GAMENOTES: Regular Season Game #73 Charlotte Hornets (18-54) vs. Toronto Raptors (26-47) - March 28th, 2025
LaMelo's season is over and the Hornets can't keep up with the Raptors.
FINAL
Charlotte Hornets 97 (18-55) - Toronto Raptors 108 (27-47)
WHY DID THEY LOSE? (AND OTHER IMPORTANT STORIES)
The Hornets turned the ball over 17 times to Toronto’s six.
Well they’ve finally shut down LaMelo for the season. I’m of the mind that there are no minor procedures, but let’s hope this shutdown is a little less about having to get those done now and maybe more because it ultimately only serves watchability to have him out there right now. The report went out of its way to note that he’s been playing through some nagging injuries and I’m sure he has been. There’s never been an offseason as tenuous as this one for LaMelo and the team. I think getting him fully healthy and taking a swing again at building around him is the general idea.
We will see a lot of K.J. Simpson over the last two weeks.
Does the lottery really stop tanking? I don’t think it does. So if it doesn’t, wouldn’t it make more sense to figure something else out? Teams are always going to try and find the advantage. There is no perfect answer because the lottery most certainly is not, as it stands today. For a fanbase such as ours, each year you endure a horrible final month of the season (at least) and THEN get screwed in the lottery it saps a little bit of your fandom. The Hornets enter the night with the third worst record in the league and one of the best chances to get Cooper Flagg. But I have zero hope that they will. But…it has to happen at some point right??!!!
One silver lining of LaMelo being out is he won’t be able to go OFF in the final two weeks of the season when it’s increasingly hard to be critically watching players because it’s barely the same regular season. With players out and teams giving guys plenty of looks, the stats over the last week of the season can often be misleading. So there’s some good news for you…
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