Al Jefferson Injury Forces Charlotte Hornets' Hand on NBA Trade Market
The Charlotte Hornets don't have another player like franchise savior Al Jefferson.
Unfortunately, the Hornets won't have Big Al himself for an extended time period, which will likely lead them to the trade market given their lack of viable in-house replacements.
Jefferson made an early exit Monday from Charlotte's 104-94 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks after aggravating a groin injury. An MRI revealed that he had suffered "a strain of an adductor muscle in his left groin," and his initial timetable for return was set at "a minimum of four weeks," the team announced in a statement.
It's a brutal blow to a playoff-hopeful team that was already struggling to keep up in the Eastern Conference postseason race. The Hornets aren't out of it—only four games separate them from the eighth-seeded Miami Heat—but they have to figure out how to keep it that way over the next month without their leading scorer (18.0 points per game) and rebounder (8.2).
Charlotte has hurt for consistent production throughout the 2014-15 campaign. The Hornets rank 28th in both offensive efficiency (98.8 points per 100 possessions) and field-goal percentage (42.8). Of their four players with double-digit scoring averages, only Jefferson is connecting on better than 40 percent of his shots from the field.
Pulling him out of the lineup strips this team of the offensive identity it has. He is both the fulcrum of and a safety valve for this attack. The Hornets can consistently run sets through him or turn to him late in the shot clock and expect him to deliver.
That option isn't available without Jefferson, as Steve Reed of The Associated Press explained (via the Star Tribune):
"Bismack Biyombo will take over at center and he's not nearly as talented on the offensive end. Biyombo is athletic, but his range is extremely limited and he doesn't have the same moves in the low post that Jefferson brings to the table. The scoring load is expected to fall on point guard Kemba Walker, guard Gerald Henderson and forward Cody Zeller.
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Kemba Walker is the most likely candidate to pick up the offensive slack. Not only is he the team's starting point guard, he's also Charlotte's only player with a scoring average in the vicinity of Jefferson's (17.7).
But the 6'1" Walker has always been a volume contributor, as evidenced by his career 39.8 field-goal percentage. Some nights he can light the lamp with ease, like his recent 42-point outburst. Other nights, his inability to stretch a defense (career 32.3 three-point percentage) and consistently finish drives near the basket (53.3 percent shooting within three feet this season) limit his effectiveness.
Behind Walker, there are far more questions than answers.
Gerald Henderson and Cody Zeller are complementary contributors. The pair has tallied 16.1 points in their combined 48.2 minutes a night. Gary Neal plays a similar game to Walker's, but Neal doesn't score as often (11.0 per game) or as efficiently (37.8 percent shooting). Michael Kidd-Gilchrist still does his best work at the defensive end despite possessing an improved shooting form.
There aren't any really comfortable internal options to offset Jefferson's loss.
Head coach Steve Clifford said, "the ball-movement aspect will have to be a bigger part" of the offense, per Rick Bonnell of The Charlotte Observer. But the Hornets rank 22nd with a 55.9 assists percentage. Walker leads the team with only 5.6 helpers a night, which ranks just 19th overall.
"We'll have to play small some," Clifford added, per Bonnell, but that's an awkward fit with this roster. The Hornets rank 28th with a 32.2 three-point percentage and 26th with 6.2 made triples a night. The idea of spreading the floor to attack the rim is sound, but Charlotte lacks the floor spacers needed to pull defenders away from the interior.
The Hornets will have to look outside the organization for help. The tricky part is figuring out whether they'll be looking to buy in Jefferson's absence or using this setback as a reason to sell some of their ill-fitting parts.
After making a surprise run to the 2014 postseason, Charlotte retooled its roster in a way that seemed to cover some obvious gaps.
Lance Stephenson was brought in to help relieve the playmaking and scoring duties carried by Walker and Jefferson. Stretch forward Marvin Williams was tabbed to replace the versatile Josh McRoberts. Rookies Noah Vonleh and P.J. Hairston were added to provide frontcourt depth and perimeter scoring, respectively.
"They got the weapons we needed," Jefferson declared at the start of training camp, per Reed. "I mean, I'm so happy about it I don't even want to talk about it because I feel like I might jinx it."
However, two months into the season, those pieces have yet to fall into place. The Hornets have posted worse efficiency marks on both sides of the ball than they did last season.
Stephenson has had a disastrous start to his Charlotte tenure. The swingman owns a grisly .386/.151/.635 shooting slash. He has reportedly clashed with teammates, league sources told Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe, and is currently sidelined with a pelvic injury.
Hope isn't lost for a Stephenson recovery. He is still getting acclimated to his new surroundings, which came with perhaps overly optimistic expectations.
"To be fair, one of the things that's made it more difficult for him is that he came here and people proclaimed him as the next superstar," Clifford said earlier this season, per ESPN.com's Michael Wallace. "He's not a star. He's a guy that that has talent to become a star."
The problem is Jefferson's injury will only increase the pressure on Stephenson to perform like a star. The Hornets are nearing the make-or-break point of their season, and Stephenson will be looked upon to help them keep it together—or blamed if things fall apart.
The Hornets have already explored the idea of trading Stephenson, sources told ESPN.com's Marc Stein, though they reportedly opted to keep him "for now," per ESPN's Chris Broussard and Ramona Shelburne. Stephenson's trade value has plummeted, but Charlotte desperately needs to find a way to bring in a better shooting, less ball-dominant backcourt mate for Walker.
The Hornets could also look into the idea of thinning their crowded frontcourt. In addition to Jefferson, Zeller and Williams, they also have Biyombo, Jason Maxiell and 2014 lottery pick Vonleh vying for playing time.
But this gets tricky, since the players potential trade partners would want—namely, Zeller and Vonleh—are among the few pieces Charlotte has stocked up for the future.
It's hard to find guys with Zeller's combination of size and skills. Vonleh, who lost a valuable chunk of development time to a sports hernia surgery, has struggled to see consistent minutes. That has probably kept his price tag low enough that the reward of moving him won't outweigh the risk of seeing him maximize the use of his intriguing physical gifts elsewhere.
That being said, the Hornets cannot afford to stand pat. At the very least, they need to upgrade their wing with the type of shooter capable of creating driving lanes for Walker and low-post breathing room for Jefferson.
"The Hornets don’t have a good defender with 3-point range in their entire perimeter rotation," noted Grantland's Zach Lowe.
Charlotte must stay realistic, though, and proceed with caution. If the Hornets can recover and make a playoff appearance, it won't be a lengthy one. That means future assets like Zeller, Vonleh, Kidd-Gilchrist and their 2015 first-round pick should be wearing the same untouchable label as Jefferson and Walker.
That will surely limit what the Hornets can do, but they wouldn't find a player capable of significantly raising their low ceiling anyway.
They are looking at two options. Either they can sell off some of their high-priced players for returns that help tomorrow, or they can examine minor moves that modestly improve them today.
If they opt for the latter, then lower-tier names like Randy Foye of the Denver Nuggets, Iman Shumpert of the New York Knicks, Marcus Thornton of the Boston Celtics and Chase Budinger of the Minnesota Timberwolves could all be potential targets. If they want shooters with more size, then Denver's Wilson Chandler and Boston's Jeff Green might be options, though either would come at a higher price.
Even before losing Jefferson, the Hornets were in survival mode. Whether this injury causes them to pull the plug on this season or motivates them to chase a win-now acquisition, it's still likely to send them to the trade market either way.
Unless otherwise noted, statistics used courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com.
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