Flying Fast, Landing Flat: Charlotte Hornets (Ep. 15)

All right. Computers are on, coffee’s gone cold and morale is already questionable. Welcome to Misery Sports Co. This is the weekly check in for fans who keep showing up, keep believing and keep getting sent home with nothing to show for it. I’m Zack. I spend my time reviewing results that don’t improve and timelines that keep getting pushed. And I’m Trevor here to help manage expectations, redirect frustration, and explain why this still technically counts as progress. Last episode, we dedicated an entire meeting to Nebraska Football, a proud brand living almost entirely on memory and optimism. This week, we’re back to the regular workflow, smaller failures, familiar patterns, and the comforting consistency of disappointment. That’s right. But before we get into any of that, let’s take a quick break from our sponsor, who is about to learn a lot about our audience. Mm. This next segment of the Misery Sports Company is brought to you by the corporate transfer portal. Are you tired of working your nine to five job that you’ve been at for what feels like forever, but really has just been seven months? Well, tell him to shove it and hop on in the corporate transfer portal, which lets you go wherever you want. Really? Just like, no consequences at all. We don’t even understand the rules, let alone are able to enforce them. Do you work for Pepsi and you want to go over to Coke? Sure. Why not? You do you with corporate transfer portal. Thank you. Corporate transfer portal. What a wild time to be alive right now with college football. So, you know, it can sound like sour grapes because we’re Ohio State football fans, right? And so we’ve had, you know, a pretty comfortable existence. But just being completely honest, I have no idea what’s going on. Like we still have good players at Ohio State. We’re still going to be okay. But it’s like, what on Earth? I mean, the bottom half of the roster is just gone every right, every year in every. I feel like every day I get on Twitter and it’s like, oh, this five star, that was number twenty in the class. Like they’re transferring now. They’re gone. It’s like you waited your turn. You’re about to get playing time. Where are you going? But oh I got offered five hundred thousand more from this other school. Like Penn State’s trying to build a team, so. Sure, I’ll go hop over there. I just it’s crazy. Get that bag, that money. All right, let’s pull up the weekly performance review. No slides, no solutions, just vibes, excuses and a lot of squinting at the results. That’s right. This is where we explain why things didn’t go as planned and why that was somehow always part of the plan. I will go first this week. Trevor, and welcome back episode fifteen. Uh, we’ve had a few weeks to reflect and experience, uh, some terrible football. Uh, in the Browns case, they actually started winning games, which was not great for us long term. Um, so during the break, we ended up beating the Steelers. Um, beating the Bengals. Yeah. Um, getting ourselves into the sixth draft position in the NFL draft. Oh my goodness. If we would have just lost out Trevor, we would have had the number two pick in the draft. Just how bad our strength of schedule was. Um, but those wins are good for morale. I guess they were so good that we fired Kevin Stefanski. Oh, gosh. Great job. Really wrote us in on a high. And, uh, you’re gone. So, um, more on him later. Yeah. Can’t say it’s surprising. I mean, we’ve won. I think it was eight games in the last two years. Um, seems like a great guy. Um, you know, in the locker room, he got to know people. He just seemed like a really good human being. But at the end of the day, he just wasn’t getting the job done. He wasn’t leading a bunch of multi-millionaire star athletes. So on to the next one. Uh the Cavs. The Cavs are looking pretty average right now. They’re dancing with five hundred. A lot of injuries. Um, Garland just isn’t looking the same at point guard. Jared Allen is hit or miss right now. So we are just in a world of hurt. Uh, and the Blue Jackets are just bad. I was looking at this, Trevor. Uh, the Blue Jackets conference. Right. The Eastern conference. Every single team in the Eastern Conference of the NHL has a winning record. So the Blue Jackets have a winning record. They are dead last. Jeez, man. The conference. Jeez. So that’s when, you know, that’s like the Western Conference in the NBA. You know, in the early two thousand, it was just like everyone is a good team. You’re you’re a good team. You’re going to be on the Western Conference in the NBA. So that’s that’s how it feels right now. So it’s tough. It’s tough. The West is real top heavy. But we got those bad teams over there. At least to beat up on. East is stacked. Well, Trevor, what have you got for the weekly performance review? Yeah, it’s, um, like you said, we’ve had some time off and it