The Charlotte Hornets are not one of the premier organizations in the NBA. They don’t have a long storied history of success, and the city they play in isn’t known for its allure to free agents. If for some reason you weren’t already aware of that, Hornets general manager Mitch Kupchak has made sure to remind everyone in seemingly every roster-related press conference he holds. We’ve heard it time and time again. Free agents definitely aren’t going to want to come here, so we have to build through the draft.
Defeatist attitude aside, there is some validity in that statement. Free agents don’t tend to sign market rate contracts for teams that haven’t had proven success. You either have to lure them in with non-basketball prestige or overpay for their services. However, players will sign for any team that gives them a chance to win. The Hornets haven’t been able to do that and don’t seem interested in trying, so they’ve limited themselves to the draft and player development as their only means of improvement. Back in the summer, we talked about how dormant the Hornets had been when it came to making moves to push the roster forward or acquire assets. So we’re not really going for the draft pick “throw a bunch at the wall and see what sticks” approach like the Thunder or Magic have been doing either.
So what’s left? Basically the Hornets are hoping to get better by acquiring a bare minimum amount of players through the draft and undrafted free agency each year and hoping that someone somewhere in the organization gets good enough to make a difference. They’ve had success with LaMelo Ball, and so far so good on Brandon Miller at the top of the lottery, but they need a hit from somewhere outside the obvious lottery picks.
That’s where the Swarm comes in. For a team so insistent on player development and non-free agency avenues of improvement, the organization needs to take their G-League affiliate seriously. They haven’t done that. The best G League teams have a smattering of players with recent, somewhat useful NBA experience and highly regarded former college players. You know, like guys who came out early with lots of “potential” but haven’t figured it out yet or those guys that were super productive for multiple years in college but didn’t quite have the juice to make the NBA radar.
For example, the best team in the G League right now, the Indiana Mad Ants, feature NBA guys like Elfrid Payton and Jordan Bell along with an upside prospect in Mojave King. The second place Westchester Knicks have Brandon Goodwin, Isaiah Roby, Dylan Windler, and Jacob Toppin. I could go on.
The Swarm seemingly haven’t tried to find players that could eventually elevate to the big club. The team seems to exclusively serve as a place where the two-way players and the deep bench guys go to get a bunch of touches in the offense. That’s a perfectly acceptable use of the team and obviously one of the biggest reasons to have a G League affiliate, but that shouldn’t be its only purpose. Teams should also be using it to sift for diamonds in the rough. If the Hornets are trying to do that, it’s not very obvious, and they’re not doing a good job.
Based on my perusing, the Swarm haven’t rostered a player with significant college pedigree or high school promise since Admiral Schofield and KJ McDaniels were on the team in the 2020-21 season. The year prior, they featured two-time All-ACC standout Joel Berry. Outside of two-way players and Hornets players that were sent down, there hasn’t been any recognizable college star on the roster in any of the past three seasons.
This isn’t just about chasing names. Names don’t win games. But signing players with known success at least creates the perception that you’re trying. That’s especially true given what the alternative has been. The Hornets/Swarm have been content to scour modestly productive players from less heralded schools, and usually seniors at that. That could work. The Heat hit on Gabe Vincent and Max Strus, who fit that billing after all. But that hasn’t happened for the Swarm and Hornets. Instead, the Hornets have filtered through a bunch of non-NBA talent to be perpetually one of the worst teams in the G League.
The Swarm have had one almost .500 season; they went 23-27 in 2018-19. Since then, they’ve amassed a record of 37-98. I didn’t do the math on everybody, but I’d be surprised if that wasn’t the worst record in the G League in that span. No one constructs a G League team purely to win a title, but you’d like to occasionally see a collection of players good enough to beat other teams that also don’t care about winning all that much.
All of these things on their own aren’t the end of the world. Getting well known players with strong pedigree isn’t necessary for developmental success. Winning isn’t necessary to find good players in the G League. Heck, you can even just use the G League as a playground for the NBA team’s deep bench guys so they can get some burn. None of those things are bad on their own. But the Hornets are insistent on doing almost nothing to actively acquire talent at the NBA level. At the very least, they should try to use the G League to supplement their talent pool. Instead, they seem insistent on doing the bare minimum there as well.
In short, the Hornets front office is doing a whole lot of nothing. They’re barely giving themselves a chance to have success. All of their eggs are in the “draft players in the lottery and hope those guys are good enough to win” basket. That gives them no margin for error, and they’ve had plenty of errors and bad luck between the 2021 draft class, off-court issues, and the year-plus long injury bug. They’ve done nothing to prepare for plan A not working, and their neglect of the Greensboro Swarm is another glaring example of that.
