The Charlotte Hornets a promising have a young core. Richie Randall reflects on the team and 2019-2020 season.
The Charlotte Hornets have long been a laughingstock franchise in the NBA. Michael Jordan’s ownership has not yielded even a fraction of the success he experienced as a player, but there is reason to be optimistic.
Co-host of the BuzzBeat podcast, and Charlotte Hornets fan, Richie Randall joined the Hoops Addicts Anonymous podcast with hosts Geoff Campbell and Chip Murphy to talk all things Hornets.
Randall has been pleased with the recent collection of young players that are currently on the roster. That, combined Mitch Kupchak’s recent direction as general manager, has long-time fan Randall feeling good about his team’s future outlook.
“Now that Kupchak is into place, it feels like he [Michael Jordan] is deferring to Mitch a little bit, and to be honest, in the past two seasons, Kupchak has drafted well. Two years ago they drafted Devonte’ Graham, who you mentioned, Miles Bridges, they also drafted PJ Washington this past draft as well as Cody Martin.”
Randall went on to discuss head coach James Borrego and his effect on the team.
“And the biggest thing to me is James Borrego and his philosophy that he has imparted on this team. He was hired strictly to be a player development coach…he always talks about these four pillars that he has, he’s trying to get his team to compete, play hard, and have this identity about them.”
Randall also pointed out that the Hornets, despite a poor regular-season record, have begun to demonstrate the makings of a modern NBA team. The Hornets were top 10 in the NBA in attempts at the rim and three-pointers attempted this past season, unfortunately, they just didn’t make many of them.
Towards the end of the podcast, the trio compared the young cores for both the New York Knicks and Hornets. The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie rated the Hornets core 16th and the Knicks 19th. Randall appeared to agree with the assessment and feels good about the Hornets’ young prospects.
“I hate to be a homer but I think I’d rather take the Hornets’ young players. One player on your roster that I think the Hornets would love to have is Robinson, that vertical lob threat…there’s a couple of players on the Hornets roster that we don’t talk about, and one of them is Malik Monk…he’s been very attack-minded, he takes close to 40% of his shots at the rim…Miles Bridges…he’s a physical specimen.”
A great Charlotte Hornets conversation and a big thanks for Richie Randall for being a guest on the podcast. Please give him a follow on Twitter and check his Buzzbeat podcast. And as always, please hit the subscribe button for the HAA pod on all podcast platforms.
