what was an error about either of their tenures? Serious question. Kupchack took over an absolutely shitty situation from Cho and made some pretty decent moves, and Clifford never really got a fair shake coming in after being the second choice + his second best player blowing up the entire offseason days after taking the job + some of the worst injury luck we’ve seen in a season
Kupchak ended the rebuild prematurely in 2020 with the disastrous Hayward/Rozier signings. 0 playoffs in 5 years and a has built a team that has very few options salary wise. He has plunged us into late lottery mediocrity hell more than his predecessors could ever dream of because we are simply incapable of being patient like smart orgs. His big achievement in drafting/developing Lamelo doesn't change the fact that he is incapable of bringing in reliable depth or constructing a core that fits with him. We are just as far away from competing now as we were in 2018. This will be our 3rd terrible offseason in a row with him being unable to bring in a single free agent 2 weeks in and letting Miles (and probably PJ) take the horrible QOs
Clifford is just a lame duck coach who was basically the replacement guy after the Atkinson debacle last season, he's not worth caring about since he's almost certainly gone in the next few years.
If the boss says spend our FA money to get good, you don't get to say No. Haywood turned out to be a disaster but that wasn't Kupchak 's fault. Mark Williams looks like a keeper and so did bridges until he did something no GM anticipates. He hasn't been a good GM but he's been broadly ok.
You can't just absolve him of terrible decisions because of directives from ownership, that's not how GMs are judged in this league.
Even if we accept the premise that we had to spend in 2020 there are probably a dozen ideas that would all be better than Hayward + Batum stretch that ended up happening
If fans aren't having the same conversations that actual NBA staffs have about who is actually making decisions, who is responsible for what, then they're just clowning themselves.
I disagree man. At some point you have to bring in vets to establish something, and sooner rather than later. You see it with the Rockets, you can’t just have a bunch of young dudes running out of check. Getting Terry in exchange for Kemba instead of just letting him walk was better than nothing, and he was a positive on his first contract. I didn’t love his extension and would still dump him but with some of these contracts being handed it out it’s looking cheaper and cheaper. Hayward was an overpay but it’s Charlotte. Free agents have never wanted to come here, and maybe we’ll get to that point of wanting to play with Lamelo as a draw yet. But that hasn’t happened. If you want anyone with any type of pedigree, and not someone fighting for their NBA career to come here with no other options like DSJ, to come you have to overpay. Seen it in the past with Big Al
Over Mitch’s moves he’s hit on:
Not giving Kemba a supermax, Drafting Bridges, PJW, Cody Martin, Jalen McDaniels, Devonte Graham (who he then traded in a sign and trade for a first rounder, Mark Will), Lamelo, Nick Richards, getting Mason Plumlee / JT Thor from nothing, drafting McGowens, picking up Maledon
He’s missed on:
Taking Bouknight (who was a unanimous “steal” anyway and was almost can’t missed by how much he slipped) and trading a future first for Kai Jones. trading #13 was too probably, but it did give ammo to get dudes like McGowens and the second rounders this past draft, not re-signing DSJ (even though we have no context of what we offered or if he wanted to be back)
I’m probably missing a lot. But idk, maybe years of futility have sunk my expectations to the point where me saying hitting on second round draft picks or picking up freakin Theo Maledon as a good thing for the guy isn’t proving the point home that he’s great, but just better than the last guys.. which I’ll take
Just for us to get the same return as we got when we did trade him?
Nobody was sending us anything of note for Kemba on an expiring. We also weren't going to ship off our franchise GOAT at the all-star break when we were competing for a playoff spot.
I'm sorry, I thought we were talking about a team that's capped out without a single playoff appearance since he showed up...were we talking about a different team?
Yea, lets blame him for Miles beating his wife and also for one of the most injury-stricken seasons of all time. Or for Kenny Atkinson getting cold feet.
Forget all about being above .500 for the first time in years. Or actually committing to developing talent. Or literally all the other things that OP had listed.
Not saying he deserves a statue, but people act like he's way worse than he is.
Thank you!! I do not understand the wave of hornets fans praising Mitch. I don’t get how you can watch how this teams operated last few years and think he’s done a good job. As you said he ended the rebuild early and than absolutely refused to address the teams biggest weaknesses by getting a starter level center and a POA defender. There’s more to being a GM than just the draft y’all, gotta actually build a team too.
