National Basketball Association

Did Mo Williams save the Charlotte Hornets' season?

Published Mar. 11, 2015 4:01 p.m. ET

foxsports

When the Charlotte Hornets traded Gary Neal and a 2019 second-round pick for Mo Williams and Troy Daniels, expectations were low and their incentive was simple.

At the time, franchise point guard Kemba Walker was expected to miss several weeks after undergoing surgery to repair a torn lateral meniscus in his left knee, and the Hornets were in desperate need of point guard depth and outside shooting (for whatever reason, Neal couldn't throw a rock in an ocean).

To say Williams has exceeded those low expectations would be an incredible understatement. Instead, all he's done is save Charlotte's season.

Since acquiring him the Hornets are 6-4, with wins over the Toronto Raptors and Chicago Bulls. They aren't a lock to make the playoffs, however, and currently dangle in the eighth spot, half a game up on the Miami Heat. Their schedule hasn't been particularly tough, but without Williams carrying the offense and releasing pressure from Al Jefferson's shoulders, life would be a lot worse.

In a Hornets uniform, Williams is scoring 21.4 points per game (ninth in the league during that span), 8.5 assists (sixth in the league) and posting a 22.6 PER, which would rank in the top 10 if stretched over the entire season.

He's a nightly fireball from behind the 3-point line — Stephen Curry is the only player attempting more long balls — and a penetrating playmaker off the dribble. Williams is assisting 45 percent of his team's baskets when on the floor. His career average is 28.3 percent. And making matters more insane than they already appear, Williams' usage rate in Charlotte has been higher than Damian Lillard's, Kyrie Irving's, Chris Paul's and John Wall's this season.

Of course, all of this directly impacts how well the Hornets perform as an offense. With Williams on the court, they score 105.0 points per 100 possessions. When he sits, that number falls to 89.3 — the difference between the league's eighth-best offense and something the 30th-ranked Philadelphia 76ers look down at.

According to Synergy, Williams is averaging 1.50 points per possession in isolation situations, which leads all players in the whole league who qualify (min. 10 possessions — Williams has used 14 possessions).

Not much of this makes sense, and just about none of Williams' production is sustainable. He's 32 years old, and at this stage nothing more than a spark plug who can score points, stretch the floor and help keep a bench unit's offense afloat. But Charlotte isn't worried about sustainability.

What they needed was a super-human stretch of indescribable brilliance, and Williams delivered. He was their human Hail Mary, an Eastern Conference Player of the Week-winning life raft.

After an 18-game absence, Walker returns to the lineup on Wednesday night, and over the next couple weeks Williams' numbers will, for obvious reasons, float back to Earth. But Hornets head coach Steve Clifford knows diminishing his new guard's role would be foolish.

Hornets coach Steve Clifford said Wednesday that once Walker is healthy he'll pair him with Williams during key portions of the game because "they're two of our three best scorers."

With so many crazy things happening around the league, Williams' incredible play has gone relatively unnoticed. But Charlotte — a defensive-minded team that perpetually struggles to manufacture points — was in serious danger of free-falling out of the playoff picture.

It's 2015, and Mo Williams just saved an NBA team's season. What a time to be alive.