Hornets Not Expected to Pursue 'Marquee' Free Agents This Offseason
Despite a 27-55 record, don't expect there to be a complete turnover of the Charlotte Hornets' roster. Much of the team is under contract and the two key pieces that are not (Miles Bridges and P.J. Washington) are going to be top priorities for the front office, one would assume.
But as far as outside talent goes, the Hornets are going to be extremely cautious. They're not going to spend big dollars in free agency and they are more subject to making what Mitch Kupchak likes to refer to as a "savvy trade" rather than a blockbuster.
Why, you may ask? According to Kupchak, it's the result of being a small market franchise.
"It's always great to have cap room. I guess we could pursue marquee free agents. But the reality is our winning percentage in that pursuit might not be as high as it might be for others. So I've always felt with our team, our success is going to be through the draft and maybe making a savvy trade if we can. And then maybe one day we can get to the point where maybe a marquee free agent would look at our team and we're winning a bunch of games and they might say, hey, that's a place where I want to go. But right now, I don't think that's realistic. So we got to do it through the draft primarily."
The problem with that narrative is Sacramento, Milwaukee, Memphis, and New Orleans all have a similar market size, yet they're willing to make moves and spend money. So maybe what Mitch is saying here is that going after marquee free agents isn't impossible but that it has to be a calculated approach. It has to happen when the time isn't just right, but perfectly right. If you get ahead of yourself and put the team in a bind, it's hard to recover from that.
The biggest issue is that LaMelo Ball's contract and the timeline for the Hornets to compete don't quite align. Now, that could change with a little bit of ping-pong ball luck but the reality is this team is a couple of offseasons away from being a legitimate threat.
"I think the pieces around him right now are pretty good," Kupchak said. "And I think our younger players are going to get better. I really think that if we had our team intact this year, we would've won 43 games and maybe more. So the infrastructure's there. Can we improve it? Well, we've got assets to do it. We talked about the draft picks and we talked about the ability to be financially flexible. We've got some decisions we have to make on free agency. The booby prize in the whole thing is we're going to get a really good pick in the draft. Knock on wood. It's four right now. It could drop to eight, it could go to one."
So, should the Hornets pursue one "marquee" free agent to help show LaMelo a path to winning? It would make sense to. But do you consider Miles Bridges a "marquee" guy? Because that's probably the biggest name they'll entertain this offseason.
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