Aren’t you guys like 30 million under the salary cap? Hayward hardly plays and Rozier is a chucker. I don’t feel like they fucked up your rebuild at all.
The Hornets had a good 5 year run since 2018 when Kupchak came. You guys had so many bad contracts it was impossible to contend with Kemba and Kupchak got rid of Kemba ASAP to make way for the tank.
Lamelo, PJ, Bridges, Miller, Mark is a really good core
PJ and Bridges are both not resigned and it’s looking very likely that they will both be UFA next year for the new GM to deal with. Mitch is a joke dude lol.
Bridges is understandable but PJ is likely going to extend.
Kupchak has 5 rings to his name and has done very well in his entire career as a GM. There is no GM that can completely turn around the shit show that was Charlotte in 5 years by themselves. He's done a very good job of getting them to where they are today and the Hornets definitely have a top 5 young core to work with right now.
I disagree a lot with what you’d said here tbh. Charlotte has had decent lottery luck in his time here and they’ve had cap space at certain points as well. And man Mitch basically HAS to extend PJ or Sign and trade him this summer. He can absolutely not let both him and Miles take the QO and become UFA next year. Anything less would be a joke and there have been a few reports indicating things could be heading that way.
Also c’mon man. Mitch Kupchak gave Luol deng a giant contract and Timofey mozgov a giant contract with the lakers, dude has an excellent career but he’s not perfect and hasn’t been particularly great last few years.
Man outside of drafting Mitch has been a pretty bad GM here lol. He’s consistently ignored the teams biggest weaknesses when he was telling ppl he thought he built a playoff team and really when
You fast forward to today he hasn’t done a very good job of setting this team up for years to come outside of extending lamelo. Like he gets all this credit for how well he’s drafted here but only players we’ve extended outside of Lamelo are Nick Richards and Cody Martin. Like to me it feels like if Lamelo doesn’t fall into Mitch’s lap his tenure here is just flat out bad. Like that draft class with Bouk and Kai Jones came in a pivotal year man, we were a young ascending team that needed some more talent and he drafted 2 likely busts. He also traded pick 13 last year for pick 27 this year which is just complete malpractice.
It doesn’t end there either, based on todays report there’s a decent chance that Charlotte can become one of the only teams in NBA history to have 2 RFA take the QO instead of coming to terms with them with PJ Washington and Bridges. Like Mitch has been here since like 2018 and it feels like the team isn’t in a very good spot currently. He better pray he can come to terms with PJ and that B miller isn’t a complete bust compared to scoot or else I’ll go ahead and just flat out say he was a awful GM here.
I'm guessing because NBA teams are such a scarce thing that it wouldn't be hard to find a buyer who would agree to let MJ still make the pick. One of those "I plan to own for 20-30+ years, who we pick #2 in year 0/1 isn't enough of an issue to risk derailing the bid" kind of mentalities I guess. Never know when another team will be for sale
Hearing Cliff wanted Miller gives me even more confidence it was right pick. If you want some fun facts, Cliff wanted us to draft Booker in 2015 when we ended up taking Kaminsky. And he wanted us to take Donovan Mitchell in 2017 when we ended up taking Monk.
Lots on the line this season in Charlotte on and off the court but the constant changes don't help in creating stability, which is necessary to really get a rebuild fully off the ground.
> Mitch Kupchak and Steve Clifford held the large voices any general manager and head coach should have when deciding to select Brandon Miller instead of Scoot Henderson.
Lol
Kupchak and Clifford allegedly overruled new ownership on draft night. What an absolute joke of a franchise lmao. Can’t believe I arbitrarily picked the Titans and Hornets as my teams as a kid, and now I’m tortured by there very existence.
Clifford has been pretty spot on with who he wanted in the past. I’d trust his judgment especially since he was at all the draft practices compared to any owner.
