The Charlotte Hornets hit us with a flurry of moves starting on draft night. To catch you up if you’ve been living under a rock, here are all of the transactions of the last couple of weeks:
All of that wheeling and dealing has resulted in the Hornets acquiring more players than they’ve let go, and that means their roster is starting to overflow. As is stands right now, here is the Hornets roster based on all of the transactions they’ve done so far.
* LaMelo Ball
* Collin Sexton
* Tre Mann
* Spencer Dinwidde
* Nick Smith Jr.
* Pat Connaughton
* KJ Simpson (two-way)
* Damion Baugh (two-way)
* Brandon Miller
* Kon Knueppel
* Liam McNeeley
* Josh Green
* Josh Okogie
* DaQuan Jeffries
* Sion James
* Miles Bridges
* Grant Williams
* Tidjane Salaün
* Mason Plumlee
* Moussa Diabate
* Ryan Kalkbrenner
That is 21 players. NBA rules cap roster sizes at 21, so the Hornets have to make at least one move before some of the pending transactions go through. The signings of Plumlee, Dinwiddie, and Mann haven’t been announced yet, and someone has to go before all of them happen.
The most likely casualties are DaQuan Jeffries and Josh Okogie. Both are currently on the roster, but both have unguaranteed contracts that can be released without penalty. Jeffries seems like the choice since Okogie is the better player. However, the fact that the Hornets have held onto both of them for this long would imply that they’re trying to find a trade partner for one or both of them.
But that’s only the beginning. The Hornets have to get down to 15 players on the active roster plus three more on two-ways by the start of the regular season. The second round picks have both signed full team contracts, which means there’s no one on the roster that is eligible for a two-way contract that isn’t already on a two-way contract. Barring more trades in the coming weeks, four of the players listed above have to be out of here by the end of the preseason.
Okogie’s contract becomes guaranteed later this month, so if he’s still on the roster by the time preseason rolls around, he’s probably here to stay. As it stands right now, the Hornets are going to have to eat some guaranteed salary to get the roster down to the required number of players. Given the glut of guards and wings, it seems obvious that everyone on the chopping block is going to come from those groups. The most likely candidates:
* Josh Okogie
* DaQuan Jeffries
* Pat Connaughton
* Nick Smith Jr.
Okogie and Jeffries’ non-guaranteed deals make them easy cuts even if Okogie is nice to have on the roster. Connaughton isn’t what he used to be, but he’s still an okay player. However, the Hornets just don’t have a place for him with all the other guards on the roster. Nick Smith Jr. has some backers among Hornets fans, but his days in Charlotte seem numbered. He’s been very ineffective through two seasons and there isn’t an obvious skill he can build off to find a role on a competitive NBA team. He’s getting squeezed out by all the new players.
I do think the gears are still turning in the Hornets’ front office. They could have easily waived the non-guaranteed contracts to make room for the incoming players, but they’ve held off on doing that. I don’t know if any more moves are going to come to fruition, but there’s clearly something brewing.
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