CHI	112
	MIN	110

	HOU	115
	MIA	138

	ATL	130
	CHI	104

	LAC	108
	MEM	122

	BOS	122
	MIL	121

	LAL	114
	HOU	145

	DAL	105
	MIN	93

	PHO	109
	MEM	118

	IND	114
	NY	141

	MIN	106
	BOS	99

	MEM	116
	BKN	107

	TOR	112
	GS	117

	GS	93
	PHO	98

	CLE	136
	OKC	101

	POR	103
	NO	125

Hornets have no idea what they are doing!!! Says one fan on "X" ...  

Dec 27 9:41 pm

This season I moved off depth for a star then moved that star for the depth back and a younger point guard who is right on the cusp of a potential all-star level talent. The late season moves in summary Butler was flipped for Dejounte Murray, Dorian Finney-Smith and Grant Williams. Grant Williams and Terrence Ross who I picked up in a vet salary dump for a late 2nd was then flipped for Isaac Okoro who couldn't manage to enter Oklahoma's rotation. The moves were set in motion once we had heard Zion would not return this season, the goal was to look ahead with the younger 3&D players to fit around the core of Dejounte Murray, Deandre Ayton and Zion Williamson for years to come. After these moves, I had basically unplugged and let the rest of the season play out. Until rumblings Zion was looking to be back for the playoffs, I got to work started simming for a playoff run with Zion back and we looked really strong in the tests I was doing.

The start of the playoffs was not a good time for us news wise in and out of the NSL with unexpected personal events. Zion news turned from "Zion will play before the end of the season" to "Zion will play in the Play-In tournament" to "Zion will play if the Pelicans make it into the playoffs". The Pelicans and Zion stuffed it and didn't make the playoffs so despite being healthy he was not available for me here. This put us into strife as I had spent all my spare time fine tuning my team's rotation and settings based on Zion playing and had to figure out what to do in short time.

1st round: We came up against my old team Cleveland, a team I last year took to the 2nd round after completing a 1st round upset with also. This year was no different, just in new colours in a new City. Once again, we came in as the underdogs according to the league series voting, a viewpoint I did not share this time around. Despite popular opinion I am always behind the controls looking for an edge, in this series, all of our adjustments came on the fly as unexpected personal events had me away from home for the week. Was as simple as 2k eventually corrected itself and went the way I had it tipped, tipping 4-3 Toronto in the series prediction. We had an amazing series comeback from 1-3 down but that was far from our best as we had one of the best comebacks of the year in game 7 where we were came back from 14 points down with 7 minutes left in regulation to force overtime and win the series in OT. Our MVP for the series Kentavious Caldwell-Pope was incredible across the 7 games averaging 22ppg on 50% from 3 (who said 3s weren't dropping?). KCP was also the game 7 hero scoring a NSL career playoff high of 36 points on 8-12 from 3. 

2nd round: Being back home and the personal events unfolding with the good ending. I had some time to put into our opponent Milwaukee, from the jump in testing I couldn't spot a thing I could take advantage of. They looked too big, and they were too solid structurally especially defensively. I basically gave it 1 round of testing and said Well this is where our run ends. Despite managing to take 1 game from them where we went for a last-ditch effort and changed up our settings, playbook and rotation blindly they had our number from the beginning, and I don't think Zion would have had any say in it going differently (this year). Losing 4-1 to a solid opponent that is heading back to the ECF for the 2nd straight year without our franchise player is nothing to hang our head on. Series MVP went to Murray despite having an average series, his game 4 performance of 31/5/5 was the only reason we took 1 game. 

Currently the main motivation this off-season is we want to run it back with Zion who will be healthy to start the season *knock on wood* and we will hopefully be able to have a healthy run with a full-strength team. Despite this being the main motivation, the lines are open to hearing offers.