What Collin Sexton Brings To The Charlotte Hornets

What Collin Sexton Brings To The Charlotte Hornets

Since I obviously cover basketball content and it usually tends to fall into the niche area of the Utah Jazz, I felt like it made sense for me to cover the trade that obviously sent Colin Ston to the Charlotte Hornets. Now, I myself being a, you know, liver in the Charlotte area am absolutely ecstatic about that part. Um, now it is sad for Utah Jazz fans, of course, and since I cover them the most, it my heart goes out to them. At the same time, if you’re a Hornets fan, this video is geared towards you. Um, I know I don’t do it very often, but every now and then I like to sprinkle it in. Uh, because this is actually something that matters. Usually, I don’t cover the Hornets too much because it hasn’t felt I haven’t felt the love and the passion. some it looks fun sometimes, but overall it’s never really been something that I’ve been proud of enjoying. And growing up, uh you can’t see it on camera, but I have a Nick Batum jersey from those days. And my favorite player of all time, not the greatest player of all time, but my favorite player of all time across the entirety of basketball was Michael Cookie Gilchrist. And I have his signature and Nick Batum’s signature on that jersey. So I I love the Hornets. I I genuinely do and this is the first move that we’ve done aside from I felt a little bit towards the Grant Williams trade obviously but with Colin Ston there’s a different type of vibe and overall the offseason moves that they’ve made and even going into the draft their decisions that they made were net positives in all ways humanly possible which kind of compels me to want to speak on more so the Colin Sten area of things because I think that’s the most impactful addition that they aid above all else and then the overall Hornets outlook going forward as a whole. Now, if you’re new to the channel, of course, smash that like button, subscribe, cuz since Conexon came over here, I will be covering them more because I do think that they are more in the vibe of a winning organization. If you’re new to the channel though, um you should understand that most of my videos do end up being this way. Me talking to the camera, having a conversation with you, and hopefully you will, you know, uh converse back with me in the comment section. I do check those very frequently. But I don’t mince words. I don’t lie. I don’t show bias. And if I tell you that I have a feeling or an inkling of bias, I will let you know the bias in advance because I feel like it’s important in sports media not to just sit there and have crazy outlandish takes or to try and get really clickbaity with things and try and sell people on a narrative that just doesn’t seem feasible, doesn’t seem possible, doesn’t the stats don’t back it up. I’m a big numbers guy. It can get really boring, I know, but numbers numbers don’t lie. They can be used to skew things in the opinions of public, but they don’t lie. Men lie, women lie, numbers don’t. That will always ring true. Now, with those disclaimers out of the way, I love Colin Ston. Been watching him since his Pebble Rook days in high school, obviously in Alabama, going on to the Cavs, then over to the Utah Jazz, and now he’s with the Charlotte Hornets. A trade that I never thought was going to happen. I thought he was going to end up in the Western Conference, probably with the Lakers, it made the most sense to be a backup. But with the Hornets, it really fits astonishingly well, all things considered. Now, I it escapes me right now if Trey Man actually got resigned or if there’s if it’s still on the table right now. They’re still trying to work out a deal. But for Colin Ston, he’s obviously going to be playing the backup point guard role because you have Brandon Miller running the two right now. And that’s perfectly fine because last year, just to go over some numbers, and for those that didn’t watch, you know, Utah Jazz basketball, because if you’re a Hornets fan, you probably didn’t. Just calling a spade a spade. In just 28 minutes of play, he put together 18 and a half points, 2.7 rebounds, 4.2 assists. He had a little over half a steal. Negligible in the blocks category, but 48% from the field, 40.6% from three-point range on about 4.2 4.3 attempts a night. And then on four free throws a game, 86.5% which gave him a true shooting percentage, which was his lowest in Utah, by the way, of 59.3, which is incredibly high. Yes, you would be correct. Now, the reason why I love Colin Ston as a player, it’s the energy, it’s the vibe, it’s the it’s the sheer power of his presence. We understand he is 6’3, maybe 195, pushing 197. He’s not going to beat you with his length. He’s not going to beat you with some superb physical intangibles that most people just don’t have already on him. He is on the smaller side of guards, especially when you have so many big guards. I mean, in practice, heck, he’s going to be sitting there guarding the lamelo