[The failed L.A. trade]...has to receive consideration as one of the Top 5 most Hornet-ty things ever...
The odd statement the Hornets put out Saturday night once the trade got rescinded made me laugh out loud in disbelief a couple of times.
For one, they never mentioned the Los Angeles Lakers. They called them “the other team,” as if the Lakers were Voldemort and must not be named under any circumstances.
For another, they made it sound like they had never planned to trade Williams in the first place and did so only with extreme reluctance.
“After the other team aggressively pursued Mark, we made the difficult decision to move him,” the Hornets statement said in part.
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ZO, KOBE AND ‘HORNET-TY’
A note about that earlier word “Hornet-ty.”
What is Hornet-ty, you may be asking? Let me give you a few examples from the past 30 or so years. Hornet-ty is:
▪ When you have the best odds of the No. 1 overall pick the year that Anthony Davis is available, but you instead wind up with the No. 2 pick and Michael-Kidd Gilchrist.
▪ When Michael Jordan buys the team and somehow it seems to get worse.
▪ When you trade away Alonzo Mourning in his prime because you don’t want to pay him — even though he now says he would have taken below market value to stay — and he winds up a hall of famer and NBA champion in Miami.
▪ When you are about to miss the NBA postseason for the ninth straight year — as Charlotte is, continuing the longest active streak in the NBA.
▪ When you draft a teenaged Kobe Bryant and immediately trade him to the Lakers in a pre-arranged deal, but that trade doesn’t get rescinded. (Maybe the Voldemort analogy regarding the Lakers isn’t that far off).
HORNETS: NOT AN EASY TEAM TO LOVE
The Lakers, of course, are going to be fine, because the Lakers are always fine. They still have LeBron James and Luka DonΔiΔ and they might even win another NBA title again.
But the Hornets are 13-36 and as of Sunday had limped their way to the fourth-worst record in the NBA.
This is a Charlotte team that has not only never been to the NBA Finals, but also has never been to the Eastern Conference finals. They are a team that perpetually seems about a year away from being a year away.
Yet Charlotte still does have surprisingly good attendance, with Spectrum Center selling out numerous times this season. Kudos to the Charlotte supporters in teal for that: The Hornets are not an easy team to love.
