Hornets Hive Cast1-3-25 - Pistons Preview with Schuyler Callihan
As the calendar flips to 2025, the Hornets will look to snap their eight-game losing skid in Detroit against the Pistons. Schuyler Callihan of Hornets on Sports Illustrated stops by to preview the matchup with Sam Farber, and the two also discuss LaMelo Ball's All-Start candidacy while previewing the month of January for the Hornets.
Welcome to the Hornets Haveivecast presented by Charlotte I ear nosen Throat Associates, the official I ear nosen throatcare provider of the Charlotte Hornets. Here's your host, Sam Farber.
Welcome to another edition of the Hornet Time Cast, your Hornets podcast with all the notes, quote, san daily buzz around your favorite NBA team. I'm Sam Farber and it is a pleasure and a privilege. Heavy with us here once again on the Hornet Time Cast, brought to you by Santa Charlotte I ear Nose and Throat Associates, the official I earosen throatcare provider of the Charlotte Hornets. It's a game day edition, our first of twenty twenty five. Happy New Year everyone, Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. Ready to get back to work. Here for the Hornets as they will take on the Detroit Pistons third meeting of the season, first in the Motors City. Hornets hoping to move to three and zero against their Eastern Conference rivals. Also some big news yesterday LaMelo Ball emerging as your leader in the All Star vote for Eastern Conference. Guards will break down those for you in preview the month of January as a whole and helping us on all of these topics. He is the publisher of Charlotte Hornets on SI. Skyler Callahan with us for the first time this season and of course this year here on the Hornets iodcast. Skyler, thanks for joining us.
Absolutely, Sam, thanks for having me back on it.
So it's a fresh.
Start to a new year technically, so let's see if the things get.
Turned around here.
Absolutely, and already we're starting twenty twenty five with good news because the first big story out of the gates, LaMelo Ball is the leader in the All Star vote. The fan voting returns are going to come out basically weekly between now and when the starters are announced on January twentieth, but in the first batch, LaMelo Ball comes in in first place amongst all Eastern Conference guards. The way this is broken down, the voting will select two guards from each conference and three front court players, centers and forwards from each conference. So LaMelo was in a very talented pool, but only two players are really going to be in those top positions heading into the combination of fan voting with player voting and media voting. But at this stage Lamello is in the clubhouse as the leader nine hundred and forty seven four hundred and forty four votes, almost two hundred thirty thousand more than the second place finisher as of this moment, Donovan Mitchell of the Cleveland Cavaliers, and nearly a quarter of a million more than the third place vote getter, that would be Dame Lillard of the Milwaukee Bucks. So what do you think here of LaMelo coming in first in the Eastern Conference Guard All Star vote?
Yeah, it is pretty shocking, you know. I know that there's a lot of talent in the Eastern Conference, specifically in the backcourt, and with LaMelo kind of not really seeing a whole lot of action the last couple of years with a bunch of injuries, it's kind of shocking to see him up there that high, especially on a team that's considered to be a smaller market, not on national TV a bunch over the last years.
Including this year.
So that's a huge, huge accomplishment for him for the organization, And if that holds true and he's able to punch his ticket to the All Star Game for the second time, that's even better.
For this organization.
And we'll talk about a lot of different stuff with this team and kind of the struggling season that it's been, of course, but my biggest thing entering the season was LaMelo's just.
Got to stay healthy. And if he can stay healthy.
That's more than pretty much anything that you can amount into the win column this year, because he is the centerpiece of this franchise, and if you want to take that next step, you're going to need this place to be an attractive destination for free agents, and LaMelo is going to be the centerpiece of that. So for him, this is a step in the right direction for sure.
