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SF Prospect: Dorell Wright
The Basics Age: 27 Height: 6’9″ Wingspan: 7’0″ Weight: 205 lbs Some Basics Smart offensive player who attempts most of his shots from high-efficiency areas Below-average offensive rebounder, above-average defensive rebounder Incredibly long, but not incredibly quick His Offensive Game At this point in Wright’s career, his offensive game is pretty clear. He has become […]
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The Missing Piece: Almost There
The Missing Piece has been an enjoyable piece; both for me, and many of you have told me that your Saturdays were brighter because of it as well. It was great looking forward, because what was taking place on the court in the present wasn’t enjoyable to watch most of the time. But it is […]
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The Missing Piece: Trading out of the 2014 Super Draft
Though I always try to do the pieces in this series as objectively as possible, two things have become blatently clear to me in this last week, and as a result, this Missing Piece will be more subjective than any of the others. The two things are as follows: 1.) The 2014 NBA Draft appears […]
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The Missing Piece: Offseason Plans A-E for the New Orleans Pelicans
This series was started in large part because of Dell and Monty’s comments last October. They both stated that the plan was to add the final pieces to the puzzle in the 2013 offseason and then move forward with that team for the next few years. Flash forward seven months and we are almost there. […]
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The Missing Piece: Scouting the NBA Combine
By the time the next ‘Missing Piece’ is published, the NBA Combine will have come and gone and the draft lottery will be just three days away. On May 16th and 17th, the top NBA prospects will be put through a series of athletic tests and will have the opportunity to introduce themselves to some […]
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The Missing Piece: Going All-In on Chris Paul
Eleven months ago I laid out an argument for why I would not close the door on the return of CP3. Eleven months ago I laid out a scenario in which we could see the Clippers regressing and New Orleans becoming the main competition for his services. Friday night, the Grizzlies eliminated the Clippers from […]
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The Missing Piece: Perfect Pairs
Last year, I took a look at the top guys we could consider with our own pick and paired them with the ideal guy to match their skill set that figured to be available with the Timberwolves pick. As you can see from looking back at the piece, Dell and I appeared to be on […]
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The Missing Piece: Playoff Scouting, Draft Ranking, and Summer Planning
The season has now officially come to a close for the Pelicans, and now we are just a few short weeks away from perhaps the biggest off-season in franchise history. The cornerstone is in place, a sharpshooter has been found, and our oft-injured premier scorer has given us some reason to hope he can be […]
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The Missing Piece: Scouting Shabazz
When scouts, GM’s, fans, coaches, and media really start to shift their focus to the NBA Draft, no player will be more polarizing than Shabazz Muhammad. Nearly every mock draft heading into the college basketball season had Muhammad as either the #1 or #2 pick, but since then he has had be mired in contraversy. […]
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The Missing Piece: Searching for Bruce and Danny
When fans dream of offseason acquisitions, they think of the ‘Big Fish’ – the current All-Stars and the guys who could be perennial All-Stars. Two or three guys every year fit that description, and more often than not those guys stay where they are or go to a big market. After those guys are off […]
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The Missing Piece: Unveiling the Big Board
It’s that time basketball fans. Whether you get sucked into March Madness for the pure love of the game or for the love of your bracket, we will all be watching closely these next few weeks, and when we do we should have our scouting glasses on. While Dell will have plenty of money to […]
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The Missing Piece: Building an Advanced Team
Last Week, the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference took place in Boston, and some interesting presentations were made that might or might not influence decision makers in the NBA, both now and in future generations to come. There is an old school vs. new school debate going on right now in NBA circles, with the […]
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The Missing Piece: Modeling Models
The easiest way to figure out an answer to a question is to find someone else who has already solved it and “borrow” the answer from them. My teachers used to frown upon this practice in school, but the NBA has no rules against one franchise copying another franchise’s successful model. In fact, it is […]
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The Missing Piece: Narrowing our Focus
The Trade Deadline came and went without very much movement, but that might not be the worst thing for the Hornets. Lack of movement at this time could mean more movement in the offseason, as teams get a reality check in the playoffs after the roster they loved so much and didn’t want to touch, […]
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The Missing Piece: Mid-Season Mock Draft
Now that the All-Star break is here, I thought it would be the perfect time to take a look at where the Hornets could find themselves this June on the night of the 2013 NBA Draft. To help me with this mock draft, I have sought out the opinions of talented TrueHoop writers, who will […]
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The Missing Piece: For What They’re Worth
When the topic of free agency comes up, the conversation always finds its way to the price tag, (i.e.) – How much would you pay this guy? What is he worth? How much will other teams offer? If you like a guy, you don’t want to underpay and risk losing him to someone else, but […]
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The Missing Piece: Waiting for 2014
It has been assumed for the past couple of months that the Hornets would make a large splash either in Free Agency or via Trade sometime between now and August, resulting in us acquiring the ‘Missing Piece’ and moving forward with a complete, dangerous team. But the purpose of this year long series is to […]
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The Missing Piece: Re-Handicapping the Field
Our first ‘Missing Piece’ of the season introduced all of our possible options and handicapped the field, so now that we are halfway through the season, I felt it was right to revisit and re-handicap the field. Things are a little more complicated this time around, but in a good way. At the beginning of […]
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The Missing Piece: International Imports
I hate not knowing. Hate it. I pride myself on knowing every side of the argument, researching every possible solution and then moving forward with well-thought out forecasts and solutions that have a foundation of probability, or at the very least, extreme possibility. In my Missing Piece last week, I laid out the different college […]
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The Missing Piece: Draft Tiers
In the last few pieces we have focused on veterans who could step in right away, take the Hornets to another level, and save Monty the frustration of having to introduce teenagers to the fundamental parts of the game and the NBA lifestyle. Monty has stated in the past that he would prefer to coach […]