New Orleans Hornets are the Western Conference 2006-2007 Cleveland Cavaliers

It's an interesting thing I noted when I started thinking about the Hornets. Specifically, when I saw this article from ESPN's JA Adande. It's interesting to note. However, when I think about it, the more sense it really does make. Chris Paul is carrying this team like LeBron James has been carrying the Cavaliers for the past few years, granted David West is more along the lines of Mo Williams level help, and it wouldn't be fair to categorize him as a Zydrunas Ilgauskas type glorified role player, but still, Mo Williams to me, is a solid 3rd option scorer, not the 2nd go to guy if your star player is getting quadruple teamed. I think because Paul is such a prolific point guard that he kind of gets away by getting easy shots for his teammates, granted if we were to compare the lineups, I trust the Hornets' squad to make more shots than the 2006-2007 Cavs, still, I don't see it as a huge stretch, even if everyone were completely healthy. Let's do a comparison:

2008-2009 New Orleans Hornets	2006-2007 Cleveland Cavaliers
Chris Paul	Larry Hughes
Rasual Butler	Sasha Pavlovic
Peja Stojakovic	LeBron James
David West	Drew Gooden
Tyson Chandler	Zydrunas Ilgauskas

If we move to the bench, we're looking at for the Hornets a compilation of James Posey, Morris Peterson, Antonio Daniels, Julian Wright, Hilton Armstrong, Devin Brown, and Sean Marks. Compared to a then Cleveland bench of: Eric Snow, Donyell Marshall, Anderson Varejao, Daniel Gibson, Shannon Brown, Damon Jones, and maybe Ira Newble. I could even compare them to the 2007-2008 Cleveland Cavs, with a roster of Daniel Gibson, Delonte West, LeBron James, Ben Wallace, and Zydrunas Ilgauskas, with basically the same bench plus Joe Smith and Wally Sczerbiak minus Ira Newble.

Granted, on paper, I think the Hornets are better than the Cavs of old, but are they really? David West was kind of the "underrated player of the year" in the sense that everyone couldn't stop talking about how nobody was talking about David West... I guess... I don't hate the Hornets, but I do think that they are a team riding entirely on Chris Paul's talent. My first case would be the Hornets losing to the Blazers on Feb 2, when Paul went down after 28 minutes of play with a strained groin, blowing a 74-59 lead going into the 4th quarter. This isn't a matter of the Blazers making a solid run and eking out a close one, this is the Blazers utterly dominating a team that looked lost on the floor without its best player and floor leader, outscoring them in the final 12 minutes of the game 38-15 to win the game decisively 97-89. Sure, David West is a solid player, he'll get you a quiet 20 points 10 rebounds on those pick and pops, shooting that 18 foot jumper, how good is he really though?

Rk	Player	Season	Age	G	GS	MP	FG	FGA	FG%	3P	3PA	3P%	FT	FTA	FT%	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS
1	Drew Gooden	2006-07	25	80	80	2238	6.0	12.6	.473	0.0	0.1	.167	2.3	3.2	.714	4.2	6.7	11.0	1.4	1.1	0.5	1.8	3.4	14.2
2	David West	2008-09	28	68	68	2645	7.1	15.3	.463	0.1	0.3	.208	4.7	5.3	.889	1.9	5.7	7.7	2.2	0.6	0.9	2.0	2.5	18.9

Those are the per 36 minute numbers of Drew Gooden in above mentioned season compared to David West's current season. Is David West really that much better than Gooden? He scores more, sure, but probably because he averages 3 more shots and 2 more free throws than Gooden. I'm not saying David West is bad, not by any means, this comparison actually might serve as a kudos to Drew Gooden, but in this context, the Hornets/07 Cavs comparison becomes all that much stronger.

Given that, the Cavs in 06-07 were a middling team in a dismal Eastern Conference, while the Hornets are a middling team in the competitive Western Conference, it's just more kudos to Chris Paul who's really keeping his team afloat. If we continue to look at the various players surrounding Chris Paul, we can draw a lot of comparisons, needless to say, the Hornets really need some help. However, they haven't really been able to get a lot of it. I've always railed the Hornets about how thin their frontcourt depth is, especially given how Tyson Chandler and David West are pretty injury prone, but the more I look at it now, their frontcourt isn't super formidable to begin with. Chandler is solid, but definitely more of someone you have there to cleanup on the glass, Chandler's always been known more for his defense and rebounding than really anything he brings on the offensive end. I don't think he'd do half as well if didn't have those Hornets patented pick and roll alley-oops from Chris Paul, even then, for him a good offensive game is like 10 points.

Butler has been playing well, but he's always been more of a 6th man, and while Peja's been injured, even if he were to come back, all you really can expect from Peja is hitting open threes. I mean, maybe if it were 2004 or something, this would be a completely different story, but Peja is but a shell of his glory days back in Sacramento (going to stay away from the Peja to Larry Hughes comparisons). Daniels is a solid backup point guard who's played way too many minutes the last two seasons because of Gilbert Arenas's injury, Posey is a great role player, and honestly, there really isn't a lot else worth noting on the roster. However, since the Hornets are the cinderella team of the league (or at least were last season), especially with Chris Paul being injured the brunt of 2006-2007, but still, this team is hurting. Granted, you take Chris Paul off any team except maybe Team USA 2008, and that team will probably be hurting, however, the onus is on the front office to put that talent next to Paul to succeed. He's doing a phenomenal job with what he has now, but the team has to get better.

Unfortunately, none of that is probably going to happen, as most of the players except Paul on the roster are somewhat overpaid. Now with the Hornets trying to cut costs due to the economy, things look bleaker. Peja is making almost $30 million over the next two seasons, and seeing how he's been suffering from back spasms for the past two, almost no one is going to want to touch his contract. Money considerations were also the only reason Hornets were willing to send Tyson Chandler to OKC for Chris Wilcox and Joe Smith, those two were both expiring contracts, whereas Tyson Chandler is making $11 million the next year with a $12 million player option the year after, which he would be foolish to not exercise, because he's not going to get anything near that, even if the economy were healthy. With Posey and Peterson both making more than $6 million per for at least the next two season, and Chris Paul's contract extension (starting at $13 million) kicking in next season, and the shrinking cap size, you can see how the Hornets will be hard pressed to do anything to improve the roster.

Hopefully like Cleveland, the front office can turn it around. Bring some talent in for Chris Paul to work with, until then, it's all on Paul.