A couple of notes here on the vote tally, at least so far here for LaMelo Ball in the other Eastern Conference guards, LaMelo, despite being number one amongst Eastern Conference guards, is ninth overall, which is obviously a great position. If you're a select you know your starting lineups from the teams, and obviously we're gonna have a new format this year, but if you're selecting your top ten, LaMelo's in it right now. He's ninth overall, trailing only Jannis Antetokumpo, Nikola Jokic, Jason Tatum, Kevin Durant, Lebron, James Karl, Anthony town Shay, Gilgess, Alexander and Anthony Davis. All of these guys multiple time All Stars. All of these guys are are all NBA candidates quite frankly, so it shows the kind of rarefied air that LaMelo Ball is sitting in. One thing that I think is helping him right now. You know, obviously the team's record is not one of them, but there isn't really another guard that's anywhere near thirty points per game in the Eastern Conference. Next closest would be Tyrese Maxi, and he's at twenty five point nine points per game. There's some other players in the East that average about that much, but they're not in the same guard pool that LaMelo Ball sits in. As for potential hiccups here down the road towards the selection day, which will be for starters January twenty third, reserves are selected or announced, I should say January thirtieth, then voting will continue between now and January twentieth. But as of this moment you mentioned the health thing scaler, he is currently no longer in a position where he is qualifying for league leader status. He had the majority of that period that voting was being tabulated. That has been announced now, but he is not as of the moment. That could impact votes later on if he's not seen as one of the official three or four thirty plus point per game scores in the NBA due to lack of games played. And then of course there's the team's overall record. You know, typically that factors in more when you're looking at the league selection for reserves and other portions of it. But obviously the Hornets being near the bomb of the standings compared to teams like Cleveland who have had a tremendous season thus far, and you know other teams that have, you know, maybe just better storylines. At this moment in time, Milwaukee has gone a long way to turning their season around. Jalen Brunson with the New York Knicks. There are other strong candidates, but as of the moment, if you're just asking the fans, top of the list is still LaMelo Ball.
Yeah.
I think LaMelo's got a really good shot. I mean, especially if he's able to come back. I know he's questionable for this game against Detroit, and they're going to be very careful with him and rightfully so, But I think he's somebody that wants to be on the floor. And you know, I know there's this weird narrative out there from the outside that that you know.
Questions his desire.
But if you spend any time around LaMelo Ball, which both of us have, you can tell that he's very.
Much somebody that wants to be on the floor as much as possible.
And he has to. I mean, he hasn't played, like we said, a lot in the last two seasons.
He's somebody that has to be out there even when.
This thing gets deep into the season, if they're still out of contention, he's somebody that still needs to play because he needs to get that experience that he's lost over the last two years. And the one thing too, that I'll mention, you know, there's.
Other people that will that will maybe criticize his shot.
Diet in the fact that he's taking x amount of sho game, x amount of.
Three is per game.
Well, you're going to look at who he's got to work with too.
You know, a lot of these.
Regulars that you know he would normally be in the lineup with, they haven't been there, they haven't been available.
So when he has been on the floor.
He doesn't necessarily have the same pieces that you would expect for him to be out there with, so he's going to have to take on more of the load offensively, especially when you're out with Brandon Miller. You go a few games without Nick Richards, who's been a pleasant surprise this year. Mark Williams missed a lot of this season as well. You've got a couple other guys Trey Mann off the bench, so he's going to have to carry the load offensively, and I think once this team is together healthy for a longer stretch, you'll start to see just him dial back a little bit on their shots attempts per game and he'll probably put up a more efficient number two.
As of now, the fans are liking what they're seeing. He's number one amongst Eastern Conference guards, and the fan vote it will be fifty vote twenty five percent media twenty five percent players to determine the starters for the NBA All Star Game. Voting continues now through January twenty If you can find it on NBA dot com, you can find it on the NBA app social media sites. There's a variety of ways in which your voice can be heard, certainly is going to be a tight race. Donovan Mitchell, Dame Lillard, the nixt Jalen Brunson. I don't think any of them are getting skipped for the All Star Game. LaMelo Ball strong candidacy right now with his individual brilliance, and of course encourage you to go out and vote for your favorites to be in the NBA All Star Game. Hopefully, as Skyler mentioned, with LaMelo Ball being listed as questionable for tonight's game against Detroit, that means a return to play here for the start of twenty twenty five. We're gonna preview the month of January as a whole. Next here on the Hornet Iive Cast. Skyler Callahan, publisher of Charlotte Hornets on SI our guest today here on the HHC The Hornets Iive Cast, brought to you by Sena. I'm Sam Farber. Happy New Year ever one, thanks for joining us. Here to tip off twenty twenty five is the Hornet's take on the Detroit Piston. It's the first of fifteen games over the course of the month of January. A little bit of a later start. We didn't play New Year's Day didn't play on January second, so January third we tip things off, and even though there's a lot of games crunched into a smaller space, it's not an overwhelming pace scaler. As I look at this, the month is basically spit split in half. Mostly road games, the first two weeks, mostly home games, the last two weeks only two back to backs, only two occasions with multiple days of wrest. So we're looking at a pretty routine sequencing here of game day, off day, a chance to build some rhythm and hopefully with some good health, chance to really see what the Hornets are made of.
