Despite all the injuries and a woeful offense, the Charlotte Hornets find themselves in the thick of the Eastern Conference playoff race thanks to great defense and coaching. Here are five questions the team faces heading into the second half of the season:
Even before the season started, the Hornets dealt with injuries to key people like Gerald Henderson and Lance Stephenson. That trend has continued throughout the year.
Many lament the fact that Charlotte is 22-30 in the standings; however, one might also praise the job coach Steve Clifford has done just to get the team to that point. When you take into account that the Hornets have had key players miss 65 games due to injuries that record doesn't look so bad after all, and that's not including the team's lottery pick that has seen almost no action or the 24-game suspension of Jeff Taylor.
Moreover, it's already known that Kemba Walker, who has missed 10 games, will be out at least another two to three weeks as he recovers from left knee surgery.
But even though Charlotte has been able to keep its head above water, it's not likely the team could withstand another blow to a key member of the team. It was able to survive Al Jefferson missing nine games because Bismack Biyombo and Walker simultaneously improved their game. Things like that can happen in short bursts, but it's hard to ask players to sustain that over a long period of time, especially when they've never done so in their career.
When team owner Michael Jordan and general manager Rich Cho flew to Las Vegas during the summer to personally meet with Stephenson to convince him to play in Charlotte, everyone involved envisioned nothing but positives. Never once did they anticipate the worst would happen, which it has.
For the last couple of months the Hornets have tried to trade Stephenson. Right from the outset it was a marriage made in complete disarray.
Clifford and Stephenson clashed early on about his style of play, but that could be overlooked if he weren't having just an awful season shooting. His 3-point percentage has hovered around 15 percent all season.
However, after many failed attempts at trying to trade him -- most notably to the Nets -- it appears the two are stuck with each other until the offseason. So, the question is, will Stephenson find his game that made the Hornets want to propose to him during the summer?
It truly is anybody's guess, but he definitely has the capabilities. Whether or not they reappear is the big unknown. However, should those skills reemerge, it would do the team wonders and practically guarantee a berth into the playoffs.
If they don't, get used to seeing him play the rest of the season coming off the bench with limited minutes.
Mo Williams comes at the right time for the Hornets and could be exactly what the team needs in order to make the playoffs. While many national journalists glossed over Williams's trade from Minnesota to Charlotte, it very well may be the move that saves the season for the Hornets.
Williams, 32, is in his 12th season and should be able to provide the leadership the backcourt so sorely lacks with Walker on the sidelines. More importantly, he might be able to provide the outside shooting this team desperately needs. Williams has proven to be a much better shooter than Walker, and exceptionally so from 3-point range, where he's a career 38.2 percent shooter.
All one needs to know about Williams and his ability to score is the fact that he pumped in 52 points against Indiana in mid-January.
It's sad that this question even has to be asked, but the Hornets have blown three games this season where they led by at least 21 points, with two of those games coming at home and having the big advantage in the second half.
This team has won a few games with last-second shots, but it has also had severe difficulties maintaining big leads. More times than not, teams make runs during the course of the game. The difference with the Hornets has been that teams just don't go on small runs -- they go on extended runs and find themselves right back in the mix with a few minutes to play.
Of course, it's easy to let the opposition back into the game when Charlotte ranks 27th in scoring, next to last in shooting percentage and dead last in 3-point shooting percentage.
Simply put: point guard Walker has never been a good shooter. In fact, he routinely ranks near the bottom in field goal percentage at his position. But something odd happened in the last 20 or so games before he got injured: He started marking shots.
In his first 21 games of the season, Walker was even worse than normal, making just 36 percent of his shots. But in the 19 games proceeding, he shot 44.6 percent, the best shooting stretch of his four-year career.
Now that the Hornets have Mo Williams on the roster, there isn't a need to rush Walker back. But since he takes more shots than anybody on the team, it is imperative that he shoot the ball well once he does return.
Charlotte starting winning when he started making shots. When he wasn't, the team was 10-24.
Walker is a woeful 39.8 percent shooter in his career, so it's not exactly like miracles can be expected. However, should Walker be able to somehow manage to shoot in the 42-44 percent range, it will go a long way toward pushing Charlotte into the playoffs for the second consecutive season.
Follow Brett Jensen on Twitter @Brett_Jensen
