Bill Simmons...

Although two of their wins have come against the struggling OKC Thunder, The Hornets are putting together a solid win streak after defeating The Nuggets on the road last night. Watching Chris Andersen go berserk on both sides of the ball when he first came into the game made me wish he was still wearing the turquoise and gold. At the very least, his shifty-eyed, slouched and tatooed appearance could offset Hilton Armstrong's tweedy inpertinance a bit. But, for a guy trying to stay clean, the clean air and streets of Denver are probably a sight less tempting than New Orleans'. Keep it up, Chris. A lot of us saw right through your Mother's claims in that ESPN article.
And, speaking of ESPN...the mouth of the Northeast, Boston sports' answer to our own Chris Rose, the sage of smug, simplistic summation, Bill Simmons has planted a small seed of dissention among the ranks of our NBA franchise in his weekly column. I read it a couple of days ago, but ESPN has gone to plastering the story on their NBA homepage today. Undoubtedly, each member of the team has seen it by now. He suggests that The Hornets players are unhappy with and may eventually revolt against coach Byron Scott, causing an implosion of the team he had once so graciously endorsed as a finals contender. Here's a quick snippet from the column:

"They seemed a little detached, surprising since they have so many character guys on the team: Chris Paul, Tyson Chandler, David West, James Posey. Really, their only chemistry wild card is Mike James and he barely plays. I mistakenly believed it would be one of those lovefest teams that players josh around during the shootarounds before each half and hug each other too much. Nope. Midway through the second quarter, I asked my friend Tollin, "Are we sure the Hornets like their coach?" After all, the Nets practically revolted against Byron Scott four years ago. So there is a precedent."

The Coach Scott I've grown to know through observation in the last couple seasons of attending games has a mile-wide grin when things are going well and does the Souldja Boy motorcyle dance thing with his wrists during game breaks. He's stern and looks like a black R. Lee Ermey when things are going poorly, and the team was struggling a bit when Simmons made his observation. I've only been to forty games or so since the beginning of last year, and Simmons did sit behind the bench during one Clippers game this year, so he probably has it more right than I do. No one, Simmons included, gave a darn about the NBA team in New Orleans until they made the playoffs last year. His basketball columns either barely touched on our team, or ignored them all together, even late in the season. But now, he chimes in with this.

I was fine with the likes of Simmons neglecting us last year, and would be fine with it again. Coach Scott and the players made quite a splash though, and I doubt that is an option. Still, we do have a team of solid personalities. No matter what Allison Korn says about Chris Paul, he is a class player, through and through. He runs the team like a head coach, from the point, so I imagine a bit of contention between he and Scott is inevitable, but I think the Hornets are far from implosion. I don't expect The Sports Guy to write anything flattering about a b-ball team that doesn't wear green, but let's hope the fellas can ignore the like of Simmons and keep their heads on straight to continue competing in The Wild West.