BOUNCE BACK: Kon Impresses in Summer League | Hornets DOMINATE Mavs | Hornets Make MORE Roster Moves

BOUNCE BACK: Kon Impresses in Summer League | Hornets DOMINATE Mavs | Hornets Make MORE Roster Moves

It may have taken a little while, but Khan finally showed us why he was the fourth overall pick. An excellent third quarter. We’ll discuss the second summer league for Khan and give you some updates on what’s happening in the Hornets sphere. That’s all today. Locked on Hornets. You are Locked on Hornets, your daily Charlotte Hornets podcast, part of the Locked Onet. Your team every day. in a minute cuz we live. It’s Locked on Hornets, part of the Locked On podcast network. It’s your team every day. Thanks for making us your first listen. We’re free and available anywhere you get your podcast. And that does include YouTube. There’s Doug Branson. Find him on his Substack. Every hornetsboxcore.com. Subscribe already. Come on, subscribe already. Every hornetsboxcore.com. Do it with locked on NBA as well. Make that your second listen. Doug is hosting that alongside Matt Moore and Hayes. I’m Walker Male. Listen to me, WFNZ, every weekday from 12 to 3:00 p.m. 927 FM. Again, Weston Walker every weekday 12 to3. This episode is brought to you by FanDuel. We appreciate them as always. Right now, new customers can get $150 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. So, go to FanDuel right now. Do that as well. Go to FanDuel. Okay. setting up the scene after the first summer league game for Khan Canipple, the fourth overall pick. A pretty divisive pick with Khan being selected there with Ace Bailey on the board. Trey Johnson, a lot of people were fans of Trey Johnson. He’s been killing it in summer league. So, pretty divisive pick. Khan goes out there first summer league game, misses every shot except for a wideopen dunk. All right, that’s that’s nice. Two-handed dunk off two feet showing that you got some verticality. Okay, maybe there’s a tiny tiny bit of questions answered there, but that was the only bucket that you hit. First quarter, first half really of that summer league game. He had four assists, couple turnovers, but showed some playmaking. Felt like it was a decent enough floor game, decent enough defense, but second half of that first summer league game. Yeah, lot left on the table. We were a little scared, little butt tight, suffering from a little lemon booty. All right, it’s just one game. I know it’s just one game. Logic tells me it’s just one game, but I’m scared. Please talk me off the ledge. Well, what was going to help us talk you off the ledge was a good game from Khan in summer league game number two. He doesn’t play. This was always going to be the plan. He had that ankle injury, but he doesn’t play summer league game two. It’s like, oh, okay. All right. But he’s coming back. He’s coming back on Monday against Dallas. And the first half of this one, Doug, the first half of summer league game number three, number two for Khan, he did some things. He hit a three and it was an excellent three actually. It was a really, really tough shot. He pulled the trigger really quickly. Awesome stuff there. I think it was a flare action for him. So, good stuff. Had a couple nice passes. Still, we wanted to see why should Khan be the fourth overall pick above a Trey Johnson whose ball and an Ace Bailey looked good in his second summer league game. They go to halftime and then he comes out in the third quarter and Doug I thought was just fantastic. And I I’m I was try I want to be careful with the words I use, but I thought he was really really good. Like fun. I think surpassed a level of what people had just been hoping for from him in the first couple summer leagues games where Okay, he doesn’t look very good in game number one. Now I just want baseline. Can you give me a couple made threes and 12 points? Now the bar is lower for you. Low bar. Cheers. the bar is lower for you just so I can deal with this pick and not have to deal with the pain all of the offseason long before we get to the regular season. But he surpassed in the third quarter. I thought the playmaking was like electric factory stuff. The the the rebound the rebound pass simultaneously. Oh my god. To Caulk Brener that was fantastic. manipulating the defense with what you wanted to do, dishing out punishment rather than just taking it on and trying trying to have other people bounce off of you. You were dishing it out. And the shot making I I was I was really really happy with what Khan did specifically in the third quarter. Really the second half on ball reps galore was really good. Really good with the on ball reps getting spacing. Loved what I saw, Doug. Just flat out really happy with what I saw from Khan Kiple last night. First of all, if you’re watching on YouTube, know Walker and I did not coordinate on our wardrobe today. Even though our color palettes are very similar, I think our thoughts on Khan Kenniple are going to be very similar in that I was also impressed with him. And I would Yeah, I would throw the second quarter in there, too. It really picked up in the second half. I thought when he came out of