We are now OFFICIALLY past the All-Star break, which OFFICIALLY means that the teams that were kinda-sorta tanking can pull out all the stops and start unabashedly tanking with an extra-large dose of tankiness. The playoff picture in the East is still slightly murky, but the Hornets are so far out of it by this point that those distant days of them being the eighth seed seem like a fabricated memory to me. And maybe I did fabricate it. Reality and fantasy are so intermingled in my mind that it’s really hard for me to make the determinations of what is a fabricated memory and what isn’t.
The Hornets started the tanking party by uninviting Marvin Williams, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, and Nic Batum. Batum is still technically on the team, but all he does is munch on baguettes on the bench and brag about the time he had a fivesome with three Parisian women and a transvestite mime in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. He’s not a threat to take minutes from anybody at this point. With all those old dudes out of the lineup, you know what that means:
Guaranteed minutes for Malik Monk! James Borrego might visibly hate Monk’s guts, but at this point in the season, even a Monk-hater like Borrego can’t ignore the need to give him minutes just to see what he’s capable of in a larger role. Michael Jordan might have even exerted some pressure on his coach in between games of golf and Hanes photoshoots. If I was MJ, I would definitely be forcing Borrego to play the one guy on the team who is most like MJ in terms of play style. Monk’s not quite on his level, but giving him the title of “Michael Jordan 0.2” doesn’t seem ridiculously unfair to either party, does it?