The Hornets have waived rookie forward Isaiah Whaley, tweets Rod Boone of The Charlotte Observer. The move opens up a spot on Charlotte’s 20-man preseason roster.
Whaley signed an Exhibit 10 contract with the Hornets this offseason after going undrafted out of UConn. In five seasons with the Huskies, he appeared in a total of 138 games for the Huskies, including 32 in 2021/22, when he averaged 7.7 PPG and 4.8 RPG in 28.5 MPG as a full-time starter.
Although Whaley wasn’t a major offensive threat at UConn, he earned a reputation as a talented defender. He averaged 2.4 blocks per contest across his final two college seasons, and was the co-winner of the Big East’s Defensive Player of the Year award in 2021.
Whaley will likely be headed for the Greensboro Swarm – Charlotte’s G League team – as an affiliate player after being waived by the Hornets. He’ll earn a $50K bonus if he spends at least 60 days with the Swarm.
Jalen Crutcher, Jaylen Sims, and Anthony Duruji remain on the Hornets’ roster on Exhibit 10 deals. They could be in the mix for the team’s open two-way slot.
Poole, Kuminga & a future 1st for LaMelo… or…. Poole, Wiseman & Pat Baldwin for Melo & Plumlee… Melo & Charlotte seem headed for a breakup sooner or later. Sooner they rip the bandaid off, sooner they can start the rebuild. Having guys like JPoole & either Wiseman or Kuminga would be a big boost to a rebuild no doubt…. from GSWs pov adding a guy like Melo is def something they should obv be extremely interested in. Looking more & more like Poole is gonna want a max, a change of scenery or both. Losing Wiseman or Kuminga would obv hurt but Plumlee may actually be an upgrade these next 2 seasons, esp defensively & as a passer which is more what they need from their 5s anyway.
As a Hornets fan, no thank you on that. I’ve seen nothing suggesting LaMelo and Charlotte are headed for a split. Sure, there’s speculation because of the market, but it’s just speculation. There’s no reason to trade a budding young star to turn around and have to give a guy a max deal soon.
You’ve seen plenty that should suggest Melo & Cha are headed for a split if you’ve watched their team the past few seasons. A quick glance at the team roster shows another reason. Without Miles bridges they don’t have much of a future outside of Melo. Also the fact that Charlotte, NC ain’t Melo’s style to begin with. They just bungled their coaching search & ended up with a guy that certainly won’t excite their franchise player. I haven’t even seen any speculation about him leaving, it’s just common sense.
I have watched their team. The roster isn’t as devoid of talent as you paint it to be. They had a good team last year; just lacked a real center, which hurt them. They just drafted one, so we’ll see.
The Bridges thing obviously hurts, but that’s out of Charlotte’s control. They will have the ability to make moves, though.
Really the only thing squarely on them is the coaching hire.
As for Charlotte not being LaMelo’s style, that seems to be your opinion. You’re entitled to that, but you can’t call it “common sense”.
I never said they don’t have talent. They don’t have the type of guys that are gonna win playoff series tho. They haven’t yet had a team capable of making the playoffs & they will most likely be worse this season. They have plenty of talented, intriguing youngsters but none have done anything in the league yet & none project to be the type of guy that can be the leading scorer on a contender. Not even the vets, Hayward/Rozier, are that type of guy. To keep Melo they’re gonna need to acquire that type of guy & that’s not easy to do (franchise hasn’t done it since they drafted BDavis 25yrs ago)… as far as what’s their fault & what’s not, that don’t matter at the end of the day. Don’t matter whether Miles is their fault or if it’s their fault what happened with Atkinson & the coaching search. Only thing that matters is they keep piling up Ls… it’s pretty obvious that Melo is more of a big market type guy. He’s a ham, he loves attention, he has a big personality. He’s also very much a West coast type guy. Of he had his choice I have no doubt he’d choose either to play with his bro, or in LA, NY or some team in the pst time zone