The Charlotte Hornets and draft moves, or lack there of

Hi there, I'm Dr. John White, WebMD's Chief Medical Officer and host of the Health Discovered Podcast, where we bring you fascinating stories and unique perspectives, like our recent episode on how heart failure can particularly affect women in Black and Hispanic communities.

We've documented it time and time again. She was young, she was Black, she was a woman. No one expected her to look like the face of heart failure. When you don't look like what someone expects, that's going to lead to delays in diagnosis. We all have to take this constellation of symptoms, treat it the same each and every time, whether it's a young person, a Black person, a woman. If someone presents to me with my heart racing and feeling winded, I need to get an echocardiogram 100% of the time, regardless.

Listen to Health Discovered on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Why did the Clippers automatically rule themselves out of winning the NBA championship by acquiring James Harden? I wouldn't say it's ruling them out.

Here's the thing, here's what I would pose to you. Instead of looking at this as a postseason move, why aren't you looking at this as maybe a regular season move, that you need somebody of semi-high caliber, someone that almost ended up being an All-NBA player last year, despite everything? You need somebody high caliber to soak up the minutes because we know Paul George is going to miss 20 to 25 games. Kawhi Leonard is not going to make that many appearances. Russell Westbrook, God bless him, he'll show up.

You don't know which one is going to show up. If you're going to tell me a poo-poo flatter of Marcus Morris, KJ Martin, a protected first rounder in 2026 and an unprotected one in 2028, if you're telling me that's going to get me someone who's going to soak up so many minutes in the regular season to where you can do some things and you can strategically rest, guys, and with Steve Ballmer's money, you might even be able to absorb a fine or two. If you violate the new player arrest rules, I don't see how this is anything but a win for the Clippers right now.

Alright, here's why it isn't a win. Because that would be great if the Clippers could get all the way into the postseason and then send James Harden to, I don't know, Cabo. Because ultimately, Harden's going to want to play in the playoffs, and assuming, and maybe this is a terrible assumption, assuming that Paul George, Kawhi Leonard, Russell Westbrook, not to mention, I mean, I think a good young guy is going to win.

I think a good young player in Bones Highland, Norman Powell, they've got a good team. So my brain tells me that this was a move for a move's sake and not necessarily will make them better because when they get to the postseason, I'm still sure that they can only use one basketball. And I just mentioned a bunch of players that all need the ball, right? Russ needs the ball. Paul George needs the ball. Kawhi Leonard needs the ball. James Harden, he needs the ball. So, Kawhi's going to have it.

I don't get it. But also, here's the thing, we're forgetting that Tyloo's what? Top five coach in the league?

Top three? Yeah, why does Tyloo want this? If anything, I trust Tyloo to figure this one out. Okay. Like, I do think that, do I think that you have an, you absolutely have a point with there's only one ball, and some of this does reek, and I know you'll love this reference. Of Stephon Marbury, Steve Francis, that backcourt.

But, and I, so I understand your concern with this. I also think if we look at this as a, if this means Kawhi has less wear and tear in his body coming down the stretch, this is a good thing. This means Paul George has much less wear and tear on his body.

Then this is a good thing. I just don't think, like, the thing is, we just don't, we have to, I'm not assuming that James Harden is going to be all that is going to be all in the post season plans. If he becomes super sick man, along with Ross, and it changes the bench up a little bit, I kind of like this for them.

Okay. I think they're going to be fine. And more importantly, they kept Karen's man out of this deal. I think is a really, really important piece because now they have, again, 10 deep.

They're still 10 deep no matter what. I think they're going to be good. And also at the same point, and I know you'll agree with me on this, it really doesn't matter because Denver's still going to steamroll them anyway.

That's a very good point. Keeping Terrence Mann out and keeping Mason Plumlee out of the deal. That was also huge for the Clippers. Well, that'll transition us to the Hornets here.

They declined the option on James' book night's contract, the future option, which doesn't surprise anybody. Is this sort of a window into one of the Hornets' really big problems over the last several years? Nobody's complaining about LaMelo Ball or P.J. Washington's been good, but they haven't really hit the draft very well. See, I partially quibble with that one. Oh, boy.

Look at you and I disagreeing. Yes, I have to quibble with you on this one because, yes, they didn't get Shea Gilders at Alexander. You know who they did get in that draft?

In the draft that I'm talking about? They ended up getting Miles Bridges, who before he went, again, the less said the better. Oh, good talent.

Great talent. Yeah, but they didn't really want him. They couldn't wait to get rid of him. Well, no, not that they couldn't wait to get rid of him. Remember, Devante Graham was going to be the starter until essentially the Hornets jumped from eighth to third to select LaMelo Ball. They were completely okay with having that kid as a point guard. It just happened that one of the years they just jumped up, kind of similar to what happened with Kelly Oubre here in Charlotte. He was going to come back and then Brandon Miller became available. Cody Martin. Again, there are a lot of these examples where they turned Nick Richards into something.

Now, granted, he turned back into a pumpkin. There's a lot of like they draft better. They draft above their weight class. A lot of their problem is with the way you need to draft.

You need higher caliber players. Their problem has been they've probably won too many games. And for the fact that they've won too many games, you spend a lot of time picking.