was equally as sad. Um, over here on the Titans. Just really excited that the season is over. Thank goodness. Back to back seasons of three and fourteen. Woo hoo hoo. Really uh, defines what Misery Sports Company is all about. Thankfully, the Titans lost both of their last games. I say thankfully, because we’ve managed to get the fourth pick in the draft. Um, shout out to the Browns for winning that last game against the Bengals. Really appreciate that because that kicked us down a spot on strength of schedule tiebreakers with the Cardinals. So who wants to pick third when you can pick fourth? Really? That’s what I say. So we’re excited to pick fourth right now. And it’s completely on the Titans because if we you’ll recall back in week five, we beat the Cardinals on a series of really stupid plays. Just fumbles into the end zone, all sorts of goofy stuff happening in that game. If the Titans had just lost that game, we would be picking number one again. But we decided to win. The Cardinals helped us out. It’s a real 3D chess move by the Cardinals, so shout out to them. Uh Titans lose thirty four twenty six to the Saints in Week seventeen. Uh, that randomly got people thinking that Tyler Shuck is better than cam Ward. I’m here to tell you that’s not true. Uh, we were basically playing practice squads for our entire defense outside of Big Jeff. So, like, you can pick apart that secondary. No problem. We’re going to make you look special. Tyler shucks a great, great player. No disrespect at all. But like some weird stuff came out of that game because people just saw that the Saints won and anyways and then uh, end of the week or end of the season with a division game. As always, this was against the Jaguars, who we have famously had great success against all the time. Uh, this time we took the lead seven zero, super positive. But it was on a designed run from cam Ward, who doesn’t have a lot of those. And there was kind of a late hit where a guy tackled him in the end zone and landed right on his shoulder, and he has a grade three, grade three sprain in his shoulder. Uh, and there was thoughts that he was going to need surgery. And so he was done for the day. And we promptly did not score the rest of the day and gave up forty one points. So forty one seven was the final score of our last game. Uh, looks like there’s no surgery needed for cam. So he’s. That’s good news for him, but it just sucks. He started every single game. We haven’t had a quarterback start every single game since. I can’t even remember even the glory years with Tannehill. He would miss a game or two and then he gets hurt. So it’s it’s a tough look. Um, I’m just glad the season’s done. I’m glad I don’t have to pay attention to it anymore. Um, we had some fun highlights. Uh, I’m sure in the coming weeks, we’ll do some sort of review of the season and kind of give a postmortem. But that was that was the big takeaway is thankfully we are we’re done watching that. Um, Mavericks still have decent vibes. The stars vibes. Yikes. We’re still, I think second in the league, but we have not won in six games. Um, I think the score might have gone final against Washington, where we did win tonight, but a bit of a rough patch, a bit of a rough patch. Well, they’ve given us a lot of good content this year. Um, great start for Misery Sports company. Jeez, dude. Um, yeah, I wanted to just take some time to, at the end of this, this segment and review at least some of the top performers for Misery Sports Co, which would be the bottom of the standings. So as we head into the NFL draft, we have the Las Vegas Raiders at number one. It looks like, uh, we covered them in one of our episodes. We did, uh, wouldn’t you know it, the New York Jets are number two. Jeez, dude, they have a a great spot at Misery Sports Co. All fans are welcome. Uh, Arizona Cardinals number three Tennessee Titans are four. And to round out the top five the New York Giants. The Browns are looking from the inside or from the outside in. With that, they’re at number six. Trevor is not looking great. I think all of the top three teams need quarterbacks. So not sure the Browns are going to be solving anything this year. It’s tough. It’s tough. Um, yeah. You really have to pick I was looking there was a stat that was going around Twitter and like, um, all but two or three of the starting quarterbacks in the playoffs this season were all first round picks. So you got to get you got to get a quarterback in the first round. And it’s tough to do when you’re not in those top, top three or four picks. It’s tough indeed indeed. Well as we look ahead expectations are being carefully adjusted. Timelines are getting flexible again. And everyone’s quietly choosing which parts of this to remember before this turns into a closed door meeting. Let’s take a break for a sponsor. Yes, let’s take a break. Have you ever. Trevor wanted to stop your opponent