Why the Charlotte Hornets Are the Most Disappointing Team in the NBA

No team in the NBA is further below its preseason expectations than the Charlotte Hornets.

The most disappointing team in basketball by a wide margin, the Hornets were losers of 10 straight games prior to Friday night's 103-102 win over the Knicks, in a game where they were leading by 18 in the fourth quarter and needed a buzzer-beater from Kemba Walker to survive at home.

The Hornets are one of three teams in the entire league feebly scraping by with a bottom-10 offense and a bottom-10 defense. Last year, Charlotte was the NBA’s little engine that could. Its stout defense carried the franchise all the way to the playoffs for just the second time since 2002.

This summer, the front office decided to up the ante, throwing a max-offer sheet at Gordon Hayward (which was matched by the Utah Jazz), signing Lance Stephenson to a cool three-year, $27.5 million contract (with a valuable team option in the third year), grabbing Marvin Williams for a lamentable $14 million and officially making Kemba Walker the franchise point guard.

It’s not even Christmas, but so far none of those decisions look promising. Stephenson’s shooting numbers could very well inspire a Rob Zombie movie (.385/.167/.674), birthing reports that the team may be looking to trade him sooner rather than later. Williams has four free-throw attempts in over 400 minutes, and Walker still makes scoring in the paint look more strenuous than deciphering the end of Interstellar.

Here's Grantland’s Zach Lowe with some insight into Charlotte’s difficult situation.Stephenson is an irksome player, known for stealing rebounds from teammates (he’s averaging a career-high 7.6 rebounds per game, but only 17.1 percent of them are contested—meaning a defender is within 3.5 feet—which is comical), over-dribbling into pointless turnovers and, most disturbing, failing to consistently exert maximum effort on the defensive end.

Here's Stephenson trying to take what isn't his, followed by a firm "thanks, but no thanks" from Al Jefferson:

Moments before the clip seen below happened, Stephenson turned the ball over. His man, Jimmy Butler, proceeds to put back an easy offensive rebound. Why was it so easy? Stephenson jogged back for no explicable reason:

Source http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2289913-why-the-charlotte-hornets-are-the-most-disappointing-team-in-the-nba