Tuesday, August 28, 2012

New Orleans Hornets 2012-2013 prediction

The Hornets finished last season dead last  in the western conference following the Chris Paul trade to the Clippers. They finished with a 21-45 and their best player Eric Gordon was out most of the season. They were well rewarded for it though, with the top overall pick in this year's draft as well as the #10 pick. Let's look at the roster as it stands right now:
F Al-Farouq Aminu, F ryan Anderson, F-C Anthony Davis, G Eric Gordon, G Xavier Henry, C Robin Lopez, G Roger Mason Jr, F Darius Miller, G Austin Rivers, G Brian Roberts, F-C Jason Smith, F Lance Thomas, G Greivis Vasquez, F Hakim Warrick
On paper this is a very fun and promising team. It begins with #1 overall pick Anthony Davis, the future of the franchise and somebody who is already talking about wanting to be known for defense. Davis will make an immediate impact, and is coming off a summer of being around some of the league's top players in this year's olympics. His offense still needs a lot of room to grow, and dont expect him to produce high scoring outputs everynight. Specially playing on a team in which the only natural point guard (If you want to consider him that) is Greivis Vasquez, Austin Rivers and Eric Gordon will loook to get their own 90% of the time. We believe Davis can average close to a double double this season and at least 2 blocks. He will make up for guard's mistakes on the perimeter and will generate his points off lobs, spoon feeds, and offensive rebounds.
On the other hand, expect Eric Gordon to have a monster season, he looked excellent at the USA pre olympic camp and many considered it should have been him, instead of James Harden for that last spot. Will it generate into a postseason berth? Probably not, but there will be plenty of excitement watching these guys play. Austin Rivers, will be expected to see some minutes at the 1 and the 2, but he's a scorer by nature and thats what he'll do. It will be interesting to see how he and Gordon get along.
On the to-do list for the Hornets? Get a real point guard, Greivis Vasquez will get his chance, but we dont believe he is the future at the point guard for the Hornets. They have to let their young core of Anderson, Davis, Gordon, and Rivers develop, it wont generate a lot of wins at first, but development will come and excitement and anticipation as well. The Hornets wont finish dead last this year in the conference, we believe they will win between 25 and 33 games, and while playoffs is what they are shooting for, we dont see the playoffs in the heavy loaded western conference for this young squad for another 2 years.

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