If only our return to Charlotte had been this easy.

The Thunder cower in fear... of Ryan Bowen. Yeah.

That sure was a change of pace. I'll keep this brief and jump straight into the factors.

1. eFG% ( √) Considering that Butler and Stojakovic combined to go 8-26, the 54% eFG figure is pretty impressive. Chris Paul shot 6-9, West shot 6-11, and Hilton chipped in a 6-7 night to balance things out. But the best part was obviously the defensive eFG% allowed. Kevin Durant was kept in check while virtually every other Thunder (Thundii?) was owned defensively. 4 blocked shots from Mr. West was 4 times the block total by OKC. 

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The Hornets played the 7th best defense in the league last year, acquired defensive wizards James Posey, and emitted various hoo-ha's about not trying to acquire "non-defense playing" guys like J.R. Smith. Of course, that made us all feel good about our defensive prospects for '08-'09. Posey makes us tough! Let's go out and D up like the Celtics! Woo!

Yeah. Hasn't happened.

The defensive efficiency has has taken a dip for two major reasons: we're starting to foul too much and we're allowing opposing teams to light us up from the field. Over a one or two game stretch, it might not be too worrisome. But over a 10 game period, these increases are indicative of a larger problem.

Rising allowed eFG% and allowed FT are generally caused by the same issue- leaving opponents open. Defenders must either let open players shoot the ball or foul them to prevent them from shooting the ball. The Hornets have done that time and time again, regardless of the quality of their opposition. Why are so many opposing players wide open?

Poor penetration defense and poor perimeter rotations. Those two things were on prominent display versus Sacramento. Udrih, Salmons, Greene, you name it, were driving to the rim at will. I decided to mess around with some video software and highlight a couple examples from the Kings game. This is my first time doing any video, so sorry about the choppiness in some parts.

Watching those two plays in real speed, it's difficult to tell what went wrong. On the first one, it almost looks like it might be Peja's fault- why didn't he rotate to cover the ball? Only when you slow it down and watch West immaturely go for the steal does it become obvious. Ditto on the second play. At game speed, it looks like good passing from Sacramento just created chaos in the Hornets' D. In actuality, Chris Paul randomly decided to follow the ball (totally unnecessarily) and leave his man. I included these two plays because they were microcosms of our defense in general. If there's one thing to take away, it's this: our defense is struggling because of small, minute, mistakes. These are rookie mistakes. These are things you see defensively undisciplined teams do. Gambling. Ball watching.

Above all, these are coaching downfalls. A good coach sees Paul do that and bangs it into his head that he needs to stay at home. There's nothing he can do rotating underneath the hoop that Tyson Chandler and David West can't already take care of. A good coach sees West try for that steal and admonishes him for playing defense with his hands instead of his feet. These subtle mistakes manifest themselves in seemingly overarching and unsolvable issues- ridiculously high allowed field goal percentages, high rates of fouls. Until the coaching staff and the players recognize that good defense starts at the smallest of scales, this team will continue to struggle.

Lee will have the full recap in the morning, and I should have a moving picture/video/movie/film (be excited!) sort of thingy up as well. Because pictures and words can't begin to describe the depths of our ineptitude. For now, a few half-baked bullets:

• What the @#%? is the deal with the substitution patterns? Chris Paul has 15/13 and is playing awesome basketball in the 3rd. Then Byron sits him until 6 minutes left in the 4th as the Hornets proceed to lose the lead in pathetic fashion.
• David West needs to learn how to pass out of the double. On that last forced shot attempt, he had Chris Paul, Peja, and Posey more open than a 7/11 at 2 p.m.
• Posey was pretty bad. But one bad game in every 10 is pretty good right?
• Looks like Devin's got this backup thing in the bag.
  
