Ive been thinking more and more about Chris Paul’s current anger with our Roster and the talent it has, and I’ve come to one conclusion after all this thinking: CP3 is wrong. As of right now the Hornets are in an awesome position to move forward. We are once again the underdogs of the league and we have a whole crop of young, skilled, talented players and a few huge expiring contracts. So lets break down our current roster and see what we have.
CP3 – Superstar of course and i would say he is the 3rd best player in the NBA behind LeBron and Kobe (im sure some will disagree, just my opinion).
D West – Allstar who seems to be able to score at will.
DC2 – Future Allstar who can give extremely productive minutes from the bench or could be traded for a current Allstar.
Buckets – DEFINITE future Allstar who could be our leading scorer next season. not only that but this guy plays some D and is only gonna get better as he starts to average upwards of 35+ min a game. GET OUT TONY PARKER!!!
Q-Pon – Young talent who with sir Monty’s help could become a defensive for to be reckoned with. Not only that but this boy proved he could shoot in the summer league and i think hell have plenty of open shots. Possibly even a one time Allstar at somepoint?
Brackins – Young athletic bigman who surprised in the summer league with his outside touch and great shooting. i think he could work well with Paul.
Emeka Okafor – Skill to be an Allstar and a very solid defensive center. against smaller centers he can score and will always be a solid rebounder. maybe a little undersized but r’nt we all (save LA)?
Peja – Old man who cant do anything…except shoot the ball like crazy!!! I think that if Peja is healthy this season he’ll be a great contributer with reduced minutes. i mean this guy used to be an Allstar…(15mil expiring)
Songalia – not bad for the money and a pretty solid role player on the offensive end. wish hed play defense tho…(5mil expiring)
Aaron Gray – solid backup center who can give good minutes and play good defense against the bigger teams. this guy produced real well in limited minutes last year and i think he may surprise if he gets in better shape.
JuJu – he isnt good enough to deserve a nickname…(2.5mil expiring)
*sigh*
Posey – once thot to be the player to push the hornets over the top, now thot to be the contract that pushed the hornets over.
(total of 22.5mil in expiring contracts)
Anyhow im sure there will be a few additions here and there and that im missing someone from the roster but i think i’ll stop there. The point is that Chris Paul is dead wrong if he thinks this team doesn’t have talent (ok but to be fair to Chris we do have Posey and Wright on the roster). Its not yet a contention team but once our big contracts expire we will be able to add some real talent to this team and we may be battling Miami for the title. Not only that but our “Young Talent” will be much more experience and that tandem of 4 will most likely be using most of the teams minutes. If healthy i would predict that this year we would be in the top 5 of the west with this roster alone. Add one upgrade trade to this years roster and id go as far as top 3. Then when next year rolls around and we add some more talent i would say we’re fighting for the top seed.
Chris needs to believe in our young players to grow and trust the old players to produce. If he does his job and lead this team he’ll get just what he wants. He’ll be on a championship contending team.