Hornets Roundtable: Does Kupchak Deserve More Credit for Building Charlotte's Core?

Mitch Kupchak is no longer in charge of the decision-making in Charlotte after spending the last six plus years with the organization. The team failed to make the playoffs in his time as the GM, but did manage to build a strong young core of players.

The question for this week's Hornets Roundtable: Does Mitch Kupchak deserve more credit for building Charlotte's nucleus?

James Plowright:

No, I think he deserves less. Charlotte's nucleus is LaMelo Ball, Brandon Miller and Mark Williams. Ball was the result of a fortunate jump on 2020 draft lottery night. Williams, although having shown some promising flashes, has a lot left to prove and has barley seen the NBA court in his two years. Miller is the selection he deserves most credit for, having ignored the external noise about Scoot Henderson. Kupchak heavily missed on the 2021 draft, twice, by trading future pick(s) for Kai Jones. He also turned the 13th pick in 2022 into Nick Smith Jr, James Nnaji and Bryce McGowens, that doesn't look like it has worked out as of yet.

Pat Fitzgerald:

No, I don’t think he deserves more credit. It’s hard to give credit to a GM who did not produce a playoff team in during his time in charge. The credit Kupchak can get is for identifying second round/ UDFA role players (kind of) but with the each “gem” in the rough he may have found, he also had flops. You can get credit for the Martin twins, Nick Richards, Bryce McGowens, and Jalen McDaniels as good second round finds, but then you also have to take responsibility for Vernon Carey, Grant Riller, and the entire 2021draft (Bouknight, Jones, Lewis). Not to mention, trading SGA for Miles Bridges in your first draft as the GM. Ultimately Kupchak’s tenure in Charlotte was very mediocre. Not great, not terrible. He didn’t take many risks, and because of his mediocre moves, the Hornets were a very average to below average team for the entirety of his time as GM. But to his credit, he did leave the Hornets in a better situation moving forward than how he found it, largely by drafting Brandon Miller instead of Scoot.

Carson Cash:

No, Mitch Kupchak doesn’t deserve more credit. Although he found some value in the second round, the Hornets often failed to benefit from those picks, like getting a steal in Jalen McDaniels just to turn around and trade him for another second-rounder (and some fun Svi minutes). He missed on major picks like Bouknight and Kai Jones, and the Duren trade was questionable to me. LaMelo Ball fell into his lap, and while he made the right call with Brandon Miller despite fan and media pressure for Scoot, I'm still not sure he deserves any more flowers than he currently receives.

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