• David West went 32 minutes without getting a rebound. 
• Don't lie- you want to see Byron Scott put Sean Marks in.
• Byron can't expect to sit Peja all second half and then have him come in cold and drill triples for the last 2 minutes. You could hear every person in the arena groan when Devin Brown had that wide open look at three. You think Peja misses that?

The Sac Kings visit New Orleans tonight. As some of you may remember, Sacramento was the site of a beatdown of epic proportions some months prior, the beater being the Kings, and the beatee being the Hornets. That the Hornets not reprise their beatee role, let us all wish. Anyway, Ziller of Sactown Royalty was nice enough to answer a few questions on very short notice.

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The season is barely a half month old. It's so early, the Knicks are 5th in the East, and the Kings are in the West playoff picture. Marvin Williams leads the league in three point shooting, and Tony Parker is 3rd in scoring. Things are going to even out; there's a long way to go.

I've always believed that the Hornets would win a championship. A month into Chris Paul's career, I was sure of it. The kid was just too incredible; surround him with even marginally above average talent, and the Hornets would surely win it all, I thought. The past couple years did nothing to change my perception. As you might imagine, they probably strengthened that notion. The surrounding cast was falling into place, the big name free agent was snatched from eager suitors, and the guy that had inspired all that hope in the first place was unthinkably better than he was on draft night. When the Spurs eliminated the Hornets last year, it seemed a beginning far more than an end.

This summer, one of my friends asked me something interesting.  Had I ever wondered if maybe the Hornets don't ever win a championship? If the Lakers' ascendence to power just happens to coincide with and supersede the Hornets' rise? It seems silly, but I'd never really thought of it in terms of other teams. It was definitely a plausible idea; the regular season was just so far off at the time, I didn't give it much thought.

Then Wednesday night happened. Sure, New Orleans came back. Sure, Chris Paul was Chris Paul. But anybody watching that game could've easily told you who the better team was. Teams don't build 20+ point leads and sustain them for multiple quarters by fluke. Niall's post-game comment sort of put into words an idea I'd been slowly coming to terms with: "Phil Jackson has put together a well-oiled machine. And the most depressing thing is, I'm not sure what we can do to get to that level and compete with them this season. Unless something drastic happens, there's no way I can see us beating them in a 7-game series. It's mid-November and I'm pretty sure I already know how the season will end."

I felt that exact same sense of disappointment. If they're so much better than us now, then why should we believe that New Orleans will magically make up that gap in a handful of months?

I slept on that idea for a bit. People enjoy sports because sports are random. Every game involves a better team and a worse team. Sports are fun because the better team will not win every time. The Lakers are clearly the better team. Sports are about taking the hand you're dealt, and maximizing value. The Lakers surely have the better hand. But there's a reason a player like LeBron James can almost singlehandedly topple a vastly superior team like the Detroit Pistons. The sport of basketball in general is more conducive to single player dominance than any other team game.

For me, it all comes back to what gave me so much hope to start with- Chris Paul. Virtually every major statistic worth its salt agrees on one thing: there's LeBron James and Chris Paul, and then there's the rest of the league. Those are the two best players in the game. If LBJ can lift a decidedly mediocre team past a perennial title contender, why can not Chris Paul lead a very good team past a title contender?

The Lakers are the better team, no question. But in a sport as individual centric as basketball, and with the Hornets in possession of arguably the best player in the entire league, I'm not ready to write this team off.

To say the Hornets have stumbled out of the gates is something of an understatement. We've been handled by the Hawks, Lakers, and Rockets thus far. It's a long season, and things will surely start to even out a little as we get into December and January. That said, this team could use a little shake up. Some thoughts on our problems and some potential solutions:

Peja Stojakovic

He's one of the game's best pure shooters, nobody denies that. His biggest challenge is facing off against physical opponents. We've seen tough defenders throw him off time and time again- Bruce Bowen blasted him to smithereens in the playoffs last year, and Ron Artest did it again on Saturday. All that leads me to postulate: why not start James Posey against the more physical perimeter defenders?

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