The Charlotte Hornets had five key players hit free agency, but how’d they do with retaining a competitive roster? Here are their 2016 offseason grades.
Entering the offseason, the Charlotte Hornets were coming off a relatively successful 2015-16 campaign they wanted to build upon for the future.
Though they were ousted in the first round of the playoffs, the Hornets’ record tied the third seed in the East and the arrival of Nicolas Batum proved to be the catalyst in getting the franchise back on the path to relevance.
But with Batum, Marvin Williams, Jeremy Lin, Courtney Lee and Al Jefferson all hitting free agency, the Hornets were in a bind. Even with the NBA salary cap skyrocketing by $24 million, there was only so much cap space to go around to retain key fixtures in Steve Clifford’s rotation.
With free agency winding down, how did the Hornets do in preserving their competitive roster? Here’s a look at Charlotte’s complete 2016 offseason grades.
Next: Bringing On Belinelli
Bringing On Belinelli
With Courtney Lee hitting free agency and only so much cap space available, finding another 3-and-D wing to replace him was a top priority. Unfortunately, Marco Belinelli is hardly that player.
In a pre-draft trade with the Sacramento Kings, the Hornets traded their 22nd overall pick in the 2016 NBA Draft for Belinelli — not a particularly great trade, especially when the Kings used their pick on Malachi Richardson, a streaky shooter like Belinelli, but one far younger and on a rookie-scale contract.
On the defensive end, the 31-year-old Belinelli is a far worse defender than Lee, the player he’ll be replacing at the 2. Though the Italian vet averaged 10.2 points per game for the Kings last season, he shot a putrid 38.6 percent from the field and 30.6 percent from three-point range.
For a team that needed to trade Spencer Hawes or Jeremy Lamb to free up more cap space so it could keep its free agents, taking on additional salary in a trade like this was a shortsighted and ill-advised attempt to brace for Lee’s imminent departure.
Belinelli is a career 37.9 percent shooter from three-point range, so perhaps in a winning environment he can put an abnormal one-year slump behind him and revert to the norm. But this is a definite downgrade from Belinelli to Lee, and given the immense gap between the two, Charlotte might have been better off just using their pick on someone like Richardson.
Grade: D+
Next: Bringing Back Batum
Bringing Back Batum
The Charlotte Hornets’ top priority this offseason was re-signing unrestricted free agent Nicolas Batum. They were able to accomplish that goal, but it came at a steep price.
With a five-year, $120 million offer, the Hornets immediately retained their most important free agent, striking within the opening hours of free agency. Batum will have a $27.1 million player option in the final year of his deal.
Though it’s a backloaded deal, paying an average of $24 million a year for a 27-year-old who averaged 14.9 points, 6.1 rebounds and 5.8 assists per game seems like quite a hefty sum. Batum is an underrated player on both ends of the floor, but he’s not a superstar either.
That being said, there’s no question his arrival in Charlotte was the catalyst behind the Hornets’ turnaround season in 2015-16, and his re-signing there makes giving up Noah Vonleh in the original Batum trade worth much more than a one-year rental.
Batum missed 12 games due to injury last season, and though he shot only 42.6 percent from the field and 34.8 percent from three-point range, his two-way versatility is imperative to Charlotte remaining a playoff team in 2015-16, especially with so many key departures on the roster.
Under next year’s $94 million salary cap, Batum’s $20.9 million salary will account for 22.2 percent of Charlotte’s cap space — the equivalent of a $15.6 million deal under last year’s $70 million salary cap. As the salary cap continues to expand and Batum’s salary increases, that number should stay (relatively) level, or at least for 2017-18.
Because of his length and versatility, Batum can play multiple positions and play them well. This deal will take the Hornets through Batum’s prime and is $32 million short of what his full max would’ve been.
It was a necessity for Charlotte to keep Nicolas Batum, but paying a guy who’d be a great complementary player on a contender the way you’d pay a star may also hinder further free agency endeavors.
Grade: B+
Next: Marvin Making Money
Marvin Making Money
The Batum deal was a costly deal, and from a strictly cap perspective, so was re-signing Marvin Williams to a four-year, $54.5 million deal. But paying about $13.6 million a year for such an underrated part of Charlotte’s rotation is pretty solid value under this new cap.
Though he’s never lived up to his billing as a a former No. 2 draft pick, Williams’ ability to spread the floor as a stretch-4 and defend his position has made him a viable rotation player in today’s league. It’s not unreasonable to think of this as a home team discount either.
Give Marvin Williams credit. The money that's goin around...he could've/should've got more $$. His deal gives CHA wiggle room. Good on him
— Eric Smith (@Eric__Smith) July 3, 2016
Last season, he averaged 11.7 points and 6.4 rebounds per game while shooting 45.2 percent from the field and 40.2 percent from three-point range. His floor-spacing was key in the Hornets fielding the league’s ninth ranked offense and seventh most efficient three-point shooting team.
He’s not a sexy player, but this wing who was originally labeled a “bust” has slowly built a steady (and now lucrative) NBA career for himself. Though he’s already 30 years old, his defensive versatility and perimeter touch is an underrated part of Charlotte’s surprising play on both ends of the floor.
With Williams locked in for the long-term, the Hornets made sure they had two of their most important free agents coming back for another playoff run in 2016-17.
Grade: A-
Next: Signing Sessions
Signing Sessions
With Jeremy Lin leaving in free agency for the Brooklyn Nets, the Hornets badly needed a backup point guard/sixth man in the worst way. Ramon Sessions doesn’t really check off that prospective “sixth man” box, but he could be a useful backup to Kemba Walker.