the game or when he came into the game in the first quarter, start of the first quarter, KJ Simpson and Jaylen Sims were taking a lot of shots and I’m going, can we just can we please oh my god, can we please just have some awareness here and get this ball to Khan Canipple and let him do a few things in Vegas. Then Khan sits Khan checks back in with a bench unit. I guess it’s all bench units in Vegas, but but a but a Vegas bench unit and then he starts to take control. And I honestly wonder if like he went back to the bench and someone came over to him and said, “Hey, you’re going to check in with the bench unit and you need to just you just do everything. Do I want you to do everything, take control?” And I and I thought he did that. The I look, he needed this. Fans needed this. The idea that, you know, he was doing things that weren’t on the stat sheet and he didn’t need to we didn’t need to see this. It was okay. is he’s going to be fine when he gets to play with LaMelo Ball and Brandon Mil. Like, come on. Like, we needed to see him take control of a summer league game. That’s what top five picks do, particularly when they’re in decent to good drafts. They need to come in and show they can take over for a quarter or take over a game. And Coniple did that in this one. You know, pump fake steproughs. We were seeing a variety of the things that we saw on tape at Duke. he was able to translate those things to a little bit raised competition um in Vegas and it was very nice to see and the shot making like and and as you said it was tough shot making but they were running actions to get him that because look Khan Canipple it’s going to take him some time I think to develop the craftiness necessary to get NBA open off of his own bounce and honestly he may never like super excel at at, but he’s going to have to develop it if he ever wants to make an all-star team at some point to be more than, you know, just a catch and shoot guy in the corner that’s making plays off of LaMelo Ball and Brandon. But that’s going to be his role year one. But it’s going to take some time for him to develop that craftiness. But he had to show it a little bit against the summer league competition and he did. No, he did. You know, there were there were some times where they’re they’re running him off of screens a lot, but I just think he’s tremendous off of screens. He was giving us paint touches in the first half. And I think that’s where you can start to marry both concepts of he does things that don’t show up in the box score and does things that show up in the box score. Really, I think what you want is a game from Khan that nobody would really describe as all that flashy. Although, I would describe the passes last night as real flashy. He got He went to the condiment aisle and found his sauce. Don’t you worry about that. I love it. I love it. He certainly did that. The underhand scoop in transition to PJ Hall. that rebound pass simultaneously to Caulk Briner. I mean, that’s like real point guard right here, right now stuff. I loved that. So, yeah, there was a time there there was one mid-range jumper that he shot where they didn’t run any screen for maybe they did, maybe it was just kind of a late screen where nobody was up in his body point of attack-wise, but really he generated a lot of space and missed a mid-range jumper, but got to his spot when he wanted to. In the second half, he’s starting to dribble between the legs. That’s a telltale sign of you feeling it when you’re going between the legs and you’re not just trying, okay, don’t turn it over. Let me get below my hip, keep the ball low so I don’t accidentally allow the defender to steal the basketball. No, now he’s loosey goosey. He’s starting to feel himself, get into his spots more. So, we really saw him turn it on in the second half and get really comfortable as an onball guy and that’s the stuff that you love. So on ball secondary playmaking next to LaMelo, but if LaMelo can just get a handful of catch and shoot opportunities because Khan can run the offense every now and then. Yeah, baby. That’s some chef’s kiss stuff. And that’s the vision as to why you take him. Well, it’s it’s LaMelo and that secondary creator role. It’s him playing with Colin Ston. It’s him doing some of that stuff that we’re seeing in summer league where he drives and he invites contact, but he doesn’t invite contact necessarily to draw a foul, though we saw him do that once in this game. He doesn’t necessarily do that. He invites it just to like get the defense to further collapse and then find that kick out. So that’s going to be Brandon Miller right there. Boom. Three-point shot from, you know, assist from Coniple. Only one turnover. So he avoids mistakes. And yet here’s the big thing. You felt him this entire game. Uh well, I would say like second quarter through fourth quarter, you felt him. And and that was because he was rebounding offensive rebounds. Uh you felt him defensively. he was disrupting transition plays that he was helping the Charlotte Hornets chain possessions together. That’s why they won this game. The previous two wins were pretty close. They blew the