Charlotte Hornets: 5 Reasons Behind Promising Start

4. Walker’s Improved Shooting

For the first four years of his NBA career, Kemba Walker was little more than an occasionally entertaining player who looked like he’d never approach that top tier. More specifically, he had topped the 40 percent shooting threshold only once, and his career high for three-point shooting was 33.3 percent in 2013-14.

There’s still plenty of time for this to change, but so far in 2015-16, Walker’s vastly improved shooting numbers have been a major factor in Charlotte’s quick turnaround. Walker has averaged just under 18 points per game for the last three seasons of his career, but the difference with this year’s 17.6 points per game is that he’s doing it on respectable .442/.367/.797 shooting splits.

With a little more offensive firepower around him in Batum, Lamb and Lin, Walker is taking 1.4 fewer field goal attempts per game than he did last year. His recent 2-of-16 performance against the Warriors doesn’t do much to help prove this point, but still, Walker has been more efficient than ever this year.

He’ll probably never be a top tier point guard in this league, but this new Kemba that’s semi-efficient and can spread the floor from three-point range has been a huge boost to Charlotte’s offense.

Next: No. 3