We got to watch some Charlotte Hornets basketball on Sunday. It wasn’t the full experience. It was live streamed on the team website, so there where no frills on the broadcast. Dell and Eric weren’t on the call in part because Eric Collins was calling the Carolina Panthers game.
Collins was a joy to listen to, as Hornets fans would have expected, and he seemed to be very well received by the NFL audience.
Anyway, the Hornets. They played the defending champion Thunder and got walloped. That doesn’t really matter. It’s the first bit of competitive action for both teams, so there’s a wild amount of variance in how teams are playing right now. The Thunder were hitting their shots, the Hornets weren’t. Thems the breaks in the preseason.
So full disclosure, I only watched this game in bits and pieces. It was a football Sunday and at some points my daughter decided to smack some keys on the computer and interrupt the stream. At a point I didn’t bother to pull it back up. But here’s what I saw:
* Kon Knueppel showed that his craft around the basket can translate against NBA defenses. Obviously the sample size is about as small as it could be, but the Hornets rookie had a couple of really nifty finishes using ball fakes and pivots in the paint around bigger defenders. We need to see a lot more of it to really trust it, but the first impression was good.
* Along with that, Knueppel might be good. He led the Hornets with 18 points in 23 minutes.
* You could tell the Hornets were trying to be intentional about pushing the pace, both after makes and misses. It led to a couple of sloppy possessions, but that’ll be very good for the roster long term assuming they can clean things up.
* The Hornets had a couple of really cool sets out of a double screen action. There was one that led to a wide open Knueppel three and another that resulted in an uncontested dunk for Ryan Kalkbrenner.
* Speaking of Kalkbrenner, he looked more in place in the preseason than I thought he looked in summer league. It’s almost like it was easier for him to find his spots and play his role in the more structured play of the real NBA team.
* The starting lineup was LaMelo, Knueppel, Miller, Bridges, and Diabate. I assume that’ll probably be the starting lineup for the regular season except maybe swapping Mason Plumlee for Diabate. Tre Mann and Liam McNeeley were the first subs off the bench followed by Kalkbrenner, Tidjane Salaün, and Collin Sexton.
There isn’t a whole lot to take away from this game. It’s just nice to have basketball back. The Hornets will look for revenge next time out as these two teams play a rematch in Oklahoma City on Thursday.
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