ball. So, it’s not going to be the most appetizing thing to see when you see him play defense. But the thing about Colin Sex in that you will always see no matter what. No matter if you’re up 15, down 30 in a tight ball game, he’s always going to give you 120% of his effort. He’s never going to sit there and not play a defensive possession. If the ball’s there to be taken, he will take that ball. If he can sit down on defense, he will sit down on defense. He communicates extremely well, especially coming into this season where the Charlotte Hornets obviously really vacated their front court pretty handsomely. Obviously, Nerk was the most recent one out the door, but they had already gotten rid of Nick Richards. They finally got rid of Mark Williams again after the failed, you know, send off that he previously had. And while they’ve bolstered their lineups just quite a little bit, and they’ve done well in the draft, you can understand that there’s going to be a lot of fitting and puzzle pieces getting mixed and matched around to see what the best lineups and combinations that you can run on the court are going to be. Colin Ston has a high IQ defensively. Like I said, he communicates well. He talks over screens. He’s fleet of foot. He does have really quick hands. He has great anticipation in passing lanes. He doesn’t really get hung up on screens too heavily. And he will always fight through, especially if the backside does not communicate that there is a screen coming because a lot of times you’ll see a guard, they’ll receive the screen. As soon as the screen makes contact with them, they give up on going over the screen. They then immediately decide to switch off and stick with that. And if you’re guarding a shooter, the shooter goes over the screen. The big that did not call out the screen doesn’t step up and plays drop coverage. That’s a butt naked wide open three. And you can’t have a lot of those, especially when you’re the Charlotte Hornets because teams expect that to happen. They expect you to be mud. They expect LaMelo Ball to be off the court and everything just falls apart. You can’t score. Now, LaMelo, if memory serves me right, shot a little over 11 threes a night uh last season for the games that he was available and shot about 34% on them. Just just north of 34%. That’s not great. the shot diet isn’t delicious enough, right? If he was hitting 36 37, if he was hitting 37% shooting 11 threes a night, it would be acceptable. But when you consider where league averages are in the league right now, it doesn’t make sense for them to be taking 11 threes and not hitting like that. We know that he doesn’t finish well through contact. We know he doesn’t finish well at the rim. He has nice floater bag, but he’s also extremely injuryprone, which obviously tells you why his shot diet is the way that it is. The thing that Conexton will give the Hornets for the first time is somebody that can alleviate some of that stress from the play creation standpoint. Now, he’s never had a season where he’s averaged north of five assists. However, the thing that he advanced the most on in Utah was his ability to create for others. Secondarily, his ability to change the pace of the way he plays. When you used to think of Colin Sex, you would think of Russell Westbrook without the dunking aspect. meaning he drives straight downhill at the rim and he will hit whoever is there with his shoulder and go up with the ball. He might get the foul call, he might not. The ball might just get sent out of bounds, but he’s going to do it 10 out of 10 times. He might shoot a three. This the three. He’s always been a pretty solid three-point shooter. So, that’s always been a viable asset to his game, but he’s always been one speed downhill. I’m attacking in Utah in his second season after he finally became, you know, 100% available and prepped to play. He played 78 games or so in that second year and we saw the growth. We saw the progression of him taking time to actually analyze what was going on on the court and playing a defac a deacto point guard role with the Utah Jazz. Now, he didn’t do it for the entirety of the season because they ultimately tried Keonte George at the point guard spot and it didn’t work. They tried it again last year with Keonte George and it didn’t work. And it the Keonte George experiment ended because Isaiah Collier proved to be the more ideal point guard. He can’t shoot yet, but he just averaged like nine assists a game, 11 assists a game on a over like a 25game stretch from March and April. So it was night and day and they decided to go that way which meant that by default Kex would end up being viewed as the undersized shooting guard. Consection can create for others. his pick and rolls, particularly with Walker Kesler and more so John Collins were the most impressive with John Collins. Obviously, he got shipped out from the Jazz as well, but there will be a lot of times where anytime he’s near the rim, that’s a shot attempt that he was