Mark: Hornets need #21 to payoff

The last three NBA Drafts have yielded the Hornets 2 inconsistent bench players in Hilton Armstrong and Julian Wright. Coming off a season in which New Orleans was soundly defeated in the first round of the playoffs, and base on their recent draft history, the Hornets have to "score" with the 21st pick in Thursday Night's NBA Draft.

Of the 20-plus players New Orleans has worked out getting ready for the draft, Byron Scott gives his thoughts on some that stood out to him. "We worked out about 20 a little over probably 20 plus players and - a lot of guys have really come and done a very impressive job in their workouts, Scott told WWL First News. 

 Listen to Scott:

Listen:

Scott broke down some of his top picks.

Tyler Hansbrough (right):

"I would say the guys that really kinda stand out - Tyler Hansbrough was very good. I mean just so much energy and a much better athlete than people give him credit for, shoots the ball better than people think."


Chase Budinger (left):

"Chase Budinger from Arizona - extremely athletic guy that jumps out of the gym, can really shoot it and handles the ball really well but you can see that he really has a good understanding of the game."


Patrick Mills (right):

"Patrick Mills - man, you talk about super quick guys, this guy's extremely quick, great energy and a much better little athlete than you think he is as well."


Sam Young (left):

"Sam Young who played for Pittsburg, very athletic, very strong physical-type guy; needs to work on his shot a little bit more."


Dujuan Summers (right):

"Dujuan Summers from Georgetown, a very polished basketball player as well. So we had some guys that came in and did some real good things for us, and it's not just those four or five guys, we had a few other guys who came in and were very impressive as well".


And as Scott looks towards the Hornets off-season "renovations," he says the draft is just one part of the process.

"It's important for us in the free agent market to get a couple more guys that can come in as well. If you look at the western conference teams, if you look at the Lakers, Denver, Portland, Utah, some of these teams, they're eight, nine, ten players deep and we got to get to that point as well. Our starting (five ) is just as good as any even when they're healthy- just as good as any six men in this league, but we gotta get that seventh, eighth, and ninth guy that can come in and help us."

Scott says what remains to be seen is if they can fill that need in the draft. "Do we think we can get that at the 21st pick? We think we can get somebody that can definitely help us. And the players that I saw, ...be one of those top two or three guys that we're thinking about on our charts then we feel we're gonna be in good shape. But if we can get a couple of guys out of the free agent market as well then we think we're gonna ... be put back in the mix."


Although the Hornets say they would like to use their first round selection to pick a player (Last year New Orleans selected Darrell Arthur with the 27th selection and traded him to Portland for cash.), Scott says anything can happen on draft night. "We'll be in the war room and we'll be discussing our guys on the board in the order that we feel that we would like them to be ... when that first guy is gone you start looking at the next guy and the next guy, but by the time sometimes you get to that twenty-something pick all your guys are gone then you start looking at other options.

He says that includes dealing the away the selection. "Like trading to pick or selling to pick or packaging to pick and things like that, but it normally happens on draft night. It just doesn't happen ... a week away from the draft or two or three days. Normally a lot of action's start happening ... on draft night".

This year's draft will mark the second time in franchise history that the Hornets have picked at 21. The first time was in 1998 when they selected Ricky Davis out of Iowa.

The "Achilles heel" of the Hornets last season was anemic production from the bench. A solid pick with selection #21 would be a good start to improving team depth that will hopefully help New Orleans take their play to a higher level next season.


For the latest on the New Orleans Hornets check out Bobby Hebert and Deke Bellavia on SportsTalk weekdays from 4pm - 8pm on WWL 870am, 105.3 WWLfm and WWL.com. We'll bring you a draft special Thursday night.