Dallas Mavericks out in this one 87 to 69. And that was part because the Charlotte Hornets were able to chain multiple positions together and have consistent offense. And that was Coniple. That was KJ Simpson too, but that was Khan Canipple. I also don’t think got taken advantage of defensively. uh that there wasn’t the Isaiah Collier moment where somebody just blows right by him. Not to my recollection. No, that was Ryan Cochr Brener’s moment in this one. Yes, it got smoked. You know, there’s that that’s fine, man. That What was that? That was Was that Nemhard? It was some guard and and it wasn’t Nemhard, but yes, it was a I don’t know if it was a guard, but it was a smaller wing that was obviously quicker. Was going to be quicker than most centers, but yeah, Cog Brener uh looked looked pretty frozen. That That was one of the more dramatic drivebys I’ve seen. um on on the right wing. And and finally, the last play that I want to touch on with Khan was the drive and then inviting the post defender to come to him and then eventually dishing it to PJ Hall. That’s some highle stuff. High post like 10 feet out paint touch and then completely creating an open lane for PJ Hall. All because of what you did. Like that that easy bucket was all created because of what Khan did. There wasn’t any play. There wasn’t anything like that where Khan got lucky. None of that. That was Khan getting to the paint, shot fake, getting an angle, and then post defender moves off of PJ and then right at the last second giving PJ an open look. It Khan making other players better around him, force multiplying type of stuff. Yeah. Yeah, we got to see some great things from him last night. Two final things so that we can move on and talk about some other players for for Khan Caniple. You said he didn’t get taken advantage of defensively and I would say over the like if you look at the game as a whole I agree with you. I think there were there were possessions where he got beat. But here’s the thing, the Mavericks were targeting him on defense and they were targeting him when he was on offense. Like the defense was focused on stopping him and and I think that was good experience for him to have to adjust to that. He’s not going to see that his first year, maybe his first couple of years, but that’s again that’s good experience to get now so that he knows like, oh, I get it. the game has changed for me. Here’s what I need to go work on in the future because he’ll probably see that in practice in in in training camp. He’s going to see a little bit of that from his own team. So, that was good experience. Um and and the final thing is there was a play in the third quarter where Khan uh I think it was like a give and go situation with PJ Hall and Khan makes this beautiful cut right down to the rim. PJ Hall looks at him, cannot hit him. PJ Hall makes a good business decision like if I try to throw this basketball it is going to be a turnover. not going to do it. But Khan was in the perfect place. And that’s what I wrote in my notes. Like he he’s going to Khan’s going to be fine because he can do stuff like that in summer league. He probably should have had 25 points in this game. He probably should have had seven, eight assists. Like his stats are going to be lowered by virtue of the some of the players that he’s playing with. The kid is all right. That’s the take. Yeah. Uh the Khan is all right. The broadcast booth pointed that out when PJ Hall decided not to hit Khan on the cut. They they pointed that out. And then I I think uh yeah, the the offense when when the defense was preparing for Khan, he would get doubled off of screens and then KJ Simpson got a wide open. By the way, Dallas, by the way, Dallas, relax. Double I saw double teams. I saw traps. I saw switch. Like, come on. This is summer league. I I mean Khan’s going Khan’s going all the way to the corner in transition. And KJ just oh nobody’s gonna pick up ball. I’ll I’ll get a dunk out of this. And so wide openen one at that. Coming up next on the Lockdown Hornets podcast everywhere. We’ll give you more thoughts on other players in this game. No Liam McNeely out with Achilles tendonopathy. Don’t like the sound of that, but Liam McNeely not playing in this one. Also, Seion James absent. Who stepped up in their absence? We’ll get to that. Plus, some updates regarding the Charlotte Hornets roster coming up next. LH. This episode is brought to you by FanDuel. 