liable to get. And that synergy between the two players was something that was really impressive and important to keep in mind. If Colin Saxon can become very in tune with guys like Miles Bridges, then you’ll see a lot of lobs happen. You’ll see a lot of pick and rolls with guys that can both handle the ball, that can both get their own shot off, and are both going to be efficient either way you have it. With Colin Ston, also, it’s important to take into account the fact that he is going on to his third team. So, there is going to be a rocky grace period. I believe probably about 15 to 17 games in. We’ll see what the scheme with him on the court is going to look like. Obviously, being a backup, he’s played that. He’s played himself into a starting role because when he first went to Utah Jazz, he was underneath Jordan Clarkson, which was a terrible idea. But once he got a starting role, he never looked back from it. This past season, he was extremely healthy. They did sit him a couple games just to make sure that the Jazz would lose. I don’t want people to think that Kexon is a losing player because he is not. Just like Larry Markin is not a losing player. If your team’s goal is to tank, it doesn’t matter how good you are, the front office will make sure that your coaches put the right guys in the game and limit minutes for other guys so that they can make sure you lose the correct amount of games. The Jazz were the worst team in the league last year. On paper, from a talent standpoint, they were not the worst team on the league. They might have been bottom seven. I would say I would say put them as high as 23 depending on a lot of factors, but they were not the worst team in the league. However, their record was that way because it was planned to be that way and they didn’t get the number one pick. So, go figure. But with Colin Ston, he is a winner at heart. He’s always going to play no matter what opportunity you give him with 110% intensity. So that means for a Hornets team that has historically since the Kimber Walker days not been able to win games and seems comfortable just sitting on the bench cheesing and laughing and joking when they’re down 15 20 points. Conc has never been that type of player. He’s the type of guy where even if he’s not on the court being the person that makes the highlight play, he’ll be the first person jumping up and congratulating people. When somebody makes a mistake, he’s going to nip it in the butt. He’s going to he’s going to poke at you a little bit and let you know what needs to happen next time. And he had a couple times last season where he got into it with Isaiah Collier. And Isaiah Collier grew from those moments because the way he came at it wasn’t disrespectful. It was, yo, what did you see right there? Because what should have happened was this, this, and this. And then Isaiah Collier had the conversation back with him. I saw this. I wanted to do this. And he says, okay, I see that, but and then it becomes a dialogue. And that’s the type of veteran you want in your locker room. somebody that can give knowledge to younger guys and even lead guys that are in his same age bracket because he’s going in as 27 years old I believe if memory serves me right 27 28 he should be 28 turning 28 this season so yeah he’s 27 right now and even in a world where he knows he’s not the star player he will always hold everybody accountable however the Hornets coaching staff needs to make sure that the players stay on par two can add as many loy as many leaders to the locker room as you want. But if the coaches don’t back those leaders, then there’s only but so far that they can have their authority be pressed. And there’s only but so much that the younger guys and the guys that don’t have that leadership position will actually trust in their word and take them serious. Colin Ston likes winning games. He didn’t like losing in Utah, but he liked the area of Utah. He liked the community of Utah. He liked the players he played with. So he sat. He wasn’t He wasn’t disrespectful to anybody. He wasn’t rude in press conferences. He just made it known that he wanted to play really hard at basketball and that’s what he was going to do night in and night out. Regardless of the win, lose or draw. He was going to make sure he gave it everything that he had on the court and that’s what he did. And so when it comes to him getting traded to the Charlotte Hornets, that’s what to me makes him the greatest addition. And the fact that you only had to give up Yousef Nic um who, if I’m going to be honest with you, was not going to win you. He was not going to be the differencemaker in games that mattered. Colin Ston can be on this roster going forward and he can alleviate pressure and guarantee that you don’t have to have LaMelo Ball on the court for 38 minutes a night to sit there and get you a win. Heck, you can play him on the court with LaMelo ball and LaMelo can play a lot more offball and be a little bit more relaxed on offense. he