Eleven, twelve, fourteen, fifteen instead of second, third, fourth, fifth. Take a look at Orlando for a perfect example of this. They have all that talent down there.

Right. And they've largely been picking second, third, fourth, fifth, seventh, eighth. Now, granted, their second best players probably was the eighth pick in the draft, Franz Wagner. But they also got, again, the same crew that ended up getting Jabari Smith.

Oh, not Jabari Smith, Pavel Banquero, when everybody thought they were going to get Jabari Smith. So a lot of this, this is a long way to say they've won too many games for their liking. Their drafting is just fine.

They're just punching slightly above their weight level. First of all, it's OK if the dog barks Nana. It's absolutely all right for me.

All right. Here's the thing. I fanslated that.

And the headline is when we when we post this and the best of Nana the scribe. The Hornets have won too many games. That's how that's how we're going to phrase it.

And there you go. Hornets have won too many games. What what do you make of Victor when Benyama's start? It hasn't been statistically amazing, but Manny is fascinating to me. And do you think they'll make the playoffs?

See, here's the thing. I love what Victor's done. I think he's awesome. He's been he's been great in spurts, but I know you've watched as many games as I have of the Spurs.

Can you ask me this question? Why is Jeremy so hand playing point guard because of the hair? It has to be.

Yeah, because it feels so just anti pop to go. They have at least one and a half good point guards with Trey Jones down there. They have Devontae Graham, who is familiar with the Spurs system, thanks to James Brago and Charlotte. Yeah, they have two really good guards.

And the biggest problem that they have is the ability to service a Victor when Benyama. And you would think one and one would equal two here, but apparently it doesn't. It drives me up the wall. Adam, I can't. That's the thing.

I don't understand. Give me a real guard that knows how to distribute. I love what the devil is bringing them.

Yeah, Jeremy. So how as the point forward works, they have Kelvin Johnson on it. They have a lot of really good young talent. They just need a point guard.

And I don't understand for the life of me why they're not using the ones on their roster. Trey Jones got off to a good start. I did not believe that Trey Jones would be a better pro than his brother, Tyus. And Tyus right now is in exile in Washington. I can't wait till somebody frees him from the Wizards. I'll give him till January.

Exactly. But I think Trey has a legit long future. Maybe Pop is just slow playing him right now.

I don't know. But I thought he was impactful last year. And Trey has got a bigger body than his brother does. If he just doesn't have quite the offensive ability, but he's got everything else to be a quality point guard for them. You brought up Devin Vissell. Vissell and Kelvin Johnson are two dynamite young players. I mean, I like Spurs. They're my favorite team to watch on lead pass right now. And it's not close. The Spurs are great.

They're just infuriatingly like that one point guard thing is just so infuriating because the answer is right there and Pop refuses to take it. All right. Since you are based in the Queen City and I like to refer to you as the man about town in our sister city. I have no idea if Raleigh's sister city of Charlotte or not. It probably isn't. Did the Panthers do the right thing by not trading any pieces for draft picks yesterday? I want to say no.

I want to say yes. But if they're going to continue to play with Brian Burns's money, then the answer is no. Quite honestly, like if you're going to if you're not going to keep Brian Burns or a Derek Brown, then why don't you trade them? Because at this point, I just I want to I really want to understand their cap situation. I really want to understand why they're playing with this with this whole Brian Burns thing when they could have just locked him up and then made it very, very official that, hey, Brian Burns is good no matter what.

Derek Brown's good no matter what. So, Frankie Louvou, that still probably needs to get an extension at the end of the year. You still you have a lot of pieces to fit like in the better like free agency wise, the Panthers need to finish their breakfast. There is a lot of uneaten breakfast right now that doesn't make any sense for this team.

And if you're not going to trade any of them and you're going to rely on the comp picks, then I need this to make more sense than it is. The only other thing that comes to my mind at this point is that maybe just maybe the rest of the league looked at what the Panthers have. And at one and six, they're like, we can give you that, but we don't want to because we don't think these guys are all that talented. Right, exactly.

That has to be it. It has to be that they were never going to trade Burns. I would have traded him last year. They're never going to trade Burns. They're never going to trade Brown's Brown and that they weren't going to receive enough to make trading any of the other picks, any of the other players worth their while, because what were they going to get for an injured Jeremy Shin, Miles Sanders?

Right, exactly. Miles Sanders, who I'll be surprised if he's on the roster next year. Terrace Marshall, who can't stay healthy. Dante Jackson has the same problem, right?

He can't stay healthy. So, yeah, what were they going to get for a lot of their other pieces? But again, the guy I would have traded was Burns. But because it's going to cost you 30 million to sign him next year, 28 million, whatever that number is going to be. And they're so far away from winning that it's going to be a bad contract down the road. So that's just the way I look at it. Canot Edwards, none of the scribe.

I appreciate you jumping on the program again today and we'll talk to you soon. Absolutely. We got to we got to lament about hot-stove baseball in like a month, don't we? What is that?

What is that? The Mets don't even have a manager yet. Not true. We can't we can't figure out a manager yet. So when the Mets hire a manager, we can talk. Well, we can always argue about ACC basketball next time. That is that is cool. We should have a fun year, at least at least up and down. Fifteen, five or one. Absolutely. Talk to you later, man. Peace.