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Kulk Briner, 22 minutes. Ton Salon, quieter game from him. Only two made field goals, two threes, but only two made field goals. Where do you want to take us? Uh, we can go Brener. We didn’t talk a lot about uh him in yesterday’s episode until the very end. Uh, yeah, you said 22 minutes. Not a not a game-winning block in this one. Not a block at all, in fact. Zero blocks, nine points, uh, five rebounds. um is struggling I think defensively to know how far to step up on some of these um shooting centers that he’s been playing against. And yeah, look, they did a depth chart and showed Ryan Cochrinter as the center uh in this broadcast. That’s not I that’s not going to happen. Not if the Hornets want to win games early on. I just we all need to get ready for Mason Plumbley to play 24 minutes and Musa to play, you know, a significant role in between the four and the five position. because Cochrinter is going to need some time, I think, uh, to figure this whole thing out. I don’t I I haven’t seen anything from him that indicates like, oh, yeah, like you can immediately plug him in as starter. So, yeah. I mean, I think that the hope for Kaulk early on is I that I just shortened that naturally. I I should choose something different for Ryan Caulkrunner or just lean into it. Either way, everyone else is. Yeah. Yeah. Just pronouncing what we’ve been pronouncing the L, you know, Kulka. There’s an L in there, people. Ka. So anyways, the role for Kulk early on is going to be just to be a massive human being that’s in the paint and prevents dudes from shooting at the rim and maybe you run into three blocks. That would be awesome. You know, even two and a half would be great at 71. Uh I don’t know. Like blocks per 36 if you want to look at that stat. You know, that could be over three. That’s what you want. But the rim deterrence, I think for him is going to be a big deal. I think the stepping up is going to be coaching. That’s going to be helped pretty immediately. I’m not really worried about that. It’s just, hey, when you see this, especially in scouting reports, this is someone that is really good in the mid-range. He’s got a really good floater, so we do want you to step up just a little bit further. This guy likes to get to the rack. He’s going to attack and be really aggressive. So, now you can drop back a little further. Excuse me. That’ll be a part. Uh-oh. Are we going to do it? Uh-oh. It’s the first thing. I was running into it in the first segment and I tried to stave it off as much as possible, but now we have something for you. Yes, that’s right. That is uh the Walker Flem music. That’s what we’re going to play anytime that we see it. Well, just really now now you you laugh, but it it is really just an opportunity to give you time to to let you clear your throat. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. So, thank you very much. So Ryan Cochrrener being a rim deter, I think that’s going to be a big deal. And then the stepping up in drop coverage, that’s going to be a coachable scouting report thing. Uh yeah, for sure. What you would love to see is him knock down a few triples because that’s going to yesterday miss. Yeah, I know. He hit one that was like wide wide wide wide wide open above the break. The de the entire defense they didn’t collapse. They like went to the they went and got a soda and Ryan Cochrrener knocks that down and then yeah has a couple of ugly misses and goes one of four from three because that’s going to be the trade-off. That’s going to be the balance. Like when you look at a guy like Brook Lopez dominant down low, not a switchable big, going to get beat occasionally, going to hurt your defense, but on the other end, he’s such a threat from three that it all tends to balance out. And that’s going to be have to that’s going to have to be Caulbrinter’s growth because he cannot be a sub 30% three-point shooter and have feet like concrete blocks. Like that’s just not that doesn’t work today. I love that he took them. I mean four that’s more than Mark Williams ever took around here. That’s more than any other center has taken around here. You took four in a game. You made one. There were two bad misses. One really bad one and one close miss. One that almost went in, which sounds ridiculous, but it’s not. If you’re if you’re going to give me a 71 guy that is slow defensively, then he’s taking these threes. And and Ryan Cochrren said it on Won Walker. He said, “Yeah, they tell me if I’m open, let it fly.” And that’s what he did in this game. And I I continue to encourage that. Uh Tan Salon, yeah, you said it. 18 minutes, quieter game from him. Six points, four rebounds. I thought he’s he sort of did the opposite of Khan. I think he started this game trying to do too much, trying to do a lot. And he he only gets one turnover in this game, but he had a couple of near turnovers early on. And then I think things he just calmed down and started to make more correct plays, settled into the game. And that’s when and sort of that happened at the same time that Khan started to take over. And Khan didn’t really Khan and Salon, they don’t they didn’t really have a good one two. It was really like Khan to PJ Hall or Khan to Caulk Brener. There was a lot of like5 action and not a lot of 14. So or two four I guess and two five. But uh that was that was what was going on there. So, I’m, you know, I just want to see Salon make fewer mistakes and just look more comfortable and less, you know, again, you’re just going to get these high super high highs and super low lows with Tan. Yeah, I wouldn’t say that was a particularly good game from Tan Salon last night. I would say overall the first two games you felt very good and hey, not a great game, but does go two of three from three-point range. There’s some salvaging there making a couple