from celebrating multiple times. At the end of a game you’ve clearly lost all the time. Look no further than the big twelve ref slash Sugar Bowl stage crew package here to make sure the game never ends. And it comes with enough confetti for three false start celebrations. Oh man, which game was that? Where it just wouldn’t end? Was that the Ole Miss game, the Sugar Bowl? It was Ole Miss Georgia. Yeah dude. It was over several times. Several times it was over. They dumped Gatorade on one of them. Wasn’t it? Like a it was like a, um, Georgia had a back and forth play or whatever. It ended up being a safety. There was no time left. Yes. So the refs decided to put one second back on a game where Georgia has to kick a safety onside. Kick down five I don’t. Are you going to do an onside free kick? I’ve never like how does that even work? I don’t know what you would do. I don’t necessarily fault the stage crew part of this package. Thank you for your sponsorship. But thank you. I mean, they don’t know. They they think that the game is is done. They’re like, oh, this is a normal game. We should get on the field and let them celebrate. And the refs for having no part of that. No. They got them off twice. Two times. There was a stage on the field and they said move it back, wrap it up. Yeah that game was nuts. I forgot all about that. There was also another game where the maybe this was in the NFL. Do you remember the game where the ref uh, there was like a walk off play or something and he keeps going. The game is not over. The game is not over, the game is not over. And then he and then there’s a break and then he goes. Expedited review shows a touchdown. The game is over. I was like, well, okay, we literally just got everybody off the field. I have to look up which one that is. Yeah. Poor refs. Thank you for your sponsorship money though. We appreciate you. Yep. Welcome to the mail room. Now the part of the building where logic goes to die and every message feels personal. None of these tweets were screened, proofread or sent with the benefit of sleep. That is right. And I’ll kick us off. So I have two tweets of the week. My first one is browns related. It’s from animal football, they say with sirens in all caps. Historically bad Cleveland Browns rookie quarterback Shadder Sanders had the worst QB in the entire franchise history. Oh, no. Sanders quarterback rating this season was eighteen point eight, the worst of all time. Schroeder was on pace to throw the most interceptions ever by a rookie. Who? Who holds that? Is that still Peyton Manning that holds the interception record? I think it is. And it’s a lot. It is Trevor. We ball. We throw interceptions launch it. We we want it. Just launch it. Uh yeah we’ll see. I’m I don’t know I don’t even have an opinion on shudder. It’s it feels very similar to cam Ward where it’s just like there’s no one blocking well for him. There’s no receivers that are the tight ends are pretty good on our team, but the receivers are just bad. Yeah. Um. So Jerry, Judy back. Uh, he might have one more year. Okay. He might have one more year. I’ll have to check his contract, but I think he was on the second year of a three year deal. Yeah, yeah, he. I think he led the league at one point and drops. I was going to say if he can hang on to the ball. Yeah. Yeah. Skills there. but, well, to put it in context, uh, Cam’s QBR for the year was only thirty three point one. So, uh, I feel that that was good for twenty eighth in the league. Double Trevor okay. That’s double the QB hard. That does seem to be higher, but that’s still a wildly fail because QBR is on a zero to one hundred scale, right? Yes I think it goes up to one hundred. So not great. But for JaMarcus Russell stop. Don’t bring up JaMarcus. That’s I think we’re in single digits just like his Wonderlic. My my second tweet actually comes from a random NBA game. So I think it was the, uh, the Warriors and the Clippers and the broadcast team had Snoop Dogg in, and he was just like a guest broadcaster. And they had a legit crew. I mean, they had Reggie Miller in here. All right. And so at one point there was a clear goaltend that does not get called. And Steve Kerr, the head coach for the Golden State Warriors, loses his ever loving mind. And this is the commentary from Snoop Dogg. It is fantastic. Here it is. Oh, look at Steve Kerr. He’s all the way out here. Oh Steve, don’t get thrown out. Get get him out of there. Get him out of there! Back him up! Back him up! GP, back him up, Steve! He’s already gone. Steve. Back in Inglewood right now! Inglewood. Get him! Steve! You in Inglewood, Steve. The Arizona Wildcat that came out. Look at him. Ah! I oh, my gosh, that’s so good. Back in Steve talking to Gary. Back above GP. Back him up. Oh back him up. Oh man that is. Thank you Snoop Dogg. That was good stuff. Excellent. Well Then there’s this, which somehow arrived super late, feels like