Charlotte Hornets
When you only have to pay your best player and all-star $12 million a year, it gives you plenty of cap space to build around him. It’s a good thing, ask the Warriors. When you are paying more for other players who don’t bring nearly as much to the table, it is not a good thing. That is where the Hornets are for at least another season.
Dwight Howard’s contract was traded for Timofey Mozgov’s, essentially shedding about $7.8 million next year but still being on the hook another season for his $16.7 million. Nicolas Batum will be making nearly $25 million, another $25+ million will go to Marvin Williams and Cody Zeller. These are solid players but none of them will give you on court production close to their cost. Even if rookie Miles Bridges exceeds all expectations it wouldn’t be enough to make a contender out of this squad.
The Hornets are, simply put, not good enough to compete with the current roster and don’t have the assets or cap space to make significant improvements to become good enough. Kemba Walker is still on an incredible contract for another season, the time has come for the organization to sell as high as possible. It would not be out of the question to receive multiple draft picks and a young promising player for a point guard of his caliber on such a team friendly contract. It should happen, the only question is if MJ and the front office be willing to part with the possibly the only successful draft pick they’ve had so far.
Verdict: Rebuild