Charlotte Hornets: Who has the inside track to start at shooting guard?

Kemba Walker needs consistent help in the backcourt to help get the Charlotte Hornets back to the playoffs. Who has the best chance to be his running mate?

Coming off their second straight season of missing the playoffs and winning only 36 games, the Charlotte Hornets have questions at nearly every position on the court outside of point guard. Kemba Walker is safe, and they even provided him with a quality backup.

The frontcourt should be interesting to watch with Cody Zeller returning from injury and Dwight Howard needing to be replaced. While Michael Kidd-Gilchrist was the default small forward last season, that could be in question with a new coach and to the drafting of an excellent two-way player in Miles Bridges.

However, the biggest question may be who plays shooting guard and joins Walker in the backcourt. Last season, a majority of minutes at shooting guard were played by Nicolas Batum, Jeremy Lamb and 2017 draftee Malik Monk.

Michael Carter-Williams, Julyan Stone, Treveon Graham and Dwayne Bacon also spent some time at shooting guard as well. However, MCW signed as a free agent with the Houston Rockets, Stone got traded to the Chicago Bulls in the Bismack Biyombo trade, and Graham is now with the Brooklyn Nets.

Taking up one of those free roster spots is two-way player J.P. Macura. Despite a four-year career at Xavier and a 37.7 percent 3-point shooter in his senior year, Macura will need big injuries to both Batum and Lamb to crack the rotation at shooting guard. Same goes for Bacon; he only played in 53 games last season and averaged just 13.5 minutes per game when he was in. To his credit though, his 8.8 points per 36 minutes could help him carve out a slightly bigger role this season.

That leaves us with three candidates to start at shooting guard for the Hornets. Nic Batum was used at shooting guard for the last two seasons under Steve Clifford, but according to his win shares and Player Efficiency Ratings over his career, the last two seasons were two of his worst.

We shouldn’t be surprised if he’s moved to his natural small forward role with new coach James Borrego in town. In the NBA today, your small forward needs to be able to hit 3-pointers all night and play defense, but MKG only fills the defensive role. Batum has only hit 35.5 percent of 3-pointers in his career, but MKG rarely takes a 3-point shot at all (and is an offensive liability most of the time).

Plus, it sounds like Batum is expecting the small forward role to be given to him anyway.

The “him” that Batum is referring to is Malik Monk. Batum had a follow-up tweet as well when the same fan hit him another comment.

This was all after Monk had a stellar Summer League performance. Batum isn’t wrong; he’s been a better player when playing at the small forward spot. If this does happen, that really leaves Charlotte with two candidates at the shooting guard position: Jeremy Lamb and Malik Monk.

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Generated 8/25/2018.

Monk was not used very often by the Hornets last season as he only played in 63 games and played more than 20 minutes in a game 16 times. On a per game average, Lamb out-produced Monk everywhere.

However, Monk did have three games in April 2018 where he scored 20 or more points in each of the contests. Both Lamb and Monk had just five games where they scored 20 or more points all season.

If we extrapolate their statistics and look at them on a per 36 minutes basis, the advantage doesn’t tip to Jeremy Lamb quite as much.

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Generated 8/25/2018.

On the per 36 minutes level, we see Monk would take over twice as many 3-pointers, but at his percentage last year, still only hit 3.5 of them per game. However, the possibility of being a bigger threat from behind the arc could play into his favor. It helps with the scoring gap, but Lamb is still highlighted as the better rebounder. Monk does get a category in his favor though, with his assists per 36 minutes.

In looking at their advanced stats from last year though, it’s not even close. The both have not-so-great Defensive Ratings, but Lamb still has the edge. He had a big advantage in PER, win shares and Offensive Rating as well.

Lamb has a clear advantage over Monk as the likely starter at shooting guard, but would he still have an advantage over Batum? The short answer is yes. Last year, Lamb out-produced Batum in both points per game and points per 36 minutes. Lamb had than advantage in both Offensive and Defensive Ratings as well as a higher PER and win share total. Batum wins when it comes to assists, but that’s about it.

Malik Monk has some great potential, but shouldn’t be rushed into a role he may be unprepared for after just one year of college basketball right before coming to the NBA. Though he’s considered undersized for the 2-guard spot, he will spend most of his time as a backup there with the addition of Tony Parker and Devonte’ Graham.

That leaves the door wide open for Jeremy Lamb to be the starting shooting guard for the Charlotte Hornets if Batum gets slotted back into his natural role. Even if he doesn’t, the statistics are there to back up Lamb’s case for the shooting guard job.