The Saturday Stinger
Your Weekly Charlotte Hornets Notebook that’s not afraid to laugh at itself. Not here to convince you with stats, just good prose; I can’t afford Synergy.
The Sermon on the Spectrum (Center):
My big picture, Weekly State of the Hive Address:
I haven’t gotten any angry or displeased emails, so surely you all couldn’t have missed me that much.
I’ll assume you did, though. It’s better for my motivation… but also my ego.
It’s been a month since we last met, and it feels like it could’ve been a year. If you’re sicko enough to read this, we don’t have to belabor the play-in game versus the Magic or the Rookie of the Year snub.
I don’t want to, and 2. We have all summer long to be upset about it.
The wounds are stitched back up (kinda?). Let’s not cut it back open again. For today, at least.
I’ll start with Charles Lee, because the Hornets head coach’s recently announced extension has made me smile fairly often in the last 48 hours.
He’s the perfect fit with the Hornets, and while he still has some areas to improve upon – just like his players – he’s got the youth, excitement, and willingness to invest in the city of Charlotte that this team has needed for a long time.
Former head coach Steve Clifford tried his best.
He certainly invested in Charlotte basketball, evident by his post-coaching role within the organization, but the lack of youth hurt Cliff’s ceiling, I think. There’s a reason we’ve seen a wave of uber-young coaches taking the reins for NBA teams in recent years.
Even aside from youth, Clifford had the excitement; there’s only so much you can do when the organization above you is already in shambles. That wasn’t a problem Clifford could ever fix.
It’s a godsend that it’s not a problem Charles Lee HAS to fix.
Lee’s synergy with the players is one thing – his synergy with those above him is what has always made me so hopeful about Charles Lee.
There’s a clear respect, understanding, and feel between Lee and co-owners Gabe Plotkin and Rick Schnall that we have never seen in a Charlotte basketball organization before.
Not just the owners, either. This isn’t a “Clifford couldn’t do it because of MJ alone” segment… because let’s think about former Charlotte GM Rich Cho when Clifford was around.
I’d be very hesitant to say their relationship was on par with Lee and current Hornets GM Jeff Peterson.
Given the sheer *lack* of playing time and rope given to summer 2014 signing Lance Stephenson by Steve Clifford in 2014-2015, there’s no chance you could convince me Clifford was on board with that signing.
Cho was just given the full reins of basketball operations from Rod Higgins ONE month and three days (6/13/2014, The Charlotte Observer) before Lance Stephenson was signed (7/16/2014).
Higgins and Cho spent the last months of Higgins's tenure with the team as co-GMs, all by the design of Michael Jordan. Jordan said this led to “confusion” between the two about which of them would be in charge of job responsibilities and decisions.
Bonnell said Higgins viewed this as a demotion, asked Jordan if they could wait until the next season to fully switch over the job rather than split it, and when denied, Higgins resigned.
Wow. Only a psychic could’ve seen that one coming, MJ.
Clifford had this to say regarding Rod Higgins’ resignation:
“Rod and I had a great working relationship. He helped me a lot, he helped our staff a lot. He’s a terrific guy. That being said, change is a big part of this league. We need to quickly focus and move forward.”
Clifford was also quoted in the preseason of 2014-2015 by Rick Bonnell, talking about how it only takes a few bad eggs to change the chemistry of your team:
“Chemistry is rarely by accident,” Clifford told Bonnell. “On a roster of 14 guys, you can’t have three or four who want more, who are unhappy. They’re talking to people – family or friends – who tell them, ‘You need more, you need more.’
“I don’t think that’s anybody’s fault, it’s just human nature.”
While current Hornets head coach Charles Lee would 100% agree with this sentiment…
I’m not sure we’ll see him say it outright, because he won’t have to. What’s expected is understood by the players, even if they aren’t on the roster yet, because what’s expected by Charles Lee are the same intangibles that GM Jeff Peterson openly discusses looking for in players.
They have the same term for it. It’s called “Hornets DNA,” and if we as fans know about it, you bet your behind those players know about it to the point they’re tired of HEARING it.
Yet that’s the point. It’s how the Miami Heat run their organization. It’s called “Heat Culture,” and if Jeff Peterson, Charles Lee, and the Hornets co-owners had their way?
The league and its fans would be just as tired of hearing about Hornets DNA as they are about hearing Heat Culture every year come playoff-push time.
Clifford had the coaching chops and the respect of his players to do this, but trying to make Hornets DNA happen back then with so many organizational problems would’ve been like trying to nail strawberry jelly to an oak tree.
It ain’t happening.
This modern iteration is the organizational synergy we’ve waited decades for. Charles Lee’s extension is just another sign that, despite a bad play-in loss?
It’s working. It’ll take time – trust and believe.
But it’s all working, and they’re all on the same wavelength. That’s why Lee’s extension has made me smile so often recently. I’m so happy about the future of this team that I could cry tears of joy, and it starts right there with the head coach.
The last segments of Owen Watterson’s weekly column can be found here at 7:00 PM EST.