it was typed through gritted teeth. Uh, I’ve got a couple entries for us today. I have got. Uh, the first one. So there’s a running joke that AFC South teams, anytime we get into the playoffs, we’re going to be the early slot like the Texans have played in like the one p m playoff spot for years. They finally got a prime time game. So that was kind of a running joke. Uh but at Eric V Dunn said Jags make a Super Bowl. They’re going to have that at one p m. Nobody’s interested in us. Um, at Stuckey, two says here are the worst records in the NFL. And we’ll start with, uh, kind of recapping what Zach said earlier. The Cardinals three and fourteen, the Titans three and fourteen, the Jets three and fourteen. The Raiders three and fourteen. But at the top. Sauce Gardner at two and fifteen. Because he got traded from the Jets to the Colts for lots of picks. Basically mortgaged to future for Sauce Gardner because they thought this is our time. And then the Colts went on a super losing streak. And Sauce Gardner had the worst record in the NFL. So he’s going through it. Colts fans are going through it. You’re welcome here at MSK. Um tweet of the week comes from uh at BFW. This is Brandon Walker who is a fan of Mississippi State football. So Mississippi State, uh, we will definitely do a deep dive at some point. Um, they have been going through it. They only had five wins this year, but somehow with everybody backing out of bowl games, they got to go to a ball game and they got to go to the Duke’s Mayo Bowl, which is a hilarious. It’s kind of up there with like the Pop Tart bowl and the Cheez-It Bowl. Like it’s a goofy, I don’t know, it’s like a fun one at the end of the game. Their quarterback, who was very fun to watch, ran and then stopped and got tackled at the ankles and it just looked bad. So Brandon Walker says our entire future might have just broken his leg in a fourteen point bowl game, in a fourteen point game, in a bowl about mayonnaise that we never should have been in. I hate this sport. I root for the most cursed team in the history of Earth. And I thought, you know what? That sounds exactly like how we feel here at MSK. The good news is he did not break anything. It was just a bad sprain. So miraculously he pulled through. But BFW, you are my tweet of the week. Well done and shout out to those bulls to, like you said, the Cheez-It Bowl, the Pop tart bowl. Like they’re doing it right. They’ve got all the bits. Yes, like huge pop tarts, human sized pop tarts that are jumping into a toaster, and then it pops out like a legitimate edible giant pop tart. It’s so good. And the coaches are in on it, too. Like they’re having a good time, they’re having fun. And at the end of it, they’re like eating the Pop Tarts. I’m here for it, man. It’s absolutely all bull should lead into the pits. My favorite bit this year was that pop tart bowl. They somehow made it like it’s the Pop tarts like you said, that are human sized and alive. It’s their dream to be cooked and eaten by people like it’s what they exist for. So they have these signs like help my dream come true and they lower them in the toaster. It’s so great. Oh my goodness. Well, before we hit another piece of mail in the inbox. Let’s refresh and hear from another. Another word from our sponsors. This next segment of Mystery Sports is brought to you by old Uncle Jimmy’s retread coaching pool. Why take a huge gamble at a young, unproven hotshot to lead your five billion dollar business? Well, you think they’re going to be Sean McVay or something? For every Ben Johnson, there’s ten. Brian Callahan’s out there. Okay. Old Uncle Jimmy is here to say it ain’t worth it. Just take the sure thing. I got Jason Garrett in the back. You’re going to love it with Uncle Jimmy’s retread coaching pool. You know what’s happening to our teams, Trevor. I mean, we’re probably getting Jim Schwartz. You’re getting, like, Mike McCarthy. It’s just retread city. I it’s funny, I had this sponsor as an idea as well because it happens every year. It’s like there’s no outside of the box thinking. Nope. I don’t know if it’s a right or wrong decision. I mean, it could work out for both of our teams. I have no idea. It’s just. Yeah, it is retread time. It is. And it’s going to happen. And the most asinine thing is, I, like we literally scheduled an interview with Jason Garrett, who’s been working for NBC for five years and just collapse on the sideline like, Jason Garrett is the most boring robot of a person. But we got burned by Brian Callahan. So maybe just somebody who can clap and establish a culture as a way to go, I don’t know. I read Kevin Stefanski is interviewing in Tennessee, uh, Saturday. Zachary. Zach, I can’t do this. I can’t is the day. I can’t do this. Everybody’s really excited about it, too. I just super excited. Trevor. It’s the best. We here at MSK are so plugged in to the Browns that we know what that means. If we hire