can exert himself a little bit more on defense and if you know the ankle and foot issues get fixed which I know is a tall ask these days because we still haven’t seen a full healthy season of LaMelo Ball you’re cooking with hot grease because obviously you have the talent you have a lot of young guys you have a lot of guys that are in their mid20s now that have the talent that have the ability to play at a high level who have not if I’m going to be honest been required to play at a high level because the excuse has always been Oh, well, our star players down. Ah, that’s tough. That sucks. And there have been some seasons where the tank where tanking was the expectation. That was the goal. I I’ll be the first to openly admit that. But at the point where LaMelo is healthy, Miles Bridges is healthy, Brandon Miller’s healthy, your entire bench is healthy, you have a lot of playable pieces. You add Colin Ston, you add the other trade targets that you had, and then you add in the rookie class coming into this year. Obviously, you still have to see some more growth from Salon. I remember earlier on in the summer league, he had a pretty solid outing. I can’t remember off the top of my head who he was playing against, but he was fairly efficient and defensively he looked solid. I always knew he was going to look solid defensively, but offensively we need to make sure that things, you know, pan out well. As far as a leader, Colin Sexon knocks out of the park. As far as a teammate, knocks it out of the park. As far as a leader in the community, he will knock it out of the park. Heck, the guy had a camp in with the Jazz that he was supposed to have in Utah on August, like early August, like August 2nd, August 3rd. And even after getting traded, he still said, “I’m going to have the camp because I promised the kids at camp, so I’m going to do that.” and having a person in your community from an organization standpoint. Those guys show your community why they should come out to Hornets games, why they should buy her, excuse me, why they should buy Hornets merch, why they should pay attention to the Hornets, even if they have a stretch of games where they’re struggling mightily. Having those type of players where you know they’re on the ground, like if you see them in the city, they’re not going to scoff and brush you off. They’re going to smile. They’re going to wave at you. They might even you might even get a sign. You might get a quick selfie and then they go about their day. They they have the energy and the vernacular and the ability to communicate in ways that you say, you know what, if we clone if my kid was hanging around with this type of NBA player me with and you can say if my kid was hanging around kids that had the same personality as that NBA player and did the same things that that NBA player did, obviously at a younger age, I would be comfortable with that. That’s the type of player Colin Saxon is. I’m not going to sit there and hit you with the well, he’s the perfect person that you would want your daughter to that you would want your daughter to date. Though I think it that might be true. That’s not the the angle I want to take with that. I just want to sit there and say that as a person and as a member of the community, I think that he will do wonders for Charlotte. And as he did as he did in Utah, I believe that it makes sense that he is going to be worth the money that he’s going to get paid. And as long as they do decide to resign him for more money, it makes more sense. Now, obviously, this year is going to be the big year that’s the heavy determiner of many things for the Hornets because if everybody’s healthy, the Hornets are, in my opinion, in my opinion, a top eight team in the East right now. Again, the injuries are the biggest thing because we can speculate as much as we want to. We can talk about the percentages. We could talk about how much Lamela can score. We could talk about how easy he can get a triple double. We can talk about how many times Miles Bridges kind of regressed last year, but he still has the ability to be a 20 and 12 guy. We can talk about all the times that Brandon Miller showed flashes. We can talk about all the times where sometimes the defense just really locked in and really got stops in clutch time when it really mattered. We can talk about when the Hornets played against the Lakers on the road, I believe, and they went off and ended up closing that game out. and you had LaMelo sitting there pointing up and down saying some words that I will not say. Um, but th those type of moments and I believe there are many more of those in the future and I think guys like Colin Sexon in this locker room are going to be imperative to your ability to build that culture to build that expectation and then to properly execute and obviously more on the actual basketball schematic side of things. I think you can live on the court if you have a lineup that consists of having say LaMelo Ston Miller or not Washington uh