Charlotte Hornets: 2016 Offseason Grades
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