Leaping ability is also a big factor in being successful in the NBA, and Zeller's standing vertical leap at the combine was the highest of any big man in the past 10 years. When you consider that he can leap half a foot higher than most PFs, his short wingspan becomes less of an issue.

7/2/2013 1:13:28 AM

Jefferson is below average and expensive. Lot of talent available to go after a guy like him instead.

Zeller cant rebound so I doubt he can play in the nba

7/2/2013 6:46:35 AM

You don't have to be five tool to be a great player in professional sports. This is simple stuff here, face. I'm almost embarrassed for you with statements like that.

As for Jefferson, it is quite telling that not a single playoff team is after him. Please don't overpay and fuck this up now Hornets.

7/2/2013 9:24:05 AM

Sign Hickson and make us NCSU people a little less pissed off

7/2/2013 10:17:17 AM

zeller is a PF who doesn't rebound, isn't a good defender and gets his shit blocked waaay more than a guy his size should.

but hey, he can shoot and he can run fast.

he definitely fits a glaring need the horcats have, but not with the #4 pick. DONT DRAFT FOR NEED.

[Edited on July 2, 2013 at 12:03 PM. Reason : .]

7/2/2013 11:57:28 AM

Actually ribs you have it exactly backwards. If you employ a guy at center or power forward who doesn't rebound its nearly impossible to win in the nba. If you do, you better pair him with a rebounding monster like shaq, howard, rodman etc and some wings who can help pitch in.

Guys like bargnani or dirk at this stage of his career are nearly impossible to overcome.

I dont see a rebounding monster on our roster.

In all likelihood zeller is a monumental bust. His ceiling is probably 7.5 rebs. He may even suck worse and pull 5-6

7/2/2013 1:49:56 PM

Quote :

"he definitely fits a glaring need the horcats have, but not with the #4 pick."

Who should they have taken at 4? I'm not a huge Zeller fan, but it's not like they had a lot of great options in this draft.

You basically had a shot-blocker with zero offense and a bum knee (Noel), a 7-foot guy who rarely stood out in college and might have a career-threatening injury (Len), and a shooting guard who can't dribble and disappears at crucial times (McLemore).

I would have rolled the dice on McLemore, but Zeller is a much safer pick and actually fills a need.

7/2/2013 1:53:14 PM

Quote :

"If you employ a guy at center or power forward who doesn't rebound its nearly impossible to win in the nba"

i think the idea of a stretch 4 is to open up the paint for the perimeter guys...if Zeller is standing 18 feet outside the basket, drawing a rebouding 4 out with him, that opens up driving lanes for MKG or Kemba to take it to the hole

seems to work ok when Bosh does it for Miami

7/2/2013 1:55:01 PM

^^
Why would you roll the dice on a guy who can't dribble and disappears in crucial situations?

7/2/2013 2:16:30 PM

Youre right now if zeller, mkg, Henderson, and biyombo just improve to bosh, LeBron, wade, and birdmans level we are title contenders

7/2/2013 5:20:10 PM

Miami has won back to back titles with a PF who doesn't rebound

Dallas won a title a few years ago with a PF who doesn't rebound

I simply proved your point as being false, no need to use gross exaggerations to admit you're wrong

7/2/2013 5:41:31 PM

you know who else is a tall guy who can shoot? Jordan Collins. Maybe Charlotte should have just signed him.

seriously, to me zellerb just doesn't have enough positives to outweigh all the things he isn't good at. I guess Charlotte is just hoping they get the #1 pick next year so they can draft a real forward.

7/2/2013 7:56:52 PM

Lebron played pf predominantly for Miami in the playoffs the last two years so I wouldn't say thats true.

And Chandler is a top rebounding center and marion rebounds like a pf basically so they were able to overcome minor rebounding weakness by dirk. Dirk is an awful rebounder now. If dallas really trades marion, loses collison and wright they are Bottom 7 team next year probably.

7/2/2013 8:56:50 PM

Quote :

"@ESPNSteinLine: Al Jefferson is heading to Charlotte on three-year deal worth estimated$41 million with opt out after Year 2, sources tell ESPN"

classic bobcats

7/4/2013 1:49:33 PM

Marc Stein ?@ESPNSteinLine 1m

Al Jefferson is heading to Charlotte on three-year deal worth estimated$41 million with opt out after Year 2, sources tell ESPN

7/4/2013 1:49:41 PM

7/4/2013 2:05:30 PM

Since I am the only person on TWW who has ever seen Big Al play in person, I'm the resident authority here.

If anyone needs insight on his game, feel free to ask

7/4/2013 2:08:50 PM

With other teams tanking, err, rebuilding, will the addition of Jefferson be enough to get the Bobcats to not finish as a bottom 10 team? If so, MJ manages to give up his 1st round pick in a presumed-to-be good draft to the Bulls

7/4/2013 2:26:54 PM

Thanks for the question. The answer is yes

7/4/2013 2:30:09 PM

so we suck during the crappy drafts...and then when the draft is supposed to be the best it has been in years...we start signing marginal free agents to get us over the Bottom 10 team hump and outside of any chance to get a very, very good player. SMART!

