We’re a few days late on this, but we’ve had other things to talk about with the Hornets vying for playoff seeding and then facing the Heat in a play-in game with everything on the line. But while all that was happening, the Greensboro Swarm were making their own little bit of history. They went out to Stockton, California with a 1-0 lead in the best of three championship series, and they brought home the hardware.
The Swarm got big time contributions from all of the guys they were supposed to. Tidjane Salaun had 19 points and 10 rebounds, Liam McNeeley and Tosan Evbuomwan eached scored over 20 points. Antonio Reeves tossed in five threes off the bench, and Jaylen Sims scored 20 points alongside him.
The Swarm took an early lead through in a fast paced but inefficient first quarter for both teams. They built on that lead through the second quarter, which was a complete inverse of the first. The pace slowed down, and both teams started putting the ball through the basket. Reeves made three 3-pointers and McNeeley and Evbuomwan added nine points apiece as the Swarm took a double digit lead into the halftime break. The Kings made a push in the third quarter, but the Swarm were able to stave it off and hold their lead going into the fourth. A 14-4 in the middle of the final quarter with all of the buckets coming from the aforementioned key contributors effectively put the game out of reach, and the Swarm cruised to a 15 point, championship clinching victory.
A G League title isn’t exactly the first thing people think about going into a season, and for a lot of teams, it wouldn’t mean anything. But with where the Hornets have been and where they’re trying to go, it’s kind of a big deal. The Hornets organization used to treat these things as afterthoughts if they were thoughts at all. Every summer league team was a joke and the Swarm were to the G League as the Hornets were to the NBA–nothings. New ownership and a new front office put together a summer league team that won a championship in that competition. And now their G League group has done the same.
It shows that the organization wants to win, and they want to win everything. They’re not leaving any stone unturned, and no part of the team is going to be treated like an afterthought or a nothing. While it’d be quite unreasonable to expect a triple crown where the Hornets win the Summer League, G League, and NBA championships, it does feel like the front office and ownership are committed to moving in that direction.
