- The Hornets issued a statement in response to Malik Monk‘s indefinite suspension today, which reads as follows (Twitter link): “We are disappointed in Malik’s decision-making that resulted in his suspension. As an organization, we do not condone his behavior. However, we are committed to supporting Malik during this time.”
Hornets guard Malik Monk has been suspended by the NBA for violating the terms of the league’s anti-drug program, according to a press release issued this afternoon.
The NBA didn’t announce a specific number of games for Monk’s suspension. According to the press release, the ban will begin when the Hornets face the Knicks tonight and will continue until Monk is determined to be “in full compliance” with the anti-drug program.
We don’t know the full details surrounding Monk’s suspension, but the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement states that certain drug violations – including for drugs of abuse – require a player to enter a treatment or care program. If the player violates the terms of that program, he will be suspended “until such time as the Medical Director determines that he has fully complied” with the program, per the CBA.
Because Monk’s suspension is open-ended, it remains to be seen how much money it will end up costing him, tweets ESPN’s Bobby Marks. A suspension of less than 20 games will cost Monk 1/145th of his $4,028,400 salary per game. A suspension of 20+ games would result in a loss of 1/110th of his salary per game. So if he’s suspended for the rest of the season (25 games), he’d lose $915,545.
The 11th overall pick in the 2017 draft, Monk hasn’t been the scorer and shooter the Hornets hoped for through his first three NBA seasons, averaging just 8.6 PPG with a .322 3PT%. However, he had played well lately, scoring 17.0 PPG on .457/.350/.851 shooting in his last 13 games (27.9 MPG).
- Dwayne Bacon may be shuttling between the Hornets and their Greensboro G League affiliate quite a bit, Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer tweets. The club wants him to get more reps but will need him at times for depth at the NBA level, according to coach James Borrego. Bacon, a third-year guard, is averaging 5.7 PPG in 17.6 MPG over 39 games with Charlotte this season, including 11 starts.
- Although the Hornets will have $28MM available in salary cap room this summer, general manager Mitch Kupchak intends to spread that money around across a few young free agent candidates, instead of pursuing a single star, per The Charlotte Observer’s Rick Bonnell. “I don’t anticipate us being one of those teams that is in the running for those big free agents,” Kupchak said. The team may trade for a young player or sign a role player still in his prime, like Nets shooting ace Joe Harris.
The Hornets have signed Joe Chealey to a 10-day contract, according to the team’s website.
The guard was previously with the Hornets on a two-way contract back in 2018. He played out the 2018/19 campaign with Charlotte before re-signing with the club during the 2019 offseason.
He was waived prior to the 2019/20 season and has spent the year with the Greensboro Swarm, which is the Hornets’ G League affiliate.
Chealey played his collegiate ball at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. He was not selected in the 2018 draft.
The Hornets were required to add a player to their roster before Saturday, since they’ve been carrying just 13 players on standard contracts since buying out Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Marvin Williams earlier in the month. Teams are only permitted to carry fewer than 14 players for up to two weeks at a time.
Here are Wednesday’s G League assignments and recalls from around the NBA:
- The Timberwolves assigned Jacob Evans, Omari Spellman and Jarred Vanderbilt to their affiliate in Iowa, the team announced in a press release. All three were acquired two weeks ago in deals at the trade deadline, with Evans and Spellman coming from the Warriors and Vanderbilt being obtained from the Nuggets.
- The Hornets assigned Dwayne Bacon to their Greensboro affiliate, tweets Rick Bonnell of The Charlotte Observer.
- The Nets assigned Nicolas Claxton to Long Island, according to the G League transactions log.
Also on the transactions log:
- The Knicks assigned Ignas Brazdeikis to Westchester.
- The Jazz sent Miye Oni to Salt Lake City.
- The Sixers assigned Zhaire Smith to Delaware.
The Hornets haven’t made the playoffs since 2016 and haven’t won a postseason series since returning to the NBA in 2004 as the Bobcats. However, as the team goes through another rebuild, general manager Mitch Kupchak says team owner Michael Jordan is “100 percent on board with what we’re doing,” according to Rick Bonnell of The Charlotte Observer.
“We made a decision to take a certain approach for this summer and we knew what that would lead to (losing) this year. There are no surprises,” Kupchak said. “With our plan, it just takes time. You draft a kid who is 19 years old and it’s going to take two or three years for him to help us win. Also, we wanted to slowly dig our way out of some of the contracts we had. That takes a year or two.”
Some of those pricey veteran contracts Kupchak referred to are coming off the books this summer, and the Hornets project to have $28MM+ in cap room, as Bonnell details. As he has said in the past, Kupchak reiterated today that Charlotte doesn’t expect to be in the market for major free agents this offseason, but suggested the club will have several options for how to use that cap space.
“You can (trade for) a player from another team straight into cap room,” Kupchak said. “Or maybe (take on) a player who makes decent money (on an unwanted contract) and you get a draft pick.”
Here’s more on the Hornets:
- Asked about the Hornets’ biggest needs going forward, Kupchak mentioned rim protection, rebounding, and “a wing that can score,” according to Bonnell. However, the Hornets’ GM said the team plans to take the best player available in the draft and figure out the fit.
- The Hornets have until Saturday to add at least one player to get back to the NBA-mandated roster minimum of 14. As Bonnell relays, Kupchak said today that Charlotte will likely go the 10-day contract route, and could call up a G League player from the Greensboro Swarm. The Hornets want to “look for someone we can develop,” Kupchak added.