7/4/2013 3:04:06 PM

We should've tanked the next 8 seasons...then wed have a 25% chance at the best player in a loaded 2021 draft

7/4/2013 3:06:32 PM

on paper, a Kemba-Gerald*-MKG-Bismack-Al starting lineup looks fantastic. They should be a 50+ win team

7/4/2013 3:16:46 PM

^^Just saying...the whole philosophy with this team, I thought, was to start from scratch and build through the draft. Thats what we've done the past two years in crappy drafts. Now all the sudden, you have the best draft in years and we sign a free agent to make us better. Does that really make sense?

7/4/2013 3:55:50 PM

Any word yet on whether Jefferson is a future HOFer or a scrub that should be arrested for looking at a basketball?

7/4/2013 4:08:13 PM

^^i hear that but the shitty thing about the NBA draft is we could go 2-80 this year and only have a 25% shot at the number 1 pick

7/4/2013 4:38:37 PM

yeah but they'd be guaranteed at least a top 4 pick, which gives you parker, randle, smart or gordon, none of whom are slouches

[Edited on July 4, 2013 at 4:51 PM. Reason : .]

7/4/2013 4:50:30 PM

^thats the point I was trying to make. I realize we only have a 25% chance at Wiggins, and he is the big prize...but the consolations aren't all that damn bad. Especially when you consider that Al Jefferson isn't taking us to the promised land at 28 yrs old. He may help us get a couple more wins throughout the year this year...but hes on the downslope of his career and really doesn't seem to do much for this franchise moving forward.

7/4/2013 5:07:58 PM

Tanking is for bitches.

Jefferson addresses 2 of the Bobcats 4 big weaknesses: post scoring and rebounding. (The other 2 weaknesses are defense and outside shooting). Next season they will play semi-competitive basketball, and they still have a chance to have 3 first round picks in '14. If the young guys come along and they are able to land some talent in that draft, they should be in position to compete the following season. Jefferson will be just 29 and the rest of their young nucleus will be approaching their primes.

7/5/2013 9:59:00 PM

Its a disastrous signing. Hes an average big man. Worth about $8m / yr.

Iggy and millsap are both significantly better and went for less. We couldve gotten a younger, better, cheaper guy like brandan wright.

Just totally illogical and the guy will be untradeable. Congrats we are a 30 win team and screwed our draft pick and cap space for an old guy thats not very good

7/6/2013 11:07:14 AM

^Average? Come on Face. He's one of the best low-post scorers in the NBA ... maybe the best. He's got a baby hook shot that's impossible to defend and a couple of nasty go-to post moves (along with a good jump shot). He's also a good rebounder, good leader, and great locker-room guy.

Knocks are he's not that athletic, which hurts his defense/shot-blocking, but he's still a really, really good player and only 28. I still can't believe the Bobcats spent that much money on a free agent, but he's instantly the best post scorer this team has ever had.

7/8/2013 3:08:34 AM

Hes average. .098 wp/48. Worth a few wins but considetably overpaid and will hurt our rebuilding efforts considerably.

7/8/2013 11:47:40 AM

How does adding an average player hurt your rebuilding?

7/8/2013 12:12:04 PM

He hurts pretty bad. We could have used the cap space to sign good players or used it to trade for bad/ average players who are overpaid. When you do that teams will throw in draft picks or superflous good young prospects.

By signing Jefferson we lose cap room and gain nothing really.

Its been a really rough off season so far. Worse than the actual moves is the discovery cho doesn't have a clue. Hes in must win 30 games now to save job mode.

7/8/2013 7:38:41 PM

if Portland had picked Durant instead of Oden, I wonder if Cho would still be working in the NBA

7/8/2013 7:45:33 PM

hey, at least he's better than cody zeller.

7/8/2013 8:31:57 PM

Quote :

"By signing Jefferson we lose cap room and gain nothing really. "

I get that he cost a lot of money -- too much IMO -- but saying the team gains nothing from a guy who is a career 20/10 player is just too Face-ist

You do realize that the Bobcats had zero ability to score in the post, right?

You also realize the team has sucked at rebounding basically forever, right?

And you realize that, because of this, other teams could guard the Bobcats straight up without double-teaming the post, right? That's why the offense was almost entirely predicated on Kemba creating off-the-dribble or Henderson hitting a pull-up jumper.

And finally, you realize that Al Jefferson can score and rebound from the post as good as just about anyone in the NBA right?

7/8/2013 9:18:22 PM

Then why dont his shots go in more often? Hes just average. And hes too old.

You can't seriously believe he makes us a playoff team. This is a setback. Why did we dump all our good players and break the league record for worst record ever just to get Jefferson and zeller? Shouldn't we at least try to build a winner ?

7/8/2013 9:54:25 PM

Why do people like face want to "build a winner" by tanking and winning 10-20 games a year for 8 years in a row? So we can have the worst record in the league, and have a massive 25% chance to get some superstar who has yet to play a single college game? Fuck losing and having a losers mentality

If some people had their way, Kemba would be 35 years old before we finally make the playoffs, but its ok, because we'll be under the cap! And be able to have a 25% chance at an unproven commodity each year!

