It would appear the the New Orleans Hornets are packing it in for the year and looking towards next season. After firing Byron Scott earlier this week it is now being reported by the Sacramento Bee that the Hornets are in preliminary talks with the Kings about a deal centered around the Kings getting Emeka Okafor for Kenny Thomas.
From the Hornets standpoint this is strictly a deal to get trim salary as Kenny Thomas’ contract expires at the end of this season while Okafor still has five years left on the deal he signed prior to last season.
It would definitely be an intriguing move for the Kings who already have a budding young star at power forward in second year player Jason Thompson and 21-year old 7-footer Spencer Hawes manning the center position. Thompson is averaging a double-double this season and is scoring 14.9 points per game while Hawes is averaging 10 points and 7 boards per game.
It would be interesting to see if they like Okafor as a long term solution for them or if they have something else in the works in terms of re-building the team around Thompson, Tyreke Evans, and Kevin Martin.
The Hornets need to be cognizant of trying to find talent to build around Chris Paul or else 2011-12 will the be last season we see of Paul in a Hornets’ uniform. He has already voiced his displeasure over how Scott was dismissed and he cannot be happy with the current direction of the team. The mere fact they chose to bring Tim Floyd, whose previous NBA coaching career was an utter joke, on to assist GM Jeff Bower in coaching the team the rest of the year simply points to how quickly the Hornets are descending down the pecking order in the NBA. Simply swapping Okafor for Thomas would be further testament to the Hornets rapidly becoming one of the worst run franchises in the league.
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