On a team-friendly two-year, $12.3 million contract, Sessions will be suiting up for the ninth new stint of his 10-year career (with seven different teams). Sessions previous played with the Charlotte Bobcats in 2012-13 and part of the 2013-14 season before being traded to the Milwaukee Bucks.
Last season with the Washington Wizards, Sessions averaged 9.9 points and 2.9 assists in 20.3 minutes per game. He shot 47.3 percent from the field, 32.4 percent from three-point range and played in all 82 games.
However, Sessions has big shoes to fill with Lin living up to his sixth man role and then some, sporting the best per 36 minutes numbers since Linsanity first put him on the map in New York. This is a definite downgrade, but it’s a cost-effective contract for a serviceable backup at least.
Grade: B
Next: Hope For Hibbert
Hope For Hibbert
With Al Jefferson gone, the Hornets needed a backup center. Though he’s the complete opposite of Jefferson — with one being an effective back-to-the-basket scorer and woeful defender and the other being a pitiful scorer but a formerly effective rim protector — getting Roy Hibbert on a one-year, $5 million deal is hardly a risk.
Hibbert’s value has never been lower, coming off a season with the Los Angeles Lakers that was supposed to restore his reputation as a defensive stalwart and formidable interior defender.
Instead, he averaged just 5.9 points, 4.9 rebounds and 1.4 blocks per game, shooting a miserable 44.3 percent from the field and failing to prevent the Lakers’ defense from its league-wide ranking of dead last.
However, a one-year, $5 million flier is worth it for a player who was once in the Defensive Player of the Year Award discussion, especially since he’ll be joining a Steve Clifford-led team that takes pride in its defense. He’s no longer a starting-caliber center, but this is a quality pickup for the bench — even if it winds up being the final nail in the coffin of Hibbert’s NBA career.
Grade: B+
Next: Roberts' Return
Roberts’ Return
Ramon Sessions isn’t the only guard making his return to Charlotte, with backup Brian Roberts returning to the Hornets on a one-year, $1.1 million contract.
Roberts, who was with the team as recently as last season, was traded umpteen times at last year’s trade deadline but will make his return to the city where he struggled to find minutes behind Jeremy Lin.
Brian Roberts has a lot of respect for Nicolas Batum, who he now rejoins with the @hornets in Charlotte. pic.twitter.com/wMJ3HuRiTf
— David MacKay (@DavidMacKayNBA) July 6, 2016
Sessions’ arrival will make life interesting for Roberts once again, but having a third-string caliber of this caliber — especially on such a minuscule contract — can’t hurt. There’s no doubt he can perform when called upon, since he averaged 9.4 points and 3.3 rebounds per game and shot 36 percent from three-point range in his last season with the New Orleans Pelicans (2013-14).
Roberts doesn’t move the needle much, and like Sessions, he’s hardly a replacement for a backup of Lin’s caliber, but he’s a decent acquisition nevertheless.
Grade: B-
Next: Odds And Ends
Odds And Ends
To round out the edges of the roster, the Hornets added two fill-out-the-roster type Summer League players and Christian Wood, a former UNLV prospect with a keg of untapped potential — and no keg tap in sight.
Signed to a three-year deal with a team option for the second year, Wood averaged 3.6 points and 2.2 rebounds per game in 17 appearances for the Philadelphia 76ers last season. The lanky 20-year-old is coming off an impressive Summer League performance with the Sixers, averaging 15.8 points and 5.7 rebounds per game and shooting 56.2 percent from the floor.
He’s still extremely raw, but Wood is still young enough and possesses the physical tools to find a place in this league. It’s no-risk, potentially high-reward situation for the Hornets, and a great move on their part to snatch him away from Philly.
Next up is Trevor Graham, a 6’6″ shooting guard from VCU who went undrafted in 2015 and spent the last year playing for the Idaho Stampede in the D-League.
Graham averaged 16.0 points per game on .558/.385/.630 shooting splits for the Utah Jazz Summer League team and was signed to a three-year deal with the first two seasons being non-guaranteed.
Finally, the Hornets added Mike Tobey, another standout from Utah’s Summer League team. Tobey, a 7’0″ center from Virginia, averaged 10.0 points, 6.8 rebounds and 1.0 blocks per game and shot 66.7 percent from the floor in his five Orlando Summer League games.
Like Graham, Tobey is on a three-year deal with the first two years non-guaranteed.
Grade: C+
Next: Overall
Overall
Despite most of their individual moves being prudent, cost-efficient additions, we can’t ignore that the Charlotte Hornets will struggle to duplicate their success from 2015-16. Don’t forget, despite being eliminated in the first round of the playoffs, the Hornets were tied record-wise with the third seed that eliminated them.
The Hornets found replacements for their departing free agents, but we can’t ignore that they downgraded with each one of them. Ramon Sessions is no Jeremy Lin, Roy Hibbert is a completely different player from Al Jefferson who still has something to prove and even with Michael Kidd-Gilchrist returning, replacing Courtney Lee with Marco Belinelli hurts.
Again, the Hornets did about as well as could be expected with finding their replacements, and retaining Nicolas Batum and Marvin Williams ensures the Hornets will still (likely) be a playoff team in 2016-17.
More hoops habit: Atlanta Hawks: 2016 Offseason Grades
Charlotte took care of its two most important free agents, and with five players hitting the market, they chose wisely on that end. But it’s the unfortunate nature of the beast that there wasn’t enough cap room for everyone, and because of this, the Hornets may be a worse team next season through no fault of their own.
Grade: B-