# Hobbled Hornets head West on 5-game losing streak..



## girllovesthegame (Nov 3, 2005)

_The New Orleans Hornets donned Santa Claus
hats and sang a Christmas carol after practice Monday to spread
some holiday cheer to their fans.

They could use a little pick-me-up themselves.

Missing three of their top four scorers, the Hornets (8-8) have
followed a promising start with five losses in a row and fallen
near the bottom of the NBA in scoring and shooting percentage.

"We've just got to keep playing," point guard Chris Paul said.
"We're without three of our best players, but it's a long season.
All we can do now is continue to play, and hopefully the streak
will break."

Coach Byron Scott doesn't expect shooting guard Peja Stojakovic
(back spasms), forward David West (strained right forearm) or guard
Bobby Jackson (bruised ribs) to play on the team's three-game West
Coast swing that starts Wednesday against the Los Angeles Lakers.
All three will make the trip.

"Their injuries are not very minute injuries. Their injuries
are serious things," Scott said.

During the spate of injuries, the Hornets have dropped to 27th
in the league in scoring (92.6 points) and 29th in shooting
percentage (43 percent). Stojakovic, West and Jackson had been
averaging a combined 46.1 points._

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=nba&id=2686165

Some kind of conspiracy going on here? LOL! They never really give us much info on these "injuries". :sad: Maybe they'll be ready for the Cavs or next weeks TNT game. Hopefully.


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## Diable (Apr 26, 2005)

Kobe hurt his ankle last night,but I don't think it's bad enough to keep him out of the game tomorrow.We're pretty likely to continue losing until we get at least one or two of those guys left.It's really irritating to think that we're likely to miss the playoffs if West and Peja don't come back soon.We've lost at least three games we probably win at full strength and we just can't afford to give up winnable games if we want to make the playoffs in the West.


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## girllovesthegame (Nov 3, 2005)

Heck with the way the Hornets have been playing (although they played well against Chicago) the Lakers would probably beat them without Kobe. Unless Rasual would have another nice game like he did against Chicago and at least 2 other players stepped up to help Paul. And now they're saying Bobby will miss two weeks. Great. Just great. 

http://www.neworleanscitybusiness.com/uptotheminute.cfm?recid=7656


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## Tooeasy (Nov 4, 2003)

very poor way to start the season, but if you wanna be optimistic about things, its better to have the injury bug bite you early on rather than late season when your making a playoff push. Lets hope they all come back 100% and remain healthy.


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## girllovesthegame (Nov 3, 2005)

Tooeasy said:


> very poor way to start the season, but if you wanna be optimistic about things,* its better to have the injury bug bite you early on rather than late season* when your making a playoff push. Lets hope they all come back 100% and remain healthy.


This is what I was thinking too. But I just hope they don't dig themselves into a hole that's too deep to get out of. They may still be a year away from the playoffs anyway. Who knows? I can't wait to watch a full healthy team again.


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## Rids (Dec 5, 2006)

Hey sure they are sitting at 8-8 right now but before the skid started they were 8-3. That's a big jump for this club and there's plenty of season to go. This club will be in playoff contention come the end of the season and could be as high as 5th or 6th even without a huge run. Once West and Peja are back look out. 

Problem is the same as always, not enough depth on the bench. Too many players swapped in from year to year and the bench players aren't good enough to spell the starters for more than 10 minutes a game.


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## Diable (Apr 26, 2005)

Welcome to the Hornets board Rids.

I think we have enough depth in the frontcourt and hardly any in the backcourt,especially when you consider that Mason isn't a very good scorer for his position.The problem is that we have noone on the bench who can score consistently except for BJax and MJax.The one benchplayer we have that might give us some scoring is Armstrong and for whatever reason Scott refuses to give him enough PT for us to find out.I don't see why Bass didn't get any PT the other night either.Both our starting forwards are out.If Bass can't play under those circumstances you should send him to the D league.I thought that Bass should have gotten a chance to guard Sweetney since Marc Jackson obviously couldn't.


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## girllovesthegame (Nov 3, 2005)

Rids said:


> Hey sure they are sitting at 8-8 right now but before the skid started they were 8-3. That's a big jump for this club and there's plenty of season to go. This club will be in playoff contention come the end of the season and could be as high as 5th or 6th even without a huge run. Once West and Peja are back look out.
> 
> Problem is the same as always, not enough depth on the bench. Too many players swapped in from year to year and the bench players aren't good enough to spell the starters for more than 10 minutes a game.


Welcome! :wave:


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## Rids (Dec 5, 2006)

I did my final project in my course on the Hornets and looking at all the facts of the past 5 years I still don't know why they drafted Armstrong. I would've gone after a shooting guard myself but there's less pressure on us armchair guys.


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## Rids (Dec 5, 2006)

Thanks for the welcome. I think I'll fit right in around here. Wish I was closer to the action though. Long ways from Oklahoma City or New Orleans.


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## Diable (Apr 26, 2005)

Rids said:


> I did my final project in my course on the Hornets and looking at all the facts of the past 5 years I still don't know why they drafted Armstrong. I would've gone after a shooting guard myself but there's less pressure on us armchair guys.


they drafted him because they needed rebounding and interior defense,but right after that they signed traded PJ for Chandler and at that point it would have made more short term sense to have taken a shooting guard.However the Chandler deal was a result of the bulls signing Ben Wallace and that's not something you can count on when you make your picks.


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## Rids (Dec 5, 2006)

I might be mistaken but wasn't the PJ Brown trade made before the draft?


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## Rids (Dec 5, 2006)

My mistake it was two weeks after the draft. 

But why draft Armstrong when they could've taken Boone who dropped to 23rd but had a better season with UCONN. Then why take Simmons at #15 after taking Armstrong at #12 when they needed the help outside and they had yet to trade for Peja. Taquan Dean or Gerry McNamara would've fit in nicely.


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## Rids (Dec 5, 2006)

My whole take on the Hornets is on my company website...

http://rss.thegoalpost.ca/hornets.pdf


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## girllovesthegame (Nov 3, 2005)

Rids, Hilton will be fine. He just needs more PT. After last season the Hornets went into the draft with defense on their minds. Did you see how well Hilton played when he started against the Pistons that one game that Chandler was out?

http://www.basketballboards.net/forum/showthread.php?t=316991&page=3


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## supermati (Mar 28, 2005)

You both have valid points, Hilton may turn out to be great, but we already have Chandler who's looking really strong this season, we coudn't speculate Ben would sign with the Bulls, so we went Big.
That's the reason, and now, we are struggling to see a real SG on the team, that's why we need either to draft or sign for next season.
Heck, maybe even trade for someone.


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## girllovesthegame (Nov 3, 2005)

supermati said:


> You both have valid points, Hilton may turn out to be great, but we already have Chandler who's looking really strong this season, we coudn't speculate Ben would sign with the Bulls, so we went Big.
> That's the reason, and now, we are struggling to see a real SG on the team, that's why we need either to draft or sign for next season.
> Heck, maybe even trade for someone.


We may have a new SG by trade deadline. Heck, we may even have one on our bench in the form of Marcus Vinicius. LOL! I really think this guy could help us but apparently Scott does not which is why he's riding the pine. I think the only shot I've seen him take was a pretty 3-pointer that he swished with ease.


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