CJ Leslie looked pretty baller in his high school highlights too

7/8/2013 10:01:11 PM

You can only be terrible for so long. Otherwise you turn into the 90's Clippers and losing mentality pervades the entire team. I'll quote Zack Lowe from Grantland:

Quote :

"The Bobcats understand they are dealing with a major perception problem. There is being bad, and there is being a total embarrassment, and the Bobcats over the last two years have been the latter. That is untenable for a team holding a very fragile grip over its local market, likely losing money (before revenue-sharing), and carrying max-level cap space into the foreseeable future. The Jefferson contract is bad. There is no way anyone could have watched the NBA over the last few seasons and concluded Jefferson might be worth double Millsap over the potential length of their deals, and about $4 million more than Millsap over a per-year basis. He’s a slow-footed, not intuitive defender against the pick-and-roll in a league in which just about every team runs a pick-and-roll on every possession. Want to be depressed, Charlotte fans? Find video of the Spurs-Jazz series from the 2012 playoffs. And using up cap space on Jefferson early removed Charlotte from the list of teams that could have plucked an extra pick or two from Golden State in the Andris Biedrins–Richard Jefferson salary dump. There is always a cost to overspending one’s cap space — a lost opportunity to do something else, whether it’s snagging extra picks as trash ground for another team’s mistake, bidding on an amnestied player, or something else. But Jefferson is a very good offensive player, if an overrated one, and the Bobcats over the last two seasons have been just as terrible on offense as on defense. Jefferson shoots 49 percent like clockwork, draws near-automatic double-teams to his residence on the left block, and avoids turnovers at a historically unprecedented rate. He’s not ultra-efficient — he rarely gets to the line — but he’s efficient enough, and he’ll take a ton of possessions away from very bad offensive players dotting the rest of this roster. And there’s no long-term cap damage here, especially if Jefferson flees the scene after two seasons, as his deal will permit. Tyrus Thomas is the only other Bobcat on a non-rookie contract going forward, and the Cats have to vaporize his awful deal in order to sign Jefferson. Charlotte will still have max cap room next summer and (as projected) in 2015, and free agents will be more likely to at least consider the Bobcats then if they are a run-of-the-mill mediocrity and not a D-League outfit. And Jefferson does enough damage to his team’s defense that he can only lift a club so high. The Bobcats this season will still be bad, perhaps bad enough to snag a top-five pick even while improving their leaguewide standing. Win-win?"

[Edited on July 8, 2013 at 10:03 PM. Reason : 2]

7/8/2013 10:02:38 PM

well kemba is like the 25th best point guard in the league so who gives a shit how old he is

7/8/2013 10:03:13 PM

Its a terrible mistake. We coulda had brandon rush, 2 first round picks, richard Jefferson on year rental instead.

Rush is good and you want to add good young players and picks. Acquire assets not liabilities.

7/8/2013 10:31:37 PM

Wouldn't adding a superior player in Rush hurt Charlotte's rebuilding plans worse than acquiring a scrub like Jefferson?

I don't get what the hubbub is all about since Jordan & Co will screw up the pick regardless

7/8/2013 11:01:12 PM

With the first pick, in the, 2014, NBA Draft...the Charlotte Hornets, select...James Michael McAdoo, Forward, North Carolina

7/8/2013 11:19:04 PM

good narrative article on the hornets in the herald sun; I had no idea the fans were so intense early on, I can never picture that in the nba

7/14/2013 2:52:32 PM

Zeller looked good in summer league today

Ended up with 21 and 13

7/14/2013 8:41:03 PM

Zeller 18 and 10 today

7/15/2013 11:01:08 PM

Not buying it. Jeff taylor is destroying summer league. The competition seems worse than ever

7/15/2013 11:06:49 PM

Bobcats played against CJ Leslie and the Knicks today. CJ was pretty much CJ ... some amazing plays, some plays that make you shake your head ... but he was definitely the best player on the Knicks squad. He'll make some NBA team, even if it's not the Knicks.

Zeller looks really good. Crazy that a guy 7'0 can be that fast and agile. His post defense is still pretty terrible, but he is going to have a field day running pick and roll with Kemba Walker.

Also, I love MKG, but Jeff Taylor is looking like the best player picked in last year's draft. He has been unguardable at times. He's got a great shot and crazy athleticism, and he's a much better ball-handler/shot creator than I thought.

7/15/2013 11:10:52 PM

Cjl will definitely make the knicks. Their depth is horrid thanks to the awful stoudamire and bargnani contracts. They already guaranteed half his contract.

Still believe he will be out of the league within 2-3 seasons but im not rooting against him or anything

7/15/2013 11:15:25 PM

So when John Wall doesn't look good in summer league it's a sign he'll never be a good player, but when Zeller is killing it in summer league face isn't buying it.

Just trying to keep everything straight here.

7/16/2013 8:36:06 AM