Yeah.
Absolutely, And like we've talked about with the health thing, I mean, this is, you know, we're starting to see this team kind of slowly get back to being fully healthy. Obviously LaMelo and Brandon kind of been in and out the last couple of weeks. But when you look at what they have on deck, I mean, starting here with Detroit, which we'll get to in a second, but they've had a lot of success us in Detroit.
Over the year, so hopefully that'll continue.
But there's only I believe, like six or seven games this month versus team with a winning record, so I mean, you kind of saw that there was a little bit of a break into the schedule in December where they looked like there was a chance for Charlotte to stack up some wins.
They weren't able to do that.
Maybe this is the string where they get together and find a way to get some wins together. Because they got to do it soon seven and twenty five, you feel like things are kind of spiraling out of control. But with the play in tournament, you still have as much chance as anybody to get into that thing. It just takes one little stretch of getting hot here in the middle of the season, and all of a sudden you're in the thick of it.
As you look at the month of January, Scaler, what game intrigues you the most? What game would you circle and say that's I must watch, That's the one I want to see the most as a fan of the NBA or a fan of the Hornets.
That's a good one. I'm probably gonna lean to probably this next game coming up with the Cavaliers on the road this coming Sunday, that's gonna be a good barometer. And I know it's you know, we're talking about a team that's twenty nine and four here. But if they're fully healthy, or if you're mostly healthy, and you go, you compete against a really good team, maybe one of the best teams.
In the entire NBA, and maybe you.
Fight, you fall just a little short, maybe you stun the NBA, and you find a way to win. That'll maybe be where you can look back and say, this was the turning point of where this.
Season is going to go.
But obviously you don't want to throw all your eggs in one basket against the team is twenty nine and four. I think to match up at home next week against the Lakers, Lebron James and company coming to town, that's always going to be a good draw. And then to match up with the Clippers I think is going to be interesting as well on the road.
Well, I like the optimism. I think, you know, that was definitely a signature moment from the previous season when the Hornets beat Boston, and that's something that we've kind of hung our hat on that. Hey, that that was the moment the whole team was healthy, they put it together, they got that major win, and they were really not healthy very often more than one or two games from that point on, So that was that was all we had to look at.
Yeah.
Absolutely, And and again, when you have a chance to go and kind of shock the world and and play somebody like the Cavaliers at their place, I mean, they're they're not looking at this game as you know, some some game they're gonna really have to gear up for it. I mean, for for the Cavs, they're probably just glancing over the scouting report for this game. And that's just the situation that is. When you have a team that's only won seven games and you're in the month of January, you're probably not too worried about it, so maybe you trip them up.
And if that's the.
Case, even if they play their worst game and they just happen to look past you and you find a way to win, that's all that matters.
It's it's just a mental thing.
And for for this team, beating anybody at.
This point is a huge point.
But if you're able to knock down one of the biggest giants in the Eastern Conference, that's going to be a huge momentum boost moving forward into what's again I think a pretty manageable schedule here in January.
