal, Ricky Rubio, Tristan Thompson, Nikola Vucevic, Brandon Knight, Isaiah Thomas, and Alexey Shved take on Lillard joined by Kyrie Irving, Andre Drummond, Klay Thompson, Harrison Barnes, Chandler Parsons, Dion Waiters, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Tyler Zeller, and Kemba Walker.

The game will take place this Friday, February 15, 2013 at 8 p.m. Central (-6 UTC) and will be broadcast on TNT.

On Saturday, February 16, 2013, All-Star coverage starts at 7 p.m. Central (-6 UTC), will be broadcast on TNT, and will include one of the newer Hornets, Ryan Anderson. He participated last year, but was eliminated after the first round of competition. This year, his 3P% is among the lowest of the participants. He is joined by Matt Bonner, Stephen Curry, Paul George, Kyrie Irving, and Steve Novak.

Barring injury to some other participant in the weekend’s activities, these could be the last players to be known as Hornets to participate in All-Star Weekend. The rebrand could also make Chris Paul the final true Hornets All-Star.

Around the Site

The first podcast this week featured a draft across all of Hornets history , while the second had special guest Gerry V. In the ongoing search for The Missing Piece, Mike tries to assign some a salary range to some potential Hornets targets. Earlier this week, the site writers sounded off on a number of issues, including Anthony Davis’ playing time.

`Voices’ of the People

The major conflict in this game for Hornets fans was which player was more infuriating to watch, Eric Gordon( be frank with me everyone are we going to have to swallow this contract until it becomes expiring ) or the old stand by Brian ” have I been dribbling the last 21 seconds” Roberts

chiefyoungblood

Kendall Marshall played 20 minutes and had 3 assists. Austin Rivers played 16 and had 3 assists. I’ll still take Rivers

Hank

I was at this game, it was a great experience. ATL fans were VERY confused by the Mardi Gras uniforms though. Hopefully they are executed a little better when the rebranding goes live.

GV was cooking, he looks MUCH different in person than on TV. He’s still noticeably slow, but he looks much more crafty in person. Less statuesque, but more like Andre Miller.

My stepsister (who doesn’t know ANYTHING about basketball) made several comments about “Why does that number 10 guy look so angry? It’s like he doesn’t want to be out there…he looks lazy, and then he’ll give a speed burst and be lazy again. And then he pouts all game.” Never a good sign. I love EG’s game, maaaaaaaaaan he has Jay Cutler style body language.

ACStamp

42 Sense

I was asked when doing a preview with Raptors Republic if I would rather have Lillard than Davis in the most recent NBA draft. My response:

“Davis. All day. Every day. Davis is 19 (20 next month). Lillard is 22 (23 in July). Looking at the way Davis is playing in limited minutes, having dealt with injuries, as a growing 19 year old, and in a role that typical peaks later than guards, yeah, I’ll take the guy with the higher WS/48 (0.142 v. the below average 0.097), PER (20.7 v. 16.4), TS% (0.560 v. 0.542), and whose ORtg exceeds his DRtg (110-103 v. 108-110).”

Dr. O’Neal appears to disagree with me. I’m fine with that. The good doctor was picking a team for one night, and Davis has been limited in minutes for a while. When picking one of the two to help you for a decade, Dr. O’Neal might agree with Dr. Calmes.

Time will tell.

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