Charlotte Hornets: Reasons to be excited in a rebuilding year

5. Finding out who in the young core the team can build around

The Charlotte Hornets have a few young players on their roster who should get some run, especially once the losses start to pile up and the franchise loses all pretense of trying to make the playoffs.

Willy Hernangomez is a rebounding machine, grabbing 13.8 boards per 36 minutes last season, and he’s showing signs of being able to stretch the floor offensively as his 3-point percentage clocked in at 38.5. Sure, that was on 39 attempts, but if he can venture outside and knock down shots, that could augur very well for him in the future developing into a Brook Lopez type of player.

He also made first team All-Rookie in 2016-17, so he’s had some talent from the get-go.

Miles Bridges is in Year 2 of his rookie deal, and while his shooting stroke isn’t there yet (32.5 percent from 3 in 2018-19), he was a plus defender with a positive Value Over Replacement Player, so there is plenty of room for his offensive game to grow into his defensive instincts.

And whatever else can be said about Rozier, a putrid career 40.4 percent shooter on 2-point shots and 35.4 on long balls, he averaged 16.5 points per game in the playoffs on a 2017-18 Celtics team that had neither Gordon Hayward nor Kyrie Irving due to injury but still came one LeBron James away from the NBA Finals as the Eastern Conference Finals went seven games.

Rozier is still only 25. It’s possible a change of scenery will help him.

Sadly, it’s hard to find anything nice to say about Malik Monk here after two straight seasons of sub-40-percent field goal percentages, epic-level atrocious defensive advanced stats, and a net minus-1.1 VORP. He can’t shoot, he can’t defend, and Charlotte picking up his team option for Year 3 is like throwing water on a grease fire.