Yeah, and I'll say this. You know, when you look back to last season and that win over Boston, which would be the comparison to what you're talking about here against Cleveland coming up, that was one of the first couple of games where the Hornets had their whole group together, their core playing together. And so yes, it was an impressive victory and it was a little bit of a shock to the NBA, but it was really our first look at the Hornet's hole and we thought to ourselves, Wow, maybe this is a team here. The next game they won with that whole group, and then after that, of course, injuries started to set in again. And that was all she wrote. Right now, at this stage of the season, we're thirty plus games in. We've only seen the Hornets core four together twice. It's not a given that they're going to play to night against Detroit or coming up this weekend against Cleveland. But if they were too and they were to get that win, it's not like a one out of ten sample size or twenty sample size or thirty sample size. It's kind of a one out of one or two sample size that we can point to and say, huh, this team together actually is really competitive. All that being said, games I'm most looking forward to. I gotta look at the home schedule I've got circled on my calendar. Monday, January twenty seventh, Lebron James and the Lakers coming to town. Always a big deal, always a tough ticket. Definitely encourage you to make plans and join us over at the High for that one. And also just personally, Friday, January twenty fourth against Portland. I think Brandon Miller versus Scoot Henderson will continue to be a storyline for at least one more season. It might not be one much longer than that. Brandon Miller has kind of risen above the pack amongst his draft class. It's kind of him and Victor wembin Yama, and I think most outside would say it's wem bin Yama, then everyone else, or wehm bin Yama then step down to Miller and then everyone else. But nevertheless, Brandon Miller and Scoot Henderson was the big topic of conversation going into that draft. So those two getting together again I think is gonna be an exciting matchup and one worth making plans for for any and all of the Hornets games fifteen in total this month month, and particularly the home ones. Go to Hornets dot com to make all your travel plans. If you'd like to come out and join us in Detroit and be a lot of fun. Hornet's definitely well represented across the NBA. You always see those LaMelo Ball jerseys number one and every stop in the association. Hornets on the road tonight taking on Detroit. We'll ever gain preview for you next with Skyler Callahan, publisher of Charlotte Hornets, on SI. After this here on the Hornets, I've cast Sam Farber and Skyler Callahan, publisher of Charlotte Hornets on SI. Here with you on the HHC the Hornets ivee cast, brought to you by Cent to Hornets visiting the Detroit Pistons to open up twenty twenty five tonight. Charlotte with a record of seven and twenty five. The Pistons currently in a play in position with a record of fifteen and eighteen. But head to head it's the Hornets to Detroit nothing, so we'll see if the Hornets can keep that o in the lost column when it comes to head to head matchups with the Pistons Detroit. They've been playing well. They are winners of four of their last five, six of their last nine. They'd like to continue that trend. Skyler, the way this works, we need a player to watch from both teams as well as the stat to watch other than points, because that's cheating. Whoever scores the most points obviously wins the game. What category do you want to start with?
Yeah, I would normally talk about Jade and Ivy, but obviously with his news that's a big blow to the Pistons. But I'm gonna go with the free throw line as being kind.
Of the category to watch here.
The Hornets, they've struggled to get there this year. They're only averaging nineteen attempts per game. For the Pistons, they're not doing much either there. I think they're averaged roughly twenty or twenty one per games, So both teams could probably afford to get to the line a little bit more.
The Hornets are.
Fouling kind of at a pretty atrocious rate at times too.
There's some careless fouls mixed into that.
So if they can stay away from there's careless fouls taking care of the basketball, I think that's really been two of their biggest issues this year, just given too many possessions away, getting too many points away at the free throw line.
So that's my category.
I like that pick, but I'm going to go with turnovers for mine. For all the ways that these teams have some differences. You know, Detroit's the higher scoring team. You look at you know some of the ratings there, there are a lot of similarities, but in terms of pace of play, scoring offense, Detroit has been the stronger group over the course of the season. We'll see if J and IVY has an impact on that, But one area where they're almost identical is turnovers. They're both averaging sixteen turnovers per game, and just for both teams, you know that that can certainly be a bit of an achilles heel. I think overall, Detroit being the more high powered offense at least thus far, and operating a little bit faster, you know, they might be able to find ways to overcome turnovers a little easier. But no matter what, you know, if you win the turnover battle, you're gonna put yourself in a great position. And both these teams are susceptible to losing the turnover battle by a pretty wide margin, So that could be determinative as well. So I'm gonna say turnovers is going to be my stat to watch. Next up a Piston to watch or a Hornet to watch.
Yeah, I'll go with Piston to watch, and I'll stay away from the easy one here of Kate Cunningham or Big easily, but I'll go down a little bit go Jalen Durham that this is obviously a little bit of Draft Night, you know conversation here too. You talked about Brandon Miller Q Henderson. There's always kind of be this storyline, at least for Charlotte Hornets fans, when it comes to Jalen Durant and Mark Williams, whether they should have went with Durham instead of Williams. Williams hopefully will be active and available for this game. If that's the case, that'll be an interesting part to watch. I don't know that this is going to be maybe a big matchup within the game, because I think the backcourts are really going to probably play or make the difference. But I think just having that matchup between he and Mark Williams is always going to be fun and entertaining to watch.
So I'm want to go with that.