him and I feel like I’m the only one that is watching this train wreck, everybody’s super excited about this train. But I know there’s a critical flaw and it’s going to fly off the tracks. And I just have to stand there and everybody’s clapping. Train, train, train. And we’re going to watch it explode and it’s going to be awful. It’s going to be so bad. But at least it’s not Brian Callahan, I guess. I guess he’s two two coaches of the year, maybe two time. Yeah. Do it. Yeah. Give me Mike McCarthy. Just give me like three or four years of Mike McCarthy to reestablish the culture. I know he’s boring, but like he was winning eight, eight and nine plus games. I think he had like a twelve win season with the Cowboys. I would kill for that. That sounds like something I can’t even comprehend. If he gets us eight or nine wins for a few years and kind of resets things, I’m here for it. Let’s go. John Harbaugh Oh my gosh. Do you know the terrible things I would do to get John Harbaugh to coach my team? I would plug my nose and take him in a heartbeat. I mean, I hate Harbaugh’s, but come on down. Absolute heartbeat. There are teams. I’ve seen reports there are teams who are talking to him behind the scenes that they have a coach that they love, but they’re like, dude, if you want to come coach here, we will fire this guy in a heartbeat. Just like, do you want to come here? So, like, I know the Titans are at the end of his list. He’s never coming here. But I would do terrible, terrible things to have John Harbaugh coach my team. He grew up in Ohio. He’s a Browns fan. Play the Ravens twice a year. Yeah. Revenge. Revenge. Next. Let’s. Let’s keep this going. What if he brings Derrick Henry with him? What if Nick Chubb comes back with two good knees? What if Baker Mayfield comes back to right the wrong? What if Odell Beckham resigns? Oh my gosh. Let’s get everybody. Mark it down now. Derrick Henry will not be a Baltimore Raven next year. You heard it here first. It’s not happening. He’s not doing it, so he will be out there. Kill me. Zach. Oh my God. Don’t say that. Kill me. Mike Vrabel, Mike Vrabel. That is. Don’t. I’ve got my tinfoil hat under here. You’re tempting me to put it on and explain how terrible their schedule was. Now they haven’t beat anybody. I’m not going to do it because I’m a saint. I’m with you. I’m a same person. They haven’t done it this year, and yet everybody’s that. So I’m glad you brought that up though, because when Kevin Stefanski won coach of the year, it was in seasons like that where the teams were just not good that we were playing. We were beating them. But then you end up with twelve wins against nobody. So we’ll see. Yeah. We’ll see. We’ll see. Good luck in the playoffs Mike. We’re all rooting for you. All of us. Super great. Well, I think it’s time to highlight some moral victories, moments where trying counts more than actually succeeding. These are the small wins fans hold on to when the scoreboard insists there’s nothing to celebrate. Well, I’ll start with my employee of the week. Uh, last time we met, it was Tyler Schuch. I’m here to tell you that’s not happening again. In fact, I’d like to retroactively take back that award, if I could. Uh, I can’t, because it’s been mailed out. Um, but this week. Did we even mail it? Trevor? Uh, they said they mailed it, but we know how that team in our office works. They probably didn’t. Subpar. Yeah. Real subpar. Listen. They unionized. We’re in a tough spot. They’re not going anywhere. Uh, this week’s employee of the week goes to Dallas Mavericks point guard Brandon Williams. So Brandon Williams is a fourth year player who was on a two way contract with the Mavericks last year. Uh, and just balled out. I love the players when you know there’s some void, either from an injury or because your GM is a psychopath and trades your best player away for nothing, and it creates this void. And these two way players just get to go ball out like they get a chance to show what they’ve got. And so we converted his, uh, his contract to a two year deal back in April. Um, Brandon Williams was shooting nineteen percent from three this year. And the other night he hit, which is a career low for him. He’s been better in the past few games. But last, uh, two nights ago, he hit a game winning three pointer on a dish from, uh, Cooper Flagg to beat the Kings. So shout out to Brandon Williams for just sticking with it. Uh, always plays hard and hit a big shot to win a game. Uh. Congratulations, man. Well done. You never know when that nineteen percent is going to hit. It’s gotta hit sometime. Shooters, shoot. Okay, that’s what I’ve been told is a shooter shoot. And when it’s time, it’s time. I’d like to go on record for the folks that are unionizing. We don’t negotiate with terrorists. I just want them to know we’re putting it on the record. We’re putting it out there. That’s. We’re going to get some letters about