of your three attempts. All right, coming up next on the Lockdown Hornets podcast. Beast everywhere. Some newsworthy nuggets to get to on the other side. Things becoming official over the weekend for Charlotte. And there is a new player on the roster. We have a new two-way contract guy. Find out who it is coming up next. This episode is brought to you by Hungry Root. Little D’Angelo time. Hungry Root. M let’s be honest, meal planning and grocery shopping can be overwhelming. Between busy schedules, picky eaters, and trying to eat healthy, it’s a lot. That’s why I love Hungry Root. They take the stress out of planning by filling your cart for you with personalized groceries and meal options based on what you like and need. Hungry Root uses their smart car technology to recommend groceries, recipes, and even supplements tailored to your preferences. Whether you’re dairy free, glutenree, focused on gut health, or just trying to eat better, Hungry Roots got you covered. So, you can take their quiz that helps you figure out exactly what are the right groceries for you and plenty of other things that help you pick and choose what you want from Hungry Root. Just take advantage of this exclusive offer for a limited time. Get 40% off of your first box, plus a free item in every box for life, which I think is an awesome deal. Go to hungry.com/lockedonba. Use code lockedonba. That’s hungry.com/locktonnba. code lockdown NBA to get 40% off your first box and a free item of your choice for life. Hungry Root. More Lockdown Hornets ahead. Things becoming official over the weekend. Just real quickly, Sunday 9:16, Sunday 9:31, and then Sunday 9:45. The Hornets officially send out the press email that Trey Mann is officially a member of the roster again. Uh Spencer Denwitty officially signed and Mason Plumbley. So all of those moves becoming official on Sunday. Just to update everybody there, which by the way, don’t take that for granted. You know what I’m saying? Like we we went through the Mark Williams affair last year. So anything becoming official is newsworthy. Well, and maybe even more to that point, because of how jam-packed the roster is, they had not announced these signings. And so, there was always a little wiggle room to get out of some of these deals if you really wanted to. And Joshi, here we are on July 15th. This was when the initial date to wave him before that contract became guaranteed. It was July 1st. It got pushed back to July 15th. Here we are today, as of this recording, at 9:28 a.m. There has been no news on AOI. He’s expected to get waved. Um, but that’s actually I think from one source on Twitter. I didn’t even see uh anything officially made about that. So maybe I shouldn’t jump to conclusions there. I would guess if you want to speculate, I would guess that Josh Kogi is is waved today if they can’t find a trade partner, which is going to be really hard, especially with the Hornets not having a whole lot of leverage. Um, as much as I love what a Kogi did, I think he does provide a defensive skill set that is not plentiful with the all these guards that the Hornets signed. You’re hoping for a lot from Seion James there, but as much as I would like to have a Kogi on the roster, it’s just too easy to kick him off and and create another roster space for someone else. Well, so and here’s where analyzing what the Hornets goals are this season becomes complicated because if their goal was to win as many games as possible, I think you’d rather have a Joshi on a on a cheaper deal, like you can’t have him at 7.75. You can’t be making more or right at what what Trey man is making. Okay. So, but you could restructure that and bring him back, but there are no roster spots. So, you wouldn’t you wouldn’t do a Coneton deal and a Denwitty deal and all of these other deals that they would do that do seem to be more about offensive organization than about defensive organization. Uh, but some of these deals are cheaper and some of these deals offer you opportunities to make trades down the line that a Joshi obviously is not doing. like there I’m sure they are trying to look for a deal that sends Joshi somewhere u but that’s not going to that’s going to be because Josh’s number is at 7.75 not necessarily because um you know Josh Kogi is Joshi so that’s that’s the complicated part of this Hornets are obviously in between trying to get more serious about winning but also still looking for opportunities to get valuable assets well and and that contract became a little more expensive overnight in the first 24 hours of free agency and it really wasn’t anything because of what or it wasn’t because of anything Aki did. It wasn’t because he floundered under this contract. It’s just this is the going market for what guards are going for. Trey man, we all agree Trey man is a better player went out there on the court than a Kogi and and now Trey is making the same just that’s that’s the market. So, we’ll see what happens with a Kogi. He was awesome. Like it’s not one that I’m thrilled about waving, but I I think it’s probably necessary with how jam-packed their roster is. There also is another player on the