my brain my brain my brain Miles Bridges and whoever you want to run at the five spot you can go small that’s not even honestly small because you can put Colin Sexon out there you can have him run de facto point guard and move all those guys down a spot. Defensively, it’s going to be fine. It’s not going to be terrific defensively because those guys aren’t obviously stopping machines. They’ve never really shown that side. I would like to see it. I would like to see the intensity because a lot of times what Kaxon does is avoiding being a net negative on the defensive side of the ball. It’s very easy for himself to be excused in situations where he’s guarding somebody who’s 66 and they put him in a post up in the middle of the mid-range area and they off of spin can literally put their foot behind his hips and they’re gone. It’s very easy to sit there as a coach and say, “Oh, you know, it’s just cuz he’s smaller. It’s just cuz he’s littleer.” Right? It’s very easy to do. But Colin Saxon has never been one to accept that sort of copout. He’s never been the type of person who’s just going to get beat on defense and not scold himself and not openly say if there’s a pick and roll bust or there’s a coverage bust, not sit there and immediately when you’re on when he’s on camera, see him tapping his chest. See him immediately calling out that that’s not anybody else’s mistake. That’s me. Or trying to shout out what what he thought was going to happen and trying to have a conversation with somebody. For the Hornets, communication is going to be key. Secondarily, obviously, LaMelo Boss health is going to be key, but I also firmly believe that if you have a stent where LaMelo’s kind of hampering, if he’s hampered and he’s struggling with the injury and he’s kind of nursing it a little bit, you can sit LaMelo 5 10 games and you’ll be fine. Colin Ston is not that much of a drop from LaMelo ball. And the reason is LaMelo obviously is just much he can hit certain passing angles that Colin Ston just physically cannot. He’s a more gifted and natural passer than Colin Ston is. But as far as efficiency is concerned, Colin Ston is definitely more efficient than LaMelo. He’s more efficient downhill at the rim. He’s more efficient shoot. He’s more efficient shooting threes. Granted, he also takes half the number of attempts, but it’s also because he picks his spots with a with a reason, right? There’s a choice that he makes. He consciously decides the highest percentage opportunity that he has on the court at that time. And if it happens to be the three, then he’s going to take it. If it’s somebody else’s three, he’s going to swing it. If it happens to be a lob, the ball will be lobbed. I would like to also see one thing rub off on LaMelo Ball this upcoming season. And I love his ability to be creative and be I don’t want to say nonchalant, but to just go out there and do stuff, right? That’s what LaMelo Ball is most known for. He will dribble like he’s wearing like he’s the kid that came out of math class, crept into the gym and said, “Yo, let me get a shot real quick and then sit there in hoops with a backpack on for about 10 minutes.” That’s the way he plays. But at the same time, it’s so unpredictable. That can be his biggest asset a lot of times. For me, I believe that it makes the most sense for him to now at this stage in his career develop a more structured system of attack. So that his ability to free range and get creative and get freaky is the additional part of his game. That’s the part that everybody doesn’t plan for. But now it’s not the only thing that he has. He has a very structured way of playing offense. There’s a specific type of shot that he’s hunting when he comes down the court. And then if he can’t get that shot and he doesn’t like the other options, well then he’s just going to break you down with his dribble package and he’s going to get the shot that is available to him in that moment. And I think that I would like to see him be, for lack of better phrasing, right? And this is a this is a rough comparison to draw. I want him to be more like Kyrie Irving on offense, right? Kyrie Irving always has a shot that he’s looking for. However, if you take the shot away, he will take whatever you give him and he will make it his. That’s what I want from LaMelo. I think LaMelo has the opportunity to pick his shots. I think he has the ability to go out there and decide what he wants on offense and what he expects out of a possession, but I also want to see LaMelo go for that opportunity. And if it does not work, then you break it down. Then you change it up. then you become a lot more creative and I believe as a result of that that play style and that level of maturity being gained, you will see his percentages go up and that’s going to be the thing that not only makes him an all-star but puts him in a top three point guard conversation across the league. In my personal opinion, Tyrese Hallebertton to me is not a superstar for example. To me, LaMelo