that. I don’t think that was collectively bargained to be able to tell them that they’re terrorists. Nil. It’s just it’s just ridiculous. We don’t know where they got us over. What are we going to do? My employee of the week. So we’re going to go to a a college football team who would in most seasons be a candidate for Misery Sports Co and a deep dive. Um, they just lost their coach during the playoff run. It is none other than Ole Miss and Trinidad Chambliss. Yeah! Shout out to Trinidad. Yeah. Against Georgia, he had three hundred and sixty two passing yards. He was thirty of forty six two touchdowns. And they beat Georgia thirty nine to thirty four. Some of the plays he was making were absolutely absurd. I mean he was changing directions three four times flipping it. You know, it was absolutely wild. Um, he did everything he could to win that game. They probably shouldn’t have. I mean, Georgia was way more physical, but congratulations to Ole Miss. Man, what a story. Yep. Absolutely balled out. And we here at MSK are pulling for him to get that extra year of eligibility from his tonsillitis. We think that’s a perfectly valid reason to get another year of eligibility. So uh fingers crossed for you, big fella. That was a great game. Absolutely. Well well done. Recognition has been issued. Uh, as always, there’s there’s no financial incentive. There’s no fanfare. We don’t even know if these things are getting mailed out. I’ve been told that they are, but I frankly, I don’t believe them. As as we’ve mentioned, we’re going to fight for our lives over this. Collective bargaining is a bitch, and we’re going to stay at it. Okay. We’re going to stay at it. But anyways, uh, it’s deep dive time. We’re going to zoom out, ignore warning signs, and emotionally assess an entire fan base. All right, so I am in the driver’s seat for the deep dive this week. And we are going to go to the NBA. So fun. A few episodes ago we covered the New Orleans Pelicans and how their history kind of wove together with a few teams. And I’m going to cover one of those teams. In my opinion, this team, as I think about it since two thousand, I, in my opinion, is the worst team in the NBA. Maybe the Wizards would give them a run for their money. It is none other than the Charlotte Hornets. Oof! Yeah, and I will lay out my case for why. All right, I’m ready for it. So a little background Charlotte Hornets. They were founded in nineteen eighty eight as an expansion team as we know. Eventually they ended up moving to New Orleans in the early two thousand to become the Pelicans. All of that history ends up back with Charlotte. New Orleans was very kind. They gave it back to them when they became the Pelicans. Shout out to New Orleans. Yep. Um, they actually were pretty solid. So they had an expansion draft. And whenever I hear expansion draft I’m always like okay, well how how exactly did that work. So each team could protect eight players on their roster. And then Charlotte it is a lot. It actually is. It’s your whole rotation right. Who are they getting. Yikes. So everybody, um, and not only were they picking, but at the time in the eighties, the Miami, Miami, Minneapolis, Saint Paul and Orlando also had expansion teams. They had four teams drafting in sequential order. There were two people that stood out to me. I mean, there weren’t huge contributors, but Muggsy Bogues ended up with Charlotte and none other than Dell Curry. So Dell Curry was in Cleveland. Um, that’s where Steph was actually born. He was born in Akron. Um, and then Dell got traded to Charlotte. And that’s where Steph really grew up as a kid was in Charlotte. So Dell was there for, I think nine, ten years. Um, they were bad. So starting out, they were rough. Um, they had a few decent seasons in the nineties. They picked up Larry Johnson. Do you remember Larry Johnson? I swear he was in NBA jam when we played against the Hornets. Okay. Larry Johnson Alonzo Mourning was another big draft pick in the nineties, so they were okay. Um, but never great. Uh, and they rarely made the playoffs. So the nineties, they ended up trading Alonzo Mourning for Glen rice in ninety five. Glen Rice was pretty decent. They got Vlade Divac in ninety six. Um, yeah. So, uh, of course, what they ended up trading away was the number thirteen pick and the rights to none other than Kobe Bryant. Oh, so they traded Kobe to the Lakers for Vlade Divac at the time. Okay. Uh, yeah. That’s not that was a miss. You don’t want to be on the that end of the trade. No, just say that much. That’s that’s tough. So we’ll just we’ll, we’ll fast forward to the two thousand. Right. Because that’s old history. We covered that somewhat with the Pelicans uh, in two thousand and two. The team moves to New Orleans in two thousand and four. The NBA approves an expansion team. Quote unquote. So Charlotte gets another team. They don’t want to get sued by the city, essentially. Sure. And