Tonight, the Hornets drafted Darren Collison out of UCLA and traded 2 future second round picks to Miami for Marcus Thornton of LSU.

That’s a haul I can respect.  Of the players available when we picked, we essentially got my second and fourth choices, with DeJuan Blair slipping fairly deep into the second round with his bad knees(to the Spurs, ouch) and Sam Young sliding inexplicably even further.[Edit: Wups, right before. Doh.]

Once our haul was set, I began to think about where the Hornets were going to fit the new players into the rotation . . . and something interesting began to percolate in my mind.

Collison will clearly be groomed as the new backup point guard – with the obvious  hope he can replace Daniels in the backcourt while adding athleticism and better deep shooting.  Marcus Thornton was acquired to eventually replace Rasual Butler in the near future as the Hornet’s shooting guard.

The most important part of that, however, is financial.  The guys Collison and Butler could replace; Daniels and Butler, also happen to have expiring contracts.  Should the Hornets find other homes for them, taking advantage of their expiring contracts to move them to teams in return for cap space or draft picks(or send Butler to Miami for their 4Mil trade exception) then suddenly the Hornets have almost entirely solved thier Luxury Tax issues.

That’s all speculation of course.  But it is interesting speculation, is it not?

Oh, and like many of you have mentioned in the comments – Pargo may be the big loser this draft.  He’s suddenly seeming rather redundant.