Firings
Rich Cho (Hornets) fired as General Manager.
(Gotta be honest: I totally missed this story) The Hornets are a weird squad. My pre-season thoughts were that they actually had a shot at being vastly better than expected: if Dwight Howard and Kemba Walker perfectly meshed together, then I thought it would leave room to maximize everyone else's skills. Well....didn't happen. Kemba's actually having a pretty good season but no one else is meshing or maximizing and as a result the Hornets are the same sloppy mess that most people (including me deep down) thought they'd be. Was Rich Cho to blame? Ehh, my gut is Michael Jordan runs that team, but he's not getting fired so it was time for Jordan to find a new partner in crime (Mitch Kupchak?). In general Cho had an okay run in his 7 season with the Hornets. I think the Hornets' peak during this period was the 2013-14 season when Al Jefferson went off accompanied by the sneaky good one-year brilliance of Josh McRoberts; I think the Hornets have been searching for that McRoberts replacement ever since, never found it and were never able to make the most of anyone else in the last few years. But the one season was a bit of a fluke and during this period they haven't been able to really develop any young players.
Singings/Waivings
(10-day contract season is fully underway, I'll generally skip these unless an interesting move catches my eye)
Fines
Mark Cuban (Mavs) was fined $600,000 for suggesting in an interview that the Mavs' best strategy for the rest of the year was to tank. (I think the fine is a little excessive considering 1) the Mavs were already going to lose a lot of games going forward anyway and 2) well...I mean...he's right, isn't he?)
Injuries
Jimmy Butler (Wolves) had successful meniscus surgery on left knee. Out 4-6 weeks. (Time for Andrew Wiggins to do his best Jimmy Butler impression)
Avery Bradley (Clippers) diagnosed with sports hernia, day to day. (Hmmm, those are notoriously difficult to play through, no word yet on how this affects his season but it may take him out of extended action)
Debuts
4 new debuts: Walt Lemon Jr (Pelicans), Shaquille Harrison (Suns), Trey McKinney-Jones (Pacers), Andrew White (Hawks)
Up to 108 NBA debuts this year, by far more than usual over the last 10 years and that's with 20-25 games left and 10-day contract period gearing up. I'm not sure what the single season record for debuts is but I think you have to go back to the very early days of the NBA,
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