there was a name, the team. And the winner was Charlotte flight. The Charlotte flight. Gross. That one. Look. Yeah. And I was I was like, why on earth is it the flight? And maybe it has something to do with airplanes and North Carolina or something like that. Yeah, I see that on license plates all the time with like, Kitty Hawk and yeah, the Wright brothers and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So basically, the ownership team agreed with you and said, that’s garbage. Good. Let’s go with let’s go with the Charlotte Bobcats. Yeah, it’s not much better. No. In my opinion, the Charlotte Bobcats is the worst. The top the worst. Expansion team name, logo. Everything about it was horrible. Yeah, bobcat is like the least intimidating of the big cats because they have the goofy things on top of their ears. Like it was just bad. That’s a bad name. Yeah. So they did another expansion draft. They got Gerald Wallace, who’s decent, uh, Jason Kapono stuck out. And then you just go down all of the different drafts, right? Emeka Okafor, Raymond Felton and oh five Mavs. They also acquired Tyson Chandler in two thousand and nine. There we go. World champ pawned them off at that point. Or no, you hadn’t acquired them yet. You hadn’t gotten them. You got them after that, huh? Okay. That’s right. Uh, Stephen Jackson, who’s a head case? Yeah. Um drafted Bismack Biyombo. Oh my gosh. Oh man. Uh Michael Kidd Gilchrist Cody Zeller um just not great. Like some were all like all star fringe Kemba’s kind of in there. Yeah. But they never I mean if they got to the first round they were typically getting destroyed. Yep. So Michael Jordan kind of weaves through this. He becomes a minority owner. Um, and then gets majority stake in the team. And they renamed the team to the Charlotte Hornets in twenty fourteen. So they write it all the wrongs, but nothing really changes. They go through Jeremy Lin, Nicolas Batum. They have a winning season. They they lose in twenty fifteen. And then again twenty twenty. You start going through the all the people that they drafted LaMelo ball Mark Williams is decent Brandon Miller recently from Alabama. Yeah. Um, and most recent twenty five con. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. He’s falling out. He’s he’s playing quickest to three I think like one hundred threes and and a career. He was the quickest in NBA history. Yeah. So here’s when I look at this. We look at the Charlotte Bobcats right from oh four to twenty thirteen Trevor. They won two hundred and ninety three games. They lost five hundred and eleven thirty six percent win percentage when we covered the Browns since the return thirty four percent. So they are Browns level bad with the Bobcats. Um, they renamed the Hornets and they bumped it up to forty one percent win percentage. So they’ve had five playoff trips since two thousand. None in the last nine seasons. We cover a lot of teams that are kind of like the the teams that can’t get over the hill. This is not one of them. This is a cellar dweller. We feel your pain. You are welcome here at Missouri Sports Co, and I can’t. I just can’t imagine not having any success like you. They’ve won maybe two series and that was in the early two thousand. Like it’s just. Jeez, man. Yeah, that’s really tough. I feel like the players that you named were all good role players. Like, yeah, you know LaMelo ball is a is a great player. He would be a great number two on a team. I’m not saying he’s a role player, but he would be a great number two. Uh, they drafted PJ Washington. He was a role player on the Dallas finals team. Great player. Um and I’m looking through their draft and they I don’t see any number one picks like one once they get high picks because they suck, but they’re not picking one one. And when you don’t get the top pick for this long of being bad, That’s tough. Like, I, I’m not a huge fan, and I know that this is I can’t really say this honestly because we just got super flagged. But, like, I’m not a huge fan of the NBA’s lottery system because these teams that are perpetually bad get screwed over by these other teams. Like, we should not be living in a world where the San Antonio Spurs almost got, uh, wembanyama and Cooper flag, but that almost happened. That was a reality that because of this system like that almost happened. We should not be living in that like we bad teams. I know this is it deters um, tanking. But like when you are perpetually bad, you need to pick towards like at the top. Yeah. I’ve heard some theories around that, like setting the draft order in the middle of the season or something like that, and I like that. There’s some, I don’t know, there’s just some interesting things you could try. Um. One other. So this guy kept sticking in my head, and I’m going to give you some characteristics. This is two thousand and six. He has long, flowing hair. He got drafted number