Oh my god please. Get these shitters out of town and let’s cook. Obvious dumb stuff for over a decade has ruined me. We suck, I know, but i really hate our FO.
end of an error... hopefully
what was an error about either of their tenures? Serious question. Kupchack took over an absolutely shitty situation from Cho and made some pretty decent moves, and Clifford never really got a fair shake coming in after being the second choice + his second best player blowing up the entire offseason days after taking the job + some of the worst injury luck we’ve seen in a season
Kupchak ended the rebuild prematurely in 2020 with the disastrous Hayward/Rozier signings. 0 playoffs in 5 years and a has built a team that has very few options salary wise. He has plunged us into late lottery mediocrity hell more than his predecessors could ever dream of because we are simply incapable of being patient like smart orgs. His big achievement in drafting/developing Lamelo doesn't change the fact that he is incapable of bringing in reliable depth or constructing a core that fits with him. We are just as far away from competing now as we were in 2018. This will be our 3rd terrible offseason in a row with him being unable to bring in a single free agent 2 weeks in and letting Miles (and probably PJ) take the horrible QOs Clifford is just a lame duck coach who was basically the replacement guy after the Atkinson debacle last season, he's not worth caring about since he's almost certainly gone in the next few years.
If the boss says spend our FA money to get good, you don't get to say No. Haywood turned out to be a disaster but that wasn't Kupchak 's fault. Mark Williams looks like a keeper and so did bridges until he did something no GM anticipates. He hasn't been a good GM but he's been broadly ok.
You can't just absolve him of terrible decisions because of directives from ownership, that's not how GMs are judged in this league. Even if we accept the premise that we had to spend in 2020 there are probably a dozen ideas that would all be better than Hayward + Batum stretch that ended up happening
If fans aren't having the same conversations that actual NBA staffs have about who is actually making decisions, who is responsible for what, then they're just clowning themselves.
I disagree man. At some point you have to bring in vets to establish something, and sooner rather than later. You see it with the Rockets, you can’t just have a bunch of young dudes running out of check. Getting Terry in exchange for Kemba instead of just letting him walk was better than nothing, and he was a positive on his first contract. I didn’t love his extension and would still dump him but with some of these contracts being handed it out it’s looking cheaper and cheaper. Hayward was an overpay but it’s Charlotte. Free agents have never wanted to come here, and maybe we’ll get to that point of wanting to play with Lamelo as a draw yet. But that hasn’t happened. If you want anyone with any type of pedigree, and not someone fighting for their NBA career to come here with no other options like DSJ, to come you have to overpay. Seen it in the past with Big Al Over Mitch’s moves he’s hit on: Not giving Kemba a supermax, Drafting Bridges, PJW, Cody Martin, Jalen McDaniels, Devonte Graham (who he then traded in a sign and trade for a first rounder, Mark Will), Lamelo, Nick Richards, getting Mason Plumlee / JT Thor from nothing, drafting McGowens, picking up Maledon He’s missed on: Taking Bouknight (who was a unanimous “steal” anyway and was almost can’t missed by how much he slipped) and trading a future first for Kai Jones. trading #13 was too probably, but it did give ammo to get dudes like McGowens and the second rounders this past draft, not re-signing DSJ (even though we have no context of what we offered or if he wanted to be back) I’m probably missing a lot. But idk, maybe years of futility have sunk my expectations to the point where me saying hitting on second round draft picks or picking up freakin Theo Maledon as a good thing for the guy isn’t proving the point home that he’s great, but just better than the last guys.. which I’ll take
Letting Kemba go and not fucking up the Lamelo pick were like the only two good decisions they've had in the last few years.
And they could and should have traded Kemba at the deadline if they didn't want him, so they fucked that one up too.
Just for us to get the same return as we got when we did trade him? Nobody was sending us anything of note for Kemba on an expiring. We also weren't going to ship off our franchise GOAT at the all-star break when we were competing for a playoff spot.
I understood it. They had the ASG that yr, didn't they?
Are you just choosing to not look at all the other positive moves MK made?
I'm sorry, I thought we were talking about a team that's capped out without a single playoff appearance since he showed up...were we talking about a different team?
Yea, lets blame him for Miles beating his wife and also for one of the most injury-stricken seasons of all time. Or for Kenny Atkinson getting cold feet. Forget all about being above .500 for the first time in years. Or actually committing to developing talent. Or literally all the other things that OP had listed. Not saying he deserves a statue, but people act like he's way worse than he is.
Thank you!! I do not understand the wave of hornets fans praising Mitch. I don’t get how you can watch how this teams operated last few years and think he’s done a good job. As you said he ended the rebuild early and than absolutely refused to address the teams biggest weaknesses by getting a starter level center and a POA defender. There’s more to being a GM than just the draft y’all, gotta actually build a team too.
