Lots of people will tell you that exhibition games are meaningless; a team’s record in the preseason is a poor indication of how they’ll perform in the regular season. Is that really the case? We dived into the numbers from every Hornets’ preseason and regular season. Here’s what we found. Win Percentage Season Preseason Regular […]

As promised, I’m finally completing the Southwest Division preview many of you asked for in the poll we did during the off-season.  Unlike the last one, where I did a generalized review of the Rockets and Mavericks, I’m going to approach this one a bit differently.  Since at this point you can find general season […]

I’m asking – no, begging – all of you living in the New Orleans area to find out just who is putting the grisly gris-gris on the Hornets – and to put a stop to it. Okafor and Diogu haven’t played a game yet.  Songaila left last game with an injury, and now John Reid […]

In every game so far this pre-season, the Hornets have been outscored in the first and second quarters, and I’m not talkin’ by a couple points either.  The Hornets have entered the second half trailing the opposing team by an average of 17.8 points.  The Hornets are fouling more than they are being fouled, giving […]

I didn’t watch it.  I half listened as I worked on other things.  I’m glad I was distracted.  I’m also glad it’s pre-season so I don’t have to get upset over it. Some random observations: When the third quarter came to a close the Magic already had 100 points and more than half their shots […]

I’ve been rather slowly working on part two of my Southwest Hornet’s Rival reports about the Grizzlies and Spurs.  When putting together the Spurs section, I felt compelled to write about how much I like them. I’ve almost finished the Grizzly half of my preview, and of course the two teams are like night and […]

George Shinn threw down the gauntlet over the summer, mandating that Byron Scott use his youngsters and get some internal development.  Scott, it appears, has taken up the challenge, telling everyone who would listen, including Julian, that Wright has the inside track as a starting small forward this season.  Peja, it appears, will come off […]

Back when Bruce Bowen retired, Timothy Varner of the Spurs Blog 48 Minutes of Hell sent me a message: “With Bowen retiring, does that make Chris Paul the dirtiest player in the league?  Discuss.” My first response was “yes”, but after a few moments of reflection, I’m not sure I’d go that far.  Yes, Paul […]

Well, since I just broke one of my long-standing policies (Never say anything good about the Spurs) I figure I’ll break another pair of policies: Conspiracy Theories are stupid. Don’t talk about referrees. So here’s my great conspiracy theory, which, like all good conspiracy theories, has no basis in fact whatsoever: Over the past three […]

This started as a breakdown of what the Spurs did this summer and what we should expect from our Southwest division rivals this season.  In the end, however, I decided to change the point of this post and say something I never thought I’d say: I like the Spurs. Two years ago, I would have […]

The rosters for most teams are complete at this point, which finally allows me to do what a whole mess of our readers asked us to do during the survey we had a month ago:  An in-depth evaluation of the teams of the Western Conference.  I’ll start with the Hornet’s own division, the Southwest,  which […]

Putting together Darius Songaila’s stat-pack has been fairly amusing.  The major advanced statistical measures just don’t seem capable of agreeing about his worth: The Wages of Wins system hates him, assigning him a -.046 WP48, meaning that he not only doesn’t help the team, he actually counters the beneficial work of others. John Hollinger’s PER […]

Every season I do a post that tries to project the wins the team will earn over the course of the upcoming season, using the production from the players the season before and the Wages of Wins “WP48” stat.   Two seasons ago my projection was fairly close.  Last season, it was really wrong, as I […]

46.5. That’s what the ESPN experts arrived at for the number of wins we can expect the Hornets to produce this year.  That rounds up to 47, which ties them on ESPN’s list as the 6th seed in the West.  A year ago, the Hornets were generally expected to win at least ten more than […]

With the signing of Sean Marks, it appears the Hornet’s Big Man rotation is set, barring any trades.  Five big men is typically sufficient, so it appears we’ll see a battle between Marks, Armstrong, and Diogu for the backup minutes behind David West and Emeka Okafor. That’s not the most impressive rotation around, but if […]

I’m back from vacation, have finished reading the hundreds of emails that had built up at work, and am once again ready to provide you with inane chatter.  I’ve had a few general NBA thoughts I’d figure I’d start with in order to get back in the swing of things. Oh, and before we start, […]

So the off-season is in full swing and other than a random minimum contract signing here and there, I think the team roster is fairly well set.  Therefore, it’s time to take a break.  I am going on vacation for a week, and will have no internet access whatsoever.  None.  For the first time in years, […]

I was a fan of Butler this season.  Enough so that I featured him strongly in bunch of my game previews and wrote two pieces entirely about him, which were two more than I wrote the previous season.  One was even one of my highly bizarre fake investigations into the occult.  Those are always fun. […]

We’ve had the honor of witnessing a lot of firsts with Chris Paul on our team.  The first player to lead the league in assists and steals in consecutive seasons.  The first player to get a steal in 108 consecutive games.  The first player to hit 4 half-court shots in a minute and get into […]

David Aldridge’s NBA.com off-season evaluation of the Hornets drew some  unhappy commentary from our readers.  Like the comments, I’m not really a fan of his take on the Hornets, but there were a couple lines in there that made me grin: GM Jeff Bower keeps his own counsel . . . Quiet, but good. That’s […]