- Veteran forward Nicolas Batum confirmed over the weekend that he won’t play for France in this year’s Eurobasket tournament (video link). Batum will instead dedicate his summer to the Hornets after the team endured a disappointing 2016/17 campaign.
The Hornets have exercised their option on general manager Rich Cho’s contract, sources tell ESPN’s Marc Stein. The move will keep the Charlotte GM locked up through the 2017/18 season.
Cho, who has been the Hornets’ general manager since June 2011, helped build a roster that made the playoffs in 2013/14 and again in 2015/16. During Cho’s time in Charlotte, the front office has drafted players such as Kemba Walker, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Cody Zeller, and Frank Kaminsky.
Still, the Hornets will miss the postseason this season, and the team’s cap situation going forward isn’t all that flexible. Currently, the club has $102MM in guaranteed money committed to team salary for 2017/18, and the roster lacks any legit star-power beyond Walker, unless a player like Kaminsky can take a major step forward.
According to Jon Krawczynski of The Associated Press (Twitter link), there was “a lot of intrigue in league circles” about what team owner Michael Jordan would do with Cho’s contract and the Hornets’ front office. While Charlotte will stay the course for now, the 2017/18 season figures to be a crucial one for the front office as the club looks to get back into the playoffs a year from now.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver spoke today at the league’s Board of Governors meetings about a few items of interest, including the subject of teams resting healthy stars, which he called the most important issue facing the league at the moment (Twitter link via Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today).
According to Silver, the NBA hopes to avoid having teams play four games in five nights next season and will also aim to further reduce back-to-backs in general (Twitter links via Frank Isola of The New York Daily News and Zillgitt).
Noting that the issue is a “complex” one, Silver added that owners agreed teams should avoid resting multiple players during nationally televised games, and the league’s preference is to rest players for home games rather than road contests (Twitter link via Howard Beck of Bleacher Report).
Adjusting the 82-game schedule is one potential idea that has been thrown out as a potential solution to the issue of teams resting players. While Silver acknowledged that it’s possible the league, at some point, could come together and agree to reduce the number of regular season games, that’s not on the table for now and wasn’t discussed this week (Twitter link via Isola). The commissioner pointed out that there’s also no hard data indicating that slashing a few games from the schedule would help improve players’ health or eliminate the rest issue (Twitter link via Beck).
The rest issue wasn’t the only one addressed by Silver, who also said that Charlotte is back in the running to potentially host the 2019 NBA All-Star Game. Per the commissioner, North Carolina’s adjustments to the so-called “bathroom bill” don’t entirely resolve the league’s concerns, but Charlotte will still receive strong ASG consideration (Twitter link via Chris Mannix of The Vertical). The Hornets issued a statement this afternoon expressing enthusiasm about the possibility of hosting the 2019 contest.
Finally, Silver also discussed Knicks owner James Dolan, who recently had a verbal altercation with a fan who told him he should sell the franchise. As Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN.com details, the commissioner didn’t seem particularly concerned and didn’t suggest the league would get involved. Dolan “is as frustrated as any Knicks fan” with the state of the team, Silver said (Twitter link via Isola).
1:40pm: Ewing will leave the Hornets staff and start his duties at Georgetown immediately, tweets Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical.
1:28 pm: Former Georgetown star Patrick Ewing has agreed to become the university’s head basketball coach, according to Casual Hoya. (Twitter link).
Currently an assistant with the Hornets, Ewing has been in touch with Georgetown officials since John Thompson III was fired nearly two weeks ago. He had his first face-to-face interview for the post today.
Ewing was a dominant center for the Hoyas, who were one of college basketball’s best teams during the 1980s. He played for John Thompson Jr., who was a major advocate for Ewing to be hired as coach.
After a Hall of Fame career with the Knicks, Ewing turned to coaching in 2003, working for the Rockets and Magic before being coming to Charlotte four years ago. He has reportedly been considered for several NBA head coaching jobs, but will now turn his attention toward the college game.
Hornets assistant Patrick Ewing will meet with Georgetown officials today to discuss their head coaching job, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical.
Ewing has had several phone conversations with the school since John Thompson III was fired last month. Charlotte plays at Washington Tuesday night, making the visit more convenient for the former Hoyas star.
Ewing has been studying the intracacies of running a college programs, Wojnarowski reports, and has has started researching potential assistants. He has also been talking to college coaches who made the jump from the NBA. Sources who have spoken with Ewing believe he is ready for the recruiting challenge that the college game presents.
John Thompson Jr., who coached the center from 1982-85, is a strong supporter of Ewing and has expressed that sentiment to officials from the university. Georgetown was among the college basketball powers of the era while Ewing was there, winning the national championship in 1984 and losing in the 1985 finals.
Wojnarowski adds that Ewing has also received endorsements from the NBA coaches he has worked under, Jeff and Stan Van Gundy and Steve Clifford. They have all given positive reports to Georgetown and the Korn Ferry search group about Ewing’s coaching abilities.