three by the Charlotte Bobcats. And he was playing for Gonzaga. Yeah, yeah Adam Morrison. Yes. Yeah, yeah I finally found him Adam Morrison I can’t, you know, mention the Bobcats without Adam Morrison. There was so much hype around him and he was just a dog. Water. Yeah the NBA so bad. It was so bad. And there’s a lot of these like looking through their draft picks. A lot of them where you’re like oh man they were a great college player. Like this will probably work out. Frank Kaminsky great college player. Why are we spending a first round pick on Frank the Tank? Like what are we doing? I without looking at the rest of the twenty fifteen NBA draft, I guarantee you there’s two players after the ninth pick that you would rather have than Frank Kaminsky. Yeah Myles Turner went eleven. Devin Booker went thirteen. But they picked Frank Kaminsky. Scary Terry was sixteen. Oh my gosh that’s just painful man. When you’re when your front office just doesn’t have a clue. It just hurts. And you start to slip into that that hopelessness of like this is never going to change. Like this is just this is who we are. And that I feel for Charlotte Hornet fans. Um, you hit the nail on the head. It’s just like, if you can’t identify talent, it doesn’t matter what coach you have. Um, players in the NBA are most important. You know, star talent. They’ve got to find some sort of alpha to go with, you know, what they’ve got going on with LaMelo. He’s he’s good. I watched him play against the Cavs and he can get on a hot streak pretty quick. But I don’t think he has the discipline or the leadership to really lead that team. Um, so we’re rooting for you. But they are. They’re welcome in misery sports car right now. Mm. It’s tough. It’s tough. Hang in there Charlotte Hornets fans. Hang in there. Well that’s a deep dive. Any follow up questions can be directed to HR. They’re not going to read your email I’m going to be honest. They’re in a fight for their lives with us. Uh they’re available indefinitely right now. Unavailable indefinitely. So they’re not going to read it. But sure, send your questions to them. And we have the paper trail. Don’t let the union off the hook. Now, we’re gonna we’re gonna squash this. The vote’s not gonna happen. Let’s hear one more from our sponsor, who’s already regretting this decision. Do you need a fringe all star center? With all the talent in the world and absolutely no desire to get better? Well look no further than DeAndre Ayton. School for minimal effort. Big men or standing still is an art form and effort is purely optional. And as soon as there’s a video he just stood there. I know it there was there was a tweet recently. Literally a rebound just flies over his head. He’s eight feet tall and he’s looking at the ball. Just go. It’s just nothing. When you’re on a team with Luka Doncic and you’re bad, defense sticks out, that’s a problem because Luka should be the only one that we are like, wow, that defense is bad. But yeah, I saw that video. Mavs fans wanted him at one time and it was like, no, no no no no no. It’s wild when you just don’t have that motivation. Right. Like I think some people referenced, his only motivation was getting a contract, essentially getting a max contract, which I don’t fault people for getting generational wealth and working hard in that regard. But it’s like, dude, you play a game. Like you’re huge. You have all the talent, the skills, the athleticism. And like you said, Luca will give you twenty points off pick and roll. Just doing your job. Yes, it’s an easy job. And he just got out of Portland. He was stuck in Portland. You’re telling me you get traded to the Lakers and you can’t try after being in Portland? Like, what are you doing, dude, you gotta try. That’s crazy. So I thanks for the dollars. Exactly. And I don’t know about the Lakers either. I mean, you’ve got Luka. You got LeBron who is just old. He used to be great on defense but he’s just tired at this point. Yeah. And DeAndre I don’t know I don’t I don’t love that team. And I’m not sure that uh Redick has a good handle on how to how to handle those personalities and deal with it. And it’s starting to leak into the Being fought and talked about in the media. So I’m not real bullish on the Lakers, but that will shock nobody given what went down this past year. Well, that wraps up another week here at Misery Sports Company. Remember to log your despair at misery Sports.com before you shut down. Follow us wherever you get your podcasts, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, basically anywhere misery goes digital. Share your worst takes and let us know which franchise ruined your weekend. We’ll be back with more spreadsheets, more rationalizations, and a fresh batch of fans asking impossible questions. For now, close your laptop or your mobile phone, stare blankly at something and take comfort in this. You’re not alone. Misery loves company.