roster, but he’s a two-way guy, so it’s not going to eat into any of those other spots as far as who you need to lock into a contract. Drew Peterson. Drew Peterson is signing a two-way contract with the Hornets. Persams Shirania. Charles Lee actually coached Drew Peterson with the Celtics a couple of seasons ago. Blaine Mueller was his head coach with the main Celtics. reading that tweet from uh Charlotte Hornets on Reddit, their Twitter account, Hornets Reddit. They always do a good job of consolidating all the little nuggets there. Drew Peterson in college, he played for Rice, then transferred to USC. That’s Southern California for all you South Carolina homers out there. He averaged 14 points per game, 44% shooting. Good three-point shooter in college, 38 and a half% 41% 35.8% the last three years of college ball. So, Drew Peterson on that last two-way deal, Doug, what do you think? It’s an interesting ad. Um I think Drew Peterson was like supposed to be the guy that was sort of the next Sam Hower. You know, Boston was collecting those kinds of guys. Somebody that can switch a little bit on defense and knock down a bunch of threes. Uh you know, not not super quick on offense, not really going to create for himself at all. Uh but a capable passer, a little bit of secondary ball handling, I think. Uh so yeah, I mean this is a perfect a perfect two-way ad, I think. And and if look, if they’re bringing in Drew Peterson and he has experience with Charles Lee, I think you kind of understand what kind of guy Drew Peterson is going to be in terms of his work ethic, in terms of what he’s going to do at training camp to push other guys. That’s the kind of player that they’re bringing in. So, I think you can be sure that that Drew is that kind of guy. Now, if Wait a minute. What’s that sound? Do you hear that off in the distance? Chugga chugga chugga. Is it time to go to rotation station? I think it is. I got a ticket. I got a ticket. All aboard. All right. So, I’ve got a new section here in my rotation station document, which you can get access to, by the way, um if you’re part of every hornets box or part of our Siko Brigade on joints.comlocked on Hornets. But I’ve got a new two-way section here. You have three two-way spots and I think Damen Ba kind of still technically on one. I project KJ Simpson will get one of those. And then now we confirmed Drew Peterson uh gets one of these which leaves us with by my count 17 fully rostered players with like contracts and then which so you’ve got let’s just run it down. So you got Ball Green, Miller, Bridges, Plumbley. You’ve got Man, Sexton, Canipple, Grant Williams, Musa Diabate. Now we’re up to 10. Okay. Spencer Denwitty confirmed. Pat Conetan announced yet. Yes, it is. I believe it was. I’ll look for it though. All right. So Liam McNeely, Tan Salon, Ryan Cochrren. That’s 15. I haven’t mentioned Nick Smith Jr. yet. I haven’t mentioned Seion James yet. So that’s 17. And then you get to Simpson, BA, Peterson, possible two-way, and then question mark, Aki, Jeff, they’re probably both gone. And then Cap holds Taj Gibson and Seth Curry. Um, they’re definitely gone. So, I, you know, still two big question marks here about what the what the, you know, final roster spots are going to be. Yeah. And and so, by the way, it is confirmed. I looked up, they sent that email out, uh, a little while ago. They sent it out on July 6th with Pat Coneton. So, that trade going through. Yeah, it is going to be difficult. This was always the issue. And so Jeffy’s gone. Ai we expect to be waved today. Can you go back all the way to the right here on the rotation station? Thank you very much. Nick Smith Jr. How much of a conversation should we have about NSJ? Just a brief one even with this pod ending here because we don’t have enough time. But then the the NSJ stuff, there’s just been so many other things happening around the Hornets that of course he’s just not at the forefront of your mind. But it feels like he’s getting squeezed out. And I I it it feels like just a matter of time before he’s off the roster, but they haven’t made any announcements yet. Well, look, man. I mean, KJ Simpson, we didn’t really talk about him because he’s played great in both of the the first two games, and then he follows it up third game, 18 points, seven assists, one turnover, not making a lot of mistakes. Look, the defense is going to be 50/50, but the defense is 50/50 with Nick Smith Jr. two. And so, if KJ Simpson is going to come out here and hit a bunch of threes, not turn the ball over, like, yeah, that to me, you’re losing size a little bit, but like that to me is squeezing Nick Smith Jr. out of this conversation. And so then I think Damen Ball has not really played well in the summer league in my opinion and it didn’t he didn’t have a bounce back in the third game. So I think he eventually comes off the two-way and then that leaves one more two-way spot open that I think could possibly go to PJ Hall because I think he played a little bit better. The Hornets are starting to release some social media on PJ Hall. So, just some hints. They did early. That that’s people notice that how with