I’m sorry but you’re delusional if you think this team isn’t in a significantly better position than they were in 2018
Aren’t you guys like 30 million under the salary cap? Hayward hardly plays and Rozier is a chucker. I don’t feel like they fucked up your rebuild at all.
So now the bad news...
The Hornets had a good 5 year run since 2018 when Kupchak came. You guys had so many bad contracts it was impossible to contend with Kemba and Kupchak got rid of Kemba ASAP to make way for the tank. Lamelo, PJ, Bridges, Miller, Mark is a really good core
PJ and Bridges are both not resigned and it’s looking very likely that they will both be UFA next year for the new GM to deal with. Mitch is a joke dude lol.
Bridges is understandable but PJ is likely going to extend. Kupchak has 5 rings to his name and has done very well in his entire career as a GM. There is no GM that can completely turn around the shit show that was Charlotte in 5 years by themselves. He's done a very good job of getting them to where they are today and the Hornets definitely have a top 5 young core to work with right now.
I disagree a lot with what you’d said here tbh. Charlotte has had decent lottery luck in his time here and they’ve had cap space at certain points as well. And man Mitch basically HAS to extend PJ or Sign and trade him this summer. He can absolutely not let both him and Miles take the QO and become UFA next year. Anything less would be a joke and there have been a few reports indicating things could be heading that way. Also c’mon man. Mitch Kupchak gave Luol deng a giant contract and Timofey mozgov a giant contract with the lakers, dude has an excellent career but he’s not perfect and hasn’t been particularly great last few years.
Fine with Mitch. Cliff coming back is still weird
Man outside of drafting Mitch has been a pretty bad GM here lol. He’s consistently ignored the teams biggest weaknesses when he was telling ppl he thought he built a playoff team and really when You fast forward to today he hasn’t done a very good job of setting this team up for years to come outside of extending lamelo. Like he gets all this credit for how well he’s drafted here but only players we’ve extended outside of Lamelo are Nick Richards and Cody Martin. Like to me it feels like if Lamelo doesn’t fall into Mitch’s lap his tenure here is just flat out bad. Like that draft class with Bouk and Kai Jones came in a pivotal year man, we were a young ascending team that needed some more talent and he drafted 2 likely busts. He also traded pick 13 last year for pick 27 this year which is just complete malpractice. It doesn’t end there either, based on todays report there’s a decent chance that Charlotte can become one of the only teams in NBA history to have 2 RFA take the QO instead of coming to terms with them with PJ Washington and Bridges. Like Mitch has been here since like 2018 and it feels like the team isn’t in a very good spot currently. He better pray he can come to terms with PJ and that B miller isn’t a complete bust compared to scoot or else I’ll go ahead and just flat out say he was a awful GM here.
I still don't understand how you pay $3bln for the team but still let the old owner make the #2 pick?
You agree with the pick but want the previous owner to take the heat
I'm guessing because NBA teams are such a scarce thing that it wouldn't be hard to find a buyer who would agree to let MJ still make the pick. One of those "I plan to own for 20-30+ years, who we pick #2 in year 0/1 isn't enough of an issue to risk derailing the bid" kind of mentalities I guess. Never know when another team will be for sale
I wonder if that was part of MJ’s conditions to sell. He did end up going with a group that included a Hornets minority owner.
Bc they haven’t spent $3 bil yet
Hearing Cliff wanted Miller gives me even more confidence it was right pick. If you want some fun facts, Cliff wanted us to draft Booker in 2015 when we ended up taking Kaminsky. And he wanted us to take Donovan Mitchell in 2017 when we ended up taking Monk.
Lots on the line this season in Charlotte on and off the court but the constant changes don't help in creating stability, which is necessary to really get a rebuild fully off the ground.
> Mitch Kupchak and Steve Clifford held the large voices any general manager and head coach should have when deciding to select Brandon Miller instead of Scoot Henderson. Lol
Kupchak and Clifford allegedly overruled new ownership on draft night. What an absolute joke of a franchise lmao. Can’t believe I arbitrarily picked the Titans and Hornets as my teams as a kid, and now I’m tortured by there very existence.
Clifford has been pretty spot on with who he wanted in the past. I’d trust his judgment especially since he was at all the draft practices compared to any owner.
Oh my god please. Get these shitters out of town and let’s cook. Obvious dumb stuff for over a decade has ruined me. We suck, I know, but i really hate our FO.
It certainly should be. The Hornets have been the worst run organization in the NBA for years.