can be everything that Tyrese Hallebertton is and then some. It’s about him being available and him making the conscious decision to make the right plays like Tyrese Hallebertton does. The difference between them is their mentality. Tyresese Hallebertton plays within the structure of his offense. Whatever his coach tells him to do, whatever the play design is, he’s going to execute it. He doesn’t gamble. LaMelo was the polar opposite. LaMelo loves to gamble. I’m hoping that the addition of Colin Staxton will make it a little bit more structured and add a bit of predictability, if you will, against opposing teams, but also allow them to be more caught off guard when LaMelo decides to go off script. And I know I dragged this video uh a little bit longer than I actually planned on it, but if you made it this far, number one, I appreciate you. Uh secondly, I hope that you did learn something. If nothing else, you know, just the sheer numbers of that I spout out earlier regarding Colin Ston’s, you know, metrics from the previous season. His ability to be healthy, you won’t have an issue with that unless I think he had a thumb injury earlier on last year. But aside from that, availability is never going to be a problem. His mentality is never going to be a problem. He’s never going to be okay losing. He’s never going to be keying and all that on the bench when they’re down 30. That’s just not in him. Dare I say he might be itching to get back in the game and do something, right? It it doesn’t even matter if he want if he can push it and y’all lose and we lose by, you know, 27, right? Heck, that’s that’s that’s better than 28 in his brain. That’s just the way he’s wired. And that’s why he’s called the young bull. That that’s his nickname. He is the young Bull Conton. And I know I have uh his Utah Jazz jersey still here just like I have Lonzo’s Bulls jersey. And I need to get uh new jerseys across the board because the only player jersey that I have currently I also have his uh his Cavaliers jersey. Y’all can’t see it on screen, but um I’m going to be getting, you know, a Charlotte Hornets Colin Saxon jersey. And I will hopefully um obviously ticket prices dependent going to quite a few of those games. And the one that I do know that I went to last year that I will be going to again this year is when the Utah Jazz come to Charlotte to play because obviously I cover the Jazz most of all. But I think this is going to be the first time in some time where I look at the Charlotte Hornets and I don’t expect them to be a losing franchise. I don’t expect them to be a bad team for an entire year. I expect them to have rough rough stretchings. I expect them to struggle to put together their pieces. I expect them to struggle with lineups, to struggle with team chemistry, to struggle with, you know, hot and cold shooting nights between players and trying to figure out who’s the hot hand and who you can rely on. I expect that. But I don’t expect them to be bad like they have been. I don’t expect them to struggle the way they have been. I expect them to genuinely be a team that you want to turn your TV on and watch, right? And, you know, we we don’t, you know, support the the the sites that aren’t the main NBA ones, right? But it should get to a point where everybody in Charlotte when the games come on, they’re watching a Hornets game. And I believe that Conex out of all the additions that they made this this offseason and they made some very positive moves. I think his was the most obvious victory trade because all you had to give up was Nerkage and it’s night and day. And then on top of that, I think there was also a second round draft pick, which granted probably won’t turn into anything, but it’s still there and it’s still yours. So, you won the trade by a landslide and you got something that you desperately needed, which is a playmaker that can also score incredibly efficiently off the bench or in a starting role and can alleviate a lot of the stress from your star player who is incredibly injuryprone in LaMelo Ball. But if you made it this far in the video, like I said, I appreciate you. Smash that like button, subscribe, turn on post notifications. Uh, drop any questions or thoughts in the comments below. I’m love I’ll love to have a conversation with y’all. Uh, and I’ll probably be making a follow-up video obviously once the season starts getting underway or potentially after the summer league ends depending on how the players do overall. And with that being said, good morning, good evening, and good night no matter where you’re in the club watching. Thanks for tuning in and I’ll catch you guys in the next one. Peace. [Music]

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In this video we discuss the Collin Sexton trade to the Charlotte Hornets and how trade is their best of the off-season while also elevating their team in the direction that hasn’t been successfully travelled in some time.

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