I like it before I go on to my players to watch. I probably you know my bad for not mentioning this before, but we did get the injury update here for the Hornets, and while train Man and Grant Williams are still out, we do have some promising developments here. When it comes to LaMelo Ball, Cody Martin and Brandon Miller, all of them are listed as questionable for this one. You might recall they were listed as doubtful previously. All of them have missed multiple games at this point, having your best players is definitely an advantage, So for LaMelo Ball with the ankle and wrist issues, Brandon Miller the left ankle sprain that sidelined him a couple of weeks ago originally, and then Cody Martin with the knee issue, to have them list as questionable, I like to view the world half glass full, so we'll be optimistic here in hopes that they're all returning for this one. And Mark Williams not mentioned on the injury report, so very likely he goes head to head there against Jalen Duran. My player to watch for the Pistons, it's gonna be Kad Cunningham. I think Ivy had taken a big step forward as a point guard, as a lead guard, as a leading scorer for that team on several occasions, but it still feels like it's Kad Cunningham's team. He's the former number one overall pick, and again, even though he had kind of taking not a back seat, but maybe a side seat to Jaden Ivy in terms of lead scorer, over the last couple of games, Cunningham has been the top playmaker. He's got several games where he is threatening triple doubles or just posting them outright. He is a double double machine at this point. In terms of points and assists, he has been a very, very impressive player. And so, just like when it comes to the Hornets, you circle LaMelo ball first, when it comes to the Pistons, I think it's only right to circle Cad Cunningham, particularly with Ivy sideline for the foreseeable future here, and we wish him all the best in his recovery from that pretty horrific looking injury there. Last, but not least, we need a Hornets player to watch.
Let's go with Mark Waives since he is going to probably play in this one.
It seems like and I did talk about dur and.
It seems like he's starting to get more back to his old self, and I think that's just another big piece of this too. I mean, we talk about LaMelo and Brandon all the time, but really the forgotten piece is kind of Mark Wais. He was a former first round pick, He's had some injuries over the years.
He's another one that.
He too needs to stay healthy. But if he can be that guy that's a two way player, can give you a double double almost on a nightly basis, be a guy that can protect the basket underneath at a consistent rate, that's going.
To be huge for this team moving forward.
So again, I know I'm concentrating on a matchup that may not play a huge difference in the game, but this is just me dond deep into it.
No I like it. And look, Mark Williams is definitely one of the focal points here for the Hornets, so I think it's important to keep a close watch on it, and particularly these more marquee matchups, these moments where you can really get a glimpse of him versus one of his draft class mates, I think that's always a good thing. I'm going to go with a guy who has put it together a really nice run here as of late, that would be Miles Bridges, coming off another thirty point performance thirty one points to be exact, a new season high against the Chicago Bulls. Actually made a little bit of a notch in the Hornets record book. He moves into a tie for eighth in career thirty point games. He passed Stephen Jackson and ties Kelly Trapuka in one fell swoop. Recently he has moved into the top six in Hornets all time scoring. He's been very impressive and oh, by the way, he's put together three straight double doubles. So with the absences of LaMelo Ball and Brandon Miller in particular, Miles Bridges has ramped up. But I would say more so, this is Miles Bridge's finding his form again after a handful of games out due to injury. It took a couple of extra games to really find that scoring touch, but he's got it now. Still haven't seen a great three point shooting game for him in this stretch. Maybe that is ahead of us here tonight. However it goes down, we know there will be excellent coverage for you. Of all things Hornets going on on Charlotte Hornets on SI. Skyler Callahan, their publisher, our guest today, Skylar, thanks so much for joining us, and congrats to you and your family for all the good things that took place in twenty twenty four and all those ahead in twenty twenty and we look forward to seeing you at Hornets games back home whenever we get there. Just kidding. We're there Tuesday the seventh, but after that we're not there for very much, at least the first half of January, but always good to see you inside Spectrum Center.
Absolutely, Sam, thank you so much. Always a blessed to be on here and definitely looking forward to.
The next one.
Thanks again to Skyler, Thanks to our producer Rob Longo for putting this podcast together. Most of all, thanks to all of you for tuning in. For all of us here, I'm Sam Farber saying it's been a pleasure and a privilege having you along. We'll talk to you tomorrow with the game recap edition of the Hornets Hoimeecast.
Thank you for listening to the Hornets Podcast, brought to you by Senta, the official i ear nosen Throadcare provider of the Charlotte Hornets. For more coverage, visit hornets dot com.
