Jeremy Lamb is, clearly, the second banana, banana number two if you will, in Charlotte. Kemba Walker is far and away the first banana when it comes to putting the ball in the hole. Lamb is averaging a full 10 points less than Kemba, but he’s still clearly the second banana because only two other people on the team are averaging 10. Do you want to guess who they are? Not an impossible question, but the answer might illuminate why maybe the Hornets aren’t as good as they could maybe be with someone like Walker on their roster. Ready?
Marvin Williams and Cody Zeller.
When those are you third and fourth bananas, that’s a problem. Having a second banana like Lamb is perfect, even if he could up his scoring a little bit. But when there’s such a dropoff, and all your role-players are of the non-scoring variety (Malik Monk needs more minutes according to my new theories), you run into problems.
It’s even worse when Walker has a bad game; if Lamb hadn’t had a pretty decent scoring night, this would’ve been a worse loss than it was. Thank god Frank Kaminsky stepped and scored 18. And Bismack Biyombo chipped in 2, which is great for him, maybe even a season high.