The Hornets are 4-4 and if the season ended today, Charlotte would be the Eastern Conference’s No. 8 seed. They could be better, however, if head coach Steve Clifford played his two best options in the starting lineup. Guards Jeremy Lamb and Jeremy Lin are the two best Hornets according to PER, and neither one has started a game.
Charlotte begins games with Kemba Walker and P.J. Hairston in the backcourt; Walker’s stature on the team, and his own productiveness make him a viable starter, but Hairston’s inclusion is bizarre. Both Lamb and Lin play more minutes than Hairston, but his PER (5.2) is the third-worst mark on the team. Clifford’s reasoning for keeping Lin and Lamb on the bench to start games is simple—he believes they make a great bench.
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"For us to be really good we’ve got to have good bench play. Our starters are really good but our bench play is going to have to be what it was tonight,” Clifford said after the Hornets beat the Timberwolves Monday night. Lin, a fan favorite who lit it up in the preseason, wasn’t given the nod because Clifford believed Hairston’s athleticism gave him a defensive edge. After the win over Minnesota though, Clifford was praising Lin’s D against Wolves guard Kevin Martin.
"I kept looking in the fourth quarter (for a way to reinsert Lamb) but Jeremy Lin was really the one who did the best job on Kevin Martin," Clifford told The Charlotte Observer.
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Clifford is married to having the two units play independently to start, and mixing and matching situationally. "A lot of times you can have two true groups so (the same) guys don’t have to play well every night. You have more guys to score," Clifford said.
Still, Hairston’s minutes have been unproductive. Clifford’s best bet would be to insert Lamb or Lin -- and Lin’s defensive improvements should earn him the nod -- and give more run to Aaron Harrison and Troy Daniels to see if either of them would thrive alongside Lamb as part of the reserve unit.
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