Loser: Charlotte Hornets
You can make the argument that the Charlotte Hornets were right to let Kemba Walker go. He’s a small point guard who’ll be 33 by the end of his new deal and whose game may not age all that well, and they’re a team that would be mediocre with him and terrible without him. They weren’t going to be contending either way – maybe the best option was to let their bad contracts run off the books and start from scratch?
That idea went out the window, though, when they added another bad contract on the first day of free agency. In Terry Rozier, they have another small point guard who has never shot over 40 percent from the field, never started more than 16 games in a season and never shown more than brief glimpses of long-term starting potential.
Not only did the Hornets sign him, they signed him to a deal worth $58 million over three years. For reference, that’s only around $200,000 less than they paid Kemba Walker for his entire eight-year tenure in Charlotte. And to top it all off, early reports say that all three years of the deal are fully guaranteed.
The Hornets seemingly had a decision to make – keep trying to build around Kemba on the fly and risk mediocrity, or clear the decks and tank like hell. Somehow, they’ve ended up with a team that will tank, but a salary sheet that thinks it’s contending.