An NBA assistant since 2003, Ewing was close to being hired as the Kings’ head coach last spring, according to Wojnarowski. The last-second availability of Dave Joerger, who was fired in Memphis, made Sacramento’s front office change its mind.
Hornets assistant Patrick Ewing has become a “major candidate” to be the next head coach at Georgetown, according to Jon Rothstein of FanragSports.com.
A Hoyas star in the 1980s, Ewing has interviewed for the job several times since the firing of John Thompson III 10 days ago. A source said that Ewing is the first choice of Thompson’s father, who coached him in college and still wields considerable power in the program.
After a Hall of Fame career with the Knicks, Ewing turned to coaching in 2003. He worked as an assistant with the Rockets and Magic before coming to Charlotte in 2013.
North Carolina may get rid of the controversial “bathroom bill” that resulted in this year’s All-Star Game being pulled out of Charlotte, according to Reuters.
Members of the state’s Republican-controlled legislature said tonight that they have reached a deal to repeal HB2, which bars transgender people from choosing which restroom to use based on their gender identities. A vote on the repeal measure is set for Thursday morning.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver made the decision to move this year’s All-Star festivities to New Orleans, but said giving Charlotte the 2019 game would be a “high priority” if the law were removed.
“The issues that we are primarily focused on are those of acceptance and inclusiveness — and the bill goes far beyond directing what bathrooms people should use,” Silver said when the decision was announced in October. “From that standpoint, it has been misrepresented. Ultimately for us, it’s about creating the right environment, specifically for a celebratory event like our All-Star game.”
- The Hornets will not participate in the trend of resting players, according to David Scott of the Charlotte Observer. That would go against the philosophy of owner Michael Jordan and assistant coach Patrick Ewing, who didn’t take games off when they played, Scott adds. “It’s easy for me, because I’m working for an owner who just doesn’t believe in it,” coach Steve Clifford told Scott. “And I have an associate head coach who would kill me if I started doing it.”
After 13 seasons at Georgetown, John Thompson III is out as the team’s head coach, the school confirmed today (Twitter link via Gene Wang of The Washington Post). With the Hoyas’ job now open, Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical notes (via Twitter) that Hornets associate head coach Patrick Ewing has never had much interest in NCAA jobs, but it’s possible that the Georgetown job “gives him pause.” According to Wojnarowski (Twitter links), Ewing remains close and loyal to the Thompson family, and came close to landing an NBA job last offseason, so he may very well continue to focus on landing an NBA head coaching job.
Let’s round up a few more coaching-related odds and ends from around the basketball world…
- Kentucky head coach John Calipari signed another extension with the Wildcats, according to school, which announced in a press release that the two-year amendment to Calipari’s current contract locks him up through March 30, 2024. Calipari’s name occasionally pops up in NBA head coaching rumors, but it doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere anytime soon.
- Another former NBA coach appears to be seeking out a college job, as Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical tweets that Larry Brown is trying to align himself as an assistant as part of Mike Woodson‘s candidacy for Indiana University’s job. Indiana isn’t interested, per Wojnarowski.
- Meanwhile, Jon Rothstein of FanRag Sports reports that LIU-Brooklyn reached out to Brown about the school’s head coaching job, and the two sides are expected to meet soon. However, a source tells ESPN’s Jeff Goodman that the interest is from Brown’s side, and LIU-Brooklyn doesn’t consider him a “viable candidate.”
- This could be the first NBA season in more than 50 years in which no team makes an in-season coaching change, which amazes Magic head coach Frank Vogel, as John Denton of OrlandoMagic.com details. “The fact that no one has, it’s a shock,” Vogel said. “It’s been overly volatile and unreasonably so, quite frankly, over the last five-to-10 years in particular. (No firings) is something that is great for our profession. I think teams need to understand that continuity is important. Everybody wants to win now, but there is strength in continuity.”
MARCH 19, 10:25am: The deal is official, according to a tweet from the team.
MARCH 18, 1:01pm: The Hornets and Briante Weber agreed on a two-year deal, Shams Charania of The Vertical tweeted Friday. That puts the undrafted 24-year-old in position to back up Kemba Walker for the remainder of the 2016/17 campaign.
Though the exact terms of the deal haven’t been announced, even if the second year of the contract isn’t guaranteed Weber appears in line to get more than enough of an opportunity to prove his worth over course of the season’s final month.
Weber has done relatively little across stops with the Warriors and Hornets this season but has only played more than a handful of minutes twice all year. Now that the struggling Hornets have started to come to terms with the fact that their playoff hopes are fading, that could change.
Per Jerry Stephens of Fan Sided’s Swarm and Sting blog, head coach Steve Clifford is open to slotting Weber ahead of Brian Roberts and the injured Ramon Sessions on the depth chart providing a slightly larger sample size for the guard to prove that there is legitimate value behind his impressive D-League statistics.
Weber averaged 16.5 points, 7.3 rebounds and 7.5 assists per game in 31 contests for the Sioux Falls Skyforce this season.