- Rookies Caleb Martin and Jalen McDaniels will probably stick with the Hornets for the rest of the season rather than being sent to the G League, according to Kupchak (via Bonnell).
- The Hornets have never been a taxpaying team during Michael Jordan‘s tenure as owner, but Kupchak insisted that increasing payroll won’t be an issue once the team is ready to contend. “Even the tax won’t be an issue for him,” Kupchak said, per Rod Boone of The Athletic (Twitter link).
- Devonte’ Graham‘s breakout season has meant that Terry Rozier‘s role isn’t exactly what he was expecting when he signed with the Hornets last summer. But that’s okay with Rozier, as Bonnell writes in a separate Observer article. “If I sit here and complain that, ‘Oh, I should be the point guard!’ or ‘I should always have the ball in my hand!’ nobody really cares,” Rozier said. “(Graham) has put himself on the radar. You can’t take any of that away from him or this team. I just try to adjust.”
Hornets head coach James Borrego has a unique way of keeping rookie forwards Caleb Martin and Jalen McDaniels galvanized to give maximum effort in Charlotte, as Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer relays. If their play is not to the level of their teammates, they will be sent down to develop with the team’s G League affiliate the Greensboro Swam.
“It’s their job to put pressure on me to keep them here,” Borrego said. “For them to stay in our program right now, there is a level of accountability, there is a level of professionalism they need to carry themselves with.” Small forward Martin went undrafted out of Nevada, while power forward McDaniels was selected by the Hornets with the No. 52 pick out of San Diego State.
Fans of lottery-bound NBA teams will be keeping a close on the league’s reverse standings down the stretch because of the effect they’ll have on the draft order and lottery odds for the 2020 first round.
However, it’s not just the first round of the draft that’s worth keeping an eye on. Those reverse standings will also dictate the order of the draft’s second round, and an early second-round pick can be nearly as valuable as a first-rounder.
Traded first-round selections like the one the Grizzlies are sending to the Celtics will ultimately be more valuable than any second-rounder, but it’s still worth taking a closer look at some traded 2020 second-rounders that project to be valuable picks.
[RELATED: Traded Second-Round Picks For 2020 NBA Draft]
Here are a few of those traded picks:
From: Golden State Warriors
To: Dallas Mavericks
Current projection: No. 31
This traded pick dates all the way back to the 2016 offseason, when the Mavericks acquired it along with Andrew Bogut. That deal gave them the option to eventually receive either the Warriors’ 2019 or 2020 second-rounder.
Dallas faced a little criticism at the time for helping Golden State clear the cap room necessary to sign Kevin Durant, but if the Mavs hadn’t done it, another team would have. Now they’ll benefit from the end of the Warriors’ dynasty, potentially acquiring the best non-first-round pick of the 2020 draft.
From: Cleveland Cavaliers
To: Charlotte Hornets
Current projection: No. 32
The Cavaliers first traded this pick to Orlando at the trade deadline in 2016 to acquire Channing Frye. It was later traded from the Magic to the Clippers, who eventually sent it to Charlotte on draft night in 2018.
The pick was one of two future second-rounders L.A. surrendered to move up a single spot in the lottery to draft Shai Gilgeous-Alexander at No. 11 in ’18.
Considering the Cavs won a title with Frye and the Clippers eventually used Gilgeous-Alexander to acquire Paul George – and, indirectly, Kawhi Leonard – I don’t think either team is losing sleep about giving up this selection, but it’ll be a nice asset for the Hornets this spring.
From: Atlanta Hawks
To: Philadelphia 76ers
Current projection: No. 33
From: New York Knicks
To: Philadelphia 76ers
Current projection: No. 35
Philadelphia sent three second-round picks to the Warriors at the deadline for Alec Burks and Glenn Robinson III, but did well to hang onto these selections, both of which could fall in the top 35 this spring.
The Sixers received both of these picks in deals that saw their trade partners move up in the second round to nab big men. The Knicks’ second-rounder was sent to Philadelphia in a 2015 deal for No. 35 pick Willy Hernangomez, while the Hawks’ second-rounder changed hands in last June’s swap for No. 34 pick Bruno Fernando.
From: Detroit Pistons
To: Sacramento Kings
Current projection: No. 36
This pick has been involved in two trades, neither of which worked out particularly well for the Suns. It was all Phoenix received in return for Marcus Morris, Reggie Bullock, and Danny Granger in a cost-cutting trade during the 2015 offseason. Then it was part of the package the Suns sent to the Kings for 2016’s No. 8 pick, Marquese Chriss.
The two 2016 first-round picks the Kings got that in that Chriss trade (Georgios Papagiannis and Skal Labissiere) didn’t pan out for Sacramento. However, the package also included the rights to Bogdan Bogdanovic, making it a big win for the Kings. This year’s second-round pick is just an added bonus.
- Third-year Hornets shooting guard Malik Monk concedes he may not have been ready for the NBA when he was drafted at age 19, per a conversation with Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer. “I went to Kentucky, and I still wasn’t ready for the NBA,” Monk told Bonnell. “Some days you’re tired. Or your body hurts. Or you have a headache. And nobody wants to hear that. You’ve got to fight through that. That’s what I’ve really learned — that you’ve got to fight.”