all of these youngans, PJ Hall was a part of some of the Young Boy social media stuff. Yeah. And I thought he played well in that third game. I didn’t love what he did in the first two games, but I think he started to settle in and he’s going to be more featured as the Hornets play. They’re going to play at least two more. So, I think you’re going to see more PJ Hall and and he’ll get an opportunity to to prove that out. Uh, but I I thought he did look a little bit better was was a defensive factor. and then um hit some shots and caught the ball. Cochrinter has he’s got a weird hands thing in this summer, too. He’s not not catching everything that’s being delivered to him. That’s that’s a little bit concerning, which we flinch as Hornets fans if there’s a big guy with hands issues. I mean, yeah, even Mark Williams like who had great hands all the like even had some issues. But the the issue, you know, a lot of that is point guards when LaMela was out, it’s hey Mark sevenfooter, catch it at your feet, you know. Anyways, uh just hopefully we don’t have issues of our centers catching the basketball for whatever reason. Final thing, and I don’t know if we’ve pointed this out yet, but the fact that they have 17 contracted players is actually a really significant thing because during most of the Michael Jordan ownership era and particularly under Mitch Cubch, they valued keeping a roster spot open. They did. Yeah. And I don’t think they valued it strategically. Oh, let’s just keep our options open. make sure that we can add a guy if we need to. No, it’s they they didn’t want to pay. That’s what they said. At least that’s what they said. They they said it it provides flexibility. Right. Right. Right. Flexibility in your wallet for sure. Like you don’t have to pay. But so now instead the Hornets as an organization are prioritizing, let’s go out and find all of the players, maybe even more than we need, and then whittle it down. What does that mean? It means they’re serious about competing. They don’t have the perfect roster, but they are now serious about competing, and that should excite you as a fan of the Charlotte Hornets. All right, good stuff last night on a 3 and 0 record. Now, hey, they denied us the California Classic trophy last year. You can’t deny us a trophy if we just run through summer league all session long and don’t lose a damn game. Give us the hardware. Get Give us Give us the hardware. Give us a parade. Trade and try on. I’ll I I will visit. I want to run buses down Tryion Street. Let’s go. You You want to make a low bar? Let’s make a low bar float and then enter the parade that way and then we can cheers as everybody’s throwing his beers there as well. Doug Branson, every hornetsboxcore.com. Also, locked on NBA. Make that your second list. Matt Moore Hayes also a part of that podcast. And I’m Walker Male. Listen to me. WFNZ every weekday from 12 to 300 p.m. Have a great rest of your day. I’m gone for the rest of the week. I’m going up to Boone and the New River. I’m looking for hellbender salamanders. I’m going to go hiking, being one with nature. I’m going to drink a little bit on some tubes up there on the New River. It’s going to be fun. And Doug’s going to talk more Hornets basketball with I guess friends that are going to help him out. Maybe go solo. It’s his No, no, I I’ll be solo tomorrow and Thursday, and then David Walker is going to join me on Friday with all of his uh summer league thoughts. But it’s going to be a fun time. All right. Hopefully, you’re able to talk about some hellbenders in summer league a little bit more. So, who’s who’s bringing the hell for the opposition, baby? That’s what I want to see from some of these Hornets guys. Have a great rest of the week. I’ll be back with you next week. Double will be back with you tomorrow.

Kon Knueppel finally gave Hornets fans something to cheer about in Vegas. After a quiet and shaky Summer League debut, the No. 4 overall pick found his rhythm—highlighted by a dominant third quarter that showcased not just scoring, but true feel for the game. His court vision, defensive disruption, and decisive play silenced concerns and validated Charlotte’s faith in his potential. We break down how Knueppel thrived on the ball and found “his sauce” in transition and halfcourt sets.

Meanwhile, we assess Ryan Kalkbrenner’s development—especially his struggles defending stretch bigs and his willingness to shoot the three—and explain why Mason Plumlee and Nick Richards may still hold down the 5 spot early. Also on the docket: Tidjane Salaun’s quieter performance, PJ Hall’s case for a two-way, and why KJ Simpson might be the one pushing Nick Smith Jr. out of the rotation entirely.

The Hornets also made some official moves—inking Tre Mann, Spencer Dinwiddie, and Mason Plumlee—and added sharpshooter Drew Peterson to the final two-way slot. We unpack what those additions say about the front office’s new approach to competition and roster depth. Plus, a big shift from the Jordan era: the Hornets now have